___Your One Wild And Precious Life___

Prop 26a.05    November 13, 2005

The thing you may not know,
but the original hearers of Jesus’s story knew very well
        is that there was precise law on what to do
        if someone entrusted money to you.
In Jesus’ day, the one way to comply with the law
        and be guaranteed that you would not get in trouble
        was to bury the money in the ground.

But in our story, the master praises the wheeler dealers,
        who flagrantly violated Jewish values,
        and condemns the guy who followed the law,
        played it safe, stuck to the rules of the game, because, he said,

                “I was afraid.”
The master says the servant could have at least used the money
        to make usurious loans.

This story asks the same question posed by the poet, Mary Oliver,

        “Tell me, what is it you plan to do
        with your one wild and precious life?”
Our life is not our own.
We didn’t design or create it. We aren’t even in control of it.

Our life is something of a gift

        – but more like a temporary entrusting
                 because we don’t get to keep it.
Eventually, we have to hand it back
        like the servants returning their master’s money.

What then shall we do with the time we have?
The conventional religious answer is usually a set of rules.
Do this. Don’t do that. Color inside the lines.

Most of the rules are about keeping our feelings and energies
        from getting out of hand.

Together, the rules amount to telling us
        to bury our lives in the ground.
If the question is “what will you do with your life?”
then Jesus’ parable runs opposite to the conventional religious answer.

Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” was inspired by the example
        of his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam.
Hallam was a free thinker and an adventurous man
        who fell in love with the wrong women,
        wrote the wrong poems and essays,
                  at least in the opinion of his father
                  who had them posthumously burned.
He traveled to the wrong countries at the wrong times

        – even going to Spain for its first Civil War.
Hallam lived his life full tilt.
When he died, Tennyson wrote “Ulysses.”for him.

It’s about the old king of Ithaka long after his return
        from the Trojan war and how he refuses to settle down.
He resolves to leave Ithaka again and resume his wanderings.
The old king says,

        “I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
        Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
        Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
        That loved me, and alone . . . .
        How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
        To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! . . .

        Push off, . . . ; for my purpose holds
        To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
        Of all the western stars, until I die.”

Now perhaps you are wondering where is the religion in this?
It challenges people to live boldly and adventurously,
        but what does that have to do with Christian faith?

Well, maybe nothing.
But then again, what does today’s parable
        have to do with Christian faith?
Haven’t we been taught that Christianity is about
        being good citizens and family members,
        friendly neighbors and honest business people?
If those things are the essence of Christianity,
        nobody ever told Jesus.

He didn’t stay home and care for his family
        the way he was supposed to.
He tramped around Galilee, and partied enough
        to earn himself a reputation as a drunkard and a glutton.

He hung out with the wrong people

        – hookers and Roman collaborators.
He had unacceptable conversations
        with a woman at Jacob’s well and another
        who bathed his feet quite inappropriately in a Pharisee’s house.

Jesus’s teachings were clearly irresponsible.
“Look at the birds of the air . . . . Consider the lilies . . . .
        Do not be anxious about tomorrow,
        for tomorrow will be anxious for itself . . . .
        Do not store up treasure for yourself on earth . . . .”
And he said, “I have come that you might have life
        and that you might have it more abundantly.”

The Gospels show Jesus as a man on fire with life

        – wild, reckless, daring life.
We may have read these texts so often through the lens
        of our conventional religious assumptions that we can’t see
                what Jesus is like here.
New Testament scholar Albert Schweitzer
        always called Jesus “that adamant young man.”
Edward Hays’ retelling of Jesus’ story in The Gospel of Gabriel
        shows him to be a playful, wild, exuberant, dancing lover of life.

My point isn’t that we all have to buy motorcycles
        and turn into Jack Kerouac.
That would just replace one set of rules with another.
My point is that conventional religion amounts
        to instructions on how to bury our lives in the ground
                 to keep them safe and secure.

But the thrust of Jesus’ teachings in Matthew
        is that Jesus has no use for anything “safe and secure.”
Matthew’s whole Gospel is about a life of faith outside the box
        of conventional wisdom, especially conventional religion.
Matthew tells us the story of a free man,
        so that we can get a glimpse of what freedom looks like
                and maybe dare to try it ourselves.

The Gospels are the story of a free man, but not a narcissist.
“Having loved his own, he loved them to the end” John says.
Jesus’s healing, teaching, and finally his death on the cross
        show his free life wasn’t a selfish life.
He showed us that the full, rich, exuberant life
        is precisely the life lived for others.

So now we have to ask what the Gospels have to do with Christianity.
Saint Irenaeus tells us the answer.
“The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”
Jesus was the glory of God.

The servant who loses is the one who played it safe,
        followed the rules, buried his life in the ground.
And the master says, “you could at least have practiced a little usury.”
Remember usury is a big time sin.
The story suggests a life with some sin
        is better than a timid, boring life, without gumption or daring.
Our parable means that life should be fueled by
        passion for living, not fear of judgement.

What are we afraid of? Death?
        It’s going to happen. No way out.
Judgement? It has already happened. Our Epistle lesson says so.
And guess what. You’re in.

We can, indeed we must, roll the dice occasionally.
Real Christianity isn’t rules and social conventions
        but passion and courage, faith and daring.
The followers of Jesus follow him best
        when they live boldly and freely out of their own hearts
                 as he lived boldly and freely out of his.
So, friends in Christ, “Tell me, what then do you plan to do
        with your one wild and precious life?”

                                                                   Amen.