Do you like to play it
safe? (Or, how often do you visit the casino’s?)
I watched my former high school boy’s
soccer team playing for the state championship yesterday afternoon. It was a
great game with Borgia losing in the final 3 minutes of the 4th sudden victory
overtime. There was a moment in the 3rd overtime that will vividly stay in my
memory. Borgia was applying significant pressure, and a Notre Dame player hit
a long clearing ball toward the midfield. I watched Borgia’s sweeper hesitate
for about 1 second, and then he took off to intercept the ball before it got
to the opposing player. It was a quick, split second decision, but in that decision,
he took a huge risk. If he doesn’t get the ball, then the other team has
a breakaway. If he does get to it, they keep the pressure on. (as the case was,
he did not get there first, and only a great save by the goal keeper kept the
game going.)
Do you like to play it safe in the game of life or are you a risk taker? It
seems like today’s gospel is less about sums of money, and more about
the willingness to take risks. The first two quickly go and double their earnings
– an adventure fraught with risk in those days as well as our own. As
for the third, as he tries to ‘justify his actions, he says: “ I
knew you were a hard man…so, out of fear, I went and buried your money
in the ground.” Out of fear, I chose not to take a risk. Out of fear,
I played it safe. Out of fear, what you gave me is returned, unharmed, safe
and sound.
It seems so harsh, the response. Take what he has. Give it to another. For to
live in fear is not the way of the kingdom. To play it safe gains no points
in the kingdom of heaven. Either you risk it all, or you will have nothing.
“For whomever would save his life, will lose it, but whomever loses his
life, for my sake will gain it.”
Do you like to play it safe or are you a risk taker? For it seems that there
is no ‘safe ground’ in the gospel. Each moment becomes a moment
when we can risk. Each moment, becomes an opportunity to double what we have
been given. Or to bury what has been handed on to us. The choice becomes ours.
For many years, when I heard this gospel, I immediately thought, well, I’m
the poor beggar who only received one talent – not much there, not much
to give or share or grow. Not the five, surely not the ten talents were entrusted
to me. Yet, I have come to realize that I have been given much. That we all
have been given much. One talent is 20 years worth of wages for a worker in
the time of Jesus. So even if I only received the one – there has been
a rich deposit given to me, a vast treasure dumped into my laps. It is the gift
of faith and the knowledge of the love of God and family and parents poured
into our hearts. I am so rich and so blessed, and so gifted.
So this story, which is addressed to the religious leaders of Jesus’ time,
becomes a story addressed to each of us who have received the rich deposit of
faith and love in Jesus. And the question becomes, not, will I risk sharing
it, but HOW will I risk sharing what I have received.
A few suggestions…
It was a split second decision by
the sweeper – a bold risk that I am not sure I would have taken. But he
did, and I am different because of his risk. I pray this week, that when I am
given that opportunity, that split second moment to share what has been handed
on to me – that I too, might have the courage to risk it all…