Second Sunday before Advent – morning
Sunday 19th November 2017
Second Sunday before Advent
1 Thess. 5. 1-11
Matthew 25. 14-30
(Parable of the Talents)
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
I spent a good bit of this week working away from Pattingham, with a group of other clergy from across the whole of the West Midlands (not just Lichfield Diocese), helping them to discern and think how they might best develop their leadership skills and ability. Thinking about their particular and individual talents; talents that come ultimately from God; and how they might best put them to use in the service of God’s kingdom. This is part of the ‘other’ half of my job…. I know you like to think of me as just your Vicar, but I serve God and the diocese in other ways as well. Not more important than being your parish priest, but demanding of my time and attention as well.
But I am not unique in this respect. Everyone here this morning has one identity – as mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, neighbour, friend, carer or any number of professions and occupations, but will also occupy one or more other identities as well. And all of us are Christians gathered together in God’s name to offer him our worship and to share in the great gift of his love, demonstrated through the Eucharist.
And God gives to each of us a generous share of talents. The question to ask ourselves this morning is, “how are we using them? How are we developing their potential to serve God’s purposes? What are we prepared to risk, in order that they might grow further?”
And what about our corporate identity? We are the Body of Christ in this place… How are we using our joint talents? How are we serving God’s purposes for Pattingham, Patshull and beyond?
Those are questions that your PCC – our church council – considers almost every time we meet on your behalf. And I am pleased to be able to commend you as a church for the very real outreach that you exercise towards the community.
At Christmas – along with the Card that goes to every home in the parish detailing the Christmas services and inviting people to come along, there will be another of our periodic leaflets reminding people in the wider parish something about the life of this church. And when you start to make a list of all the work that people do with, and the support we give, to the school, with the various charitable trusts, with organising the Bells Run and the Scarecrow Festival, with the “Who’s for lunch?” initiative, with our links with St Alban’s, Wednesfield and with the Covenanting Churches of Wolverhampton West, with the Children’s society, and the Royal British Legion, with other various overseas and national charities …. well it soon mounts up and in fact we are involved in more than there is room for on the Christmas leaflet, so we can rightly claim that we are doing something with our time and our talents. I see little evidence that we are burying our talents away and refusing to take risks on God’s behalf.
But it is always good to keep such things under review; to renew and refresh them from time to time and it is part of my role, I suppose, to encourage you to remember that whatever you do; however you decide to use and risk and develop your talents, you are only doing that because of the love that God has for and with you. Because of the risk he took in taking the form of a human being and coming to dwell with us.
The story of the Golden Eagle.
One day, someone found an eagle’s egg and placed it under a brooding hen.
The eaglet hatched with the chickens and grew to be just like them. He clucked and cackled; ‘scratched’ the earth for worms and bits of corn; flapped his wings and managed to fly just a few feet in the air.
Years passed. One day, the eagle, now grown old, saw a magnificent bird above him in the sky. It glided in graceful majesty against the powerful wind, with scarcely a movement of its wonderful wings, the back of which had a beautiful golden sheen…
Spellbound, the eagle asked, “Who’s that?”
“That’s the King of the birds, the eagle” said his neighbour. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth.- we’re chickens.”
So the eagle lived and died a chicken for that’s what he thought he was.
S.Paul tells us we are meant to encourage and build each other up in the faith. Think about the many talents we have sitting here this morning. What are the ways in which these are at present and might in the future be offered to God and celebrated?
How might we find ways to ensure that – unlike the eagle in my story – we recognise our true potential and soar away to fulfil God’s will for us?
What is the ‘talent’ which we, the Church community, have been entrusted with in this place?
Are we preserving it? Are we using it? Are we risking it so that it might grow?