Thursday, November 10, 2011

Today’s text

Matthew 25:19-25

19After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 20Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ 21His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 22And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ 23His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 24Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; 25so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’

Reflection

Ah, but you were wrong, so you lived in fear. You took no risks. You buried yourself, your soul in the field of your fears, missing the joy of your master, never nearing the entrance of the joyous life you might enter.

My heart sings these words again and again, moving joy in my morning heart.

I am filled with the joy the Holy One intends for all the beloved, and that is what we are: Beloved of the Loving Mystery, from all eternity.

I enter my master’s joy as I dare believe that the God of the heavens and the earth is not a harsh master, reaping where he did not sow. In utter delight, the master sows life and beauty, love and gifts to we who inhabit this good Earth, another generosity from the Eternal Giver.

Our lives begin as gift, and when we see this, when we feel it, we are gripped by the revelation that the Source of all Life is generous and good. The master gives being where there is none, breathing life into that which cannot know the joy of simply breathing … were it not for the One who if the Breath of all the living.

We are ever in the hands of the Eternal Generosity. Feeling this, we have already entered the master’s joy of being and giving life. We taste the joy of receiving from the Love who wills us into being, willing also that I should live beyond the fears that hem me into the half-life of never trusting, never risking.

What could happen? That I fail? That I lose? That the life I have been given be lost?

Fears, all of this, damning fears.

My life is the effluence of the One who sows freely, who gives gifts and life without me asking, whose joy is being Life and making life that I, too, may be.

So it is: You, Loving and Living One, invite me beyond the anxiety that my life hangs from a single thread, held by harsh hands, ready to condemn and release me to the darkness.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Fear flows from wrong faith, mistaken ideas about life’s master. Entering the joy of the master happens the moment we feel and know the master’s joy in being and giving life.

It happens everywhere and every time when we know, when we just know that Love holds us and always will, freeing our hearts to live and risk, to try and fail, to live as the selves we are.

Pr. David L. Miller