33rd Sunday The Economy of Salvation

Salvation is a lived experience of God’s love!

Experiencing this divine love in a very personal way transforms us.

It frees us, it empowers us.

This is the Good News of Jesus Christ.

This love is given freely to all for the salvation of all.

There is a catch to all of this.

Because it is not just about getting God’s love.

The real transformation, the real freedom occurs when WE give that love.

Think of this like an economy...an economy works when there movement, buying and selling.

Economies gets hurt when nobody buys, or everybody sells.

The economy of salvation is Love given by God, love received by us, and love given to others by us.

This brilliant parable captures this so well.

First of all, know that the “talents” are not “talents” per se, but a form of currency.

And a talent is a boat load of money.  

Today we would say hundred of thousands of dollars.

So we have a generous person the Master, giving his workers a boat load of money.  He clearly trusts them, even the third one.

We hear how the first two responded to that generosity and to that trust:  with that support, they took the risk to invest and received a great reward!

The third one, well, clearly he was an idiot.  

Somehow in his mind he had formed an idea that his master was a mean, cold, hard man despite whatever reality actually was.  

He could not see beyond his opinion, could not see the generosity and trust, and so he was limited.

We are so loved by God; ridiculously generous God

How do we know God loves us?  

The fact that we even exist is the first visible sign.  

If God did not love us, then we would simply not be.

I am not talking about being dead, because the Resurrection shows the Father loves us beyond death.  

I am talking existential non-existence.   We would simply poof out of time and space.

Then beyond that, let’s go back to Jesus and the Paschal Mystery, this ultimate saving act of Jesus.

Humanity tortured and executed the Son of God for no reason but for the reason that humans remain small and limited, we sin.

Tortured and executed because of our egos, our pride, our desire for power, our greed, our fears, our...well you name it.

The Father’s response to this great crime against his Son…

Love, as shown in the Resurrection.

God so loves us, that God forgives.

If God forgives this great crime, God forgives the lesser crimes.

This is the love given to us each and every moment, and this love is meant to be invested and given to all…

We stand on the bedrock of God’s love and that empowers us to take risk and share that love with all.

Last week, while driving back from Lovelock after celebrating Eucharist, I listened to one of my favorite podcasts/radio shows “Radio Lab”.  The episode is called “Match made in marrow.”

A young woman in 2009 at a concert signs up to be a bone marrow donor.  Six years later she is called upon to make a donation, as there is a match to a man who has leukemia.  She does so without a second thought.  

A year later the man is given her contact information and he reaches out to her.  They starting communicating.  He is doing great.  He is a husband and father, and he has a new life, all thanks to this woman’s generosity.

Turns out he was raised Lutheran, but did not have a great faith.  He was also an accomplished magician. There is more to this back story, but, after the donation he sees the incredible gift of life given to him, and he sees God at work and his Faith Explodes.  He wants to share this Good News.

So part of his show, he evangelizes through sharing his story.

He and his donor finally meet(they live in separate states).  She attends his show and he introduces her and the crowds just go nuts in appreciation.

She starts going to shows whenever she can to help, because it inspires more people to sign up to donate marrow.

Here is the twist….she is an atheist.  

She said that she doesn’t like religion because she thinks religions “pigeonhole” people.

And yet being called onto stage and presented as an agent of God, it makes her feel like an imposter.  She doesn’t know what to do.

What happens is that she and the man sit with the producers of this show and they talk it out.  It was brilliant.

The man knew all of this about her by the way.  So this was no revelation.

This was to address her feelings around feeling like an imposter.

So the radio producers ask him if her atheism is an issue, since according to Christianity, she would be condemned to hell.

The man’s answer...He said part of the problem is that people “pigeonhole” Christians and think we all act like that.

He said his role is not to judge.  Jesus said not to judge, he will be the judge.

The man’s role as a Christian, was to love her.  

He did not care about her beliefs...she gave him life, she gave him back to his wife and kids, and he was so grateful.  

She did a good thing, she is a good person.

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We have been given so much...what is our investment strategy?

We can bury this love; be bitter, argue about little things, be scared of people and relationships, be scared of life, be lonely, be superficial, be fake...

Or knowing we are loved, so loved, we can take a risk and share...