The Definition of Decades

“The Definition of Decades”

The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

Matthew 25.14-30 

“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 

After a long time, the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then 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.’ His 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.’ And 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.’ His 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.’ 

Then 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; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 

But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’          

I have a group of books I give away on a regular basis.  Thinking Fast and Slow.  Will Power.  The Good Divorce.  How to Care for Aging Parents.  Each has held up over the years and helped many.  None of them are new books.  The New York Times just wrote an article about one of the books I give away on its tenth anniversary, it’s called The Defining Decade.  They suggested over the last ten years the book has gained a devoted following. 

Dr. Meg Jay is a clinical psychologist whose practice is in a college town and thus brought her many students and recent graduates who are people in their twenties or early thirties.  Her popular book was born of years working with people in the “defining decade.”  She calls it such based upon a statistic.  80 percent of our life defining choices are made during our twenties.

The book is a kind of remote therapy session and a fair warning.  The therapy is to acknowledge that the defining decade, your twenties, is a time of profound change and with the change your soul might get hurt, or your heart might be broken.  The fair warning was about bad advice. 

Meg Jay confides in her book that many of her clients suffered the consequence of being told, “don’t tie yourself down, you’re young, you have all the time in the world.”  The book argues: this is terrible advice.  The opposite is true.  In our twenties is when we make the consequential decisions that define us.  Here we begin our careers, our significant relationships, form our adult identity, and face the challenges of becoming self-reliant.  All of these require us to be bound to others.  This is the time most people form the bonds defining their life. 

Meg Jay is spot on, and her advice is very helpful.  Her advice is not to commit to a career or set down roots in a community or get married and have a kid in your twenties.  Her advice is to recognize this is when most people do all these things.  This is the likelihood and to purposely seek to avoid this may have great and profound consequence; avoiding these defining decisions may hurt you. 

Quietly in the background there is another piece to this decade of choices: this is when we learn to take risks.

Careers, relationships, children, relocation: each involves a level of risk.  If we push off or delay these decisions, we may not only risk being late to the dance, but we may also risk not learning how to take risk.  This was the value of her book for me.  It helped me understand my kids a bit more and what they were experiencing as twentysomethings.  That was good. But what The Defining Decade really did was remind me how life is ever a matter of risk.

When you are in your sixties and early seventies you might not see the risks around you as a choice, but the change and choices that come with this time of life is just as profound as the twenties.  In the sixties and seventies, it is not so much gaining a spouse, but losing one; it is not relocating for a career, but to downsize; and retirement can certainly be considered a career change.  These developments, changes in our life, can feel thrust upon us, and thus not always seen as a choice; but they are ever such and with the choices, risk.  Should I retire now?  Can I live alone in a big house?  Do I risk the surgery?  If the twenties are the Defining Decade, maybe the sixties are the Decade of Redefinition.

Preparing for this sermon, I noticed something in the parable of the talents I had not seen before.  Time.  To me the parable is a simple teaching about the need for risk, that risk is, like Simone Weil called it, a need of the soul.  Yet now I am beginning to see that the parable is also about time.  The master gives different amounts of talents to three different slaves and bids them to take care of them and account for them when he returns.  He goes away and returns and does just that.  He calls the slaves to account.  What I missed before was the amount of time it would take to double the money.

With a modest return and steady growth, doubling could occur in six years, maybe seven.  With bank interest, well, that would be quite some time.  But doubling is not a wild possibility.  Yet, that is if the investment is always growing, if the return is always positive.  Wealth managers like to show how investing over the long term, ten, twenty, thirty years is a near guarantee of growth compared to an original investment.  They are also quick to point out that at any given point of a long-term investment, growth may not be as evident.  Markets go up and they go down.

What I saw in the parable this time though is not just the need for risk, we must risk to see what is good in life, but also the idea of sustained risk, the risk of the long-term.  The chances are good that when parable says the master went away and came back, we are talking about a decade, maybe even a bit more.  And if we consider the claim of the risk-adverse slave, “I know you reap where you do not sow” we are given another clue as to time.  Most likely we are looking at a very long-term relationship.  The slave who buried the one talent speaks with a sense of deep knowledge: I know you.

One of the greatest lessons I gained from being on a hospital board for a dozen years was the training in risk.  Hospitals hire people to come and do risk audits.  They look at policies and people, space and procedure; they look at funds and markets, trends and politics.  A risk audit in a hospital is a fascinating thing to witness.  Everything is scrutinized and turned upside down all to see is the risk worth the reward, is there something unseen that will jeopardize the hospital?  For in many ways, a hospital is the place of greatest risk in our community. 

A surgery is a risk, a great risk.  Yes, hospitals go out of their way to mitigate the risk and people are highly trained and the long experience of a surgeon is a big plus, but it is yet risky business.  Despite this, we go forward, we undergo the surgery believing that the return of our health is worth it.

The key lesson I learned by watching many risk audits was this: avoiding risk is different from mitigating risk.  The two slaves who doubled their investment could have been reckless.  They could have put their funds on a horse to show in the seventh race.  But most likely not if they have a good return over the course of a decade.  They most likely mitigated the risk, took the chance of losing all, but with a good chance of gain.

The slave who buried the talent was risk adverse.  As the master says, you lost money, and will lose more now.  We could go into the different sources of fear, potential motives the slave had for burying the talent.  We know by his claim that he was afraid of the master.  Perhaps at this point what is best to say is that the slave who buried the talent was unwilling to risk, he was afraid of the master, and his fear offered a poor return.

During my career in ministry, I have watched the Presbyterian church struggle with this parable.  In fact, this parable could be seen as our defining struggle.  And we have struggled.  The irony is that the PCUSA has done well financially.  In terms of a literal interpretation of the parable, we have been the first two slaves.  The pension fund is doing well.  Yet, metaphorically, we are still in the throes of this parable, we continue to struggle, and where we struggle is found in our first reading. 

“God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”

Since 1967 this line, this claim of the Apostle Paul has been our struggle.  This is not our first and only struggle.  This is one of a long line.  But we have fought and fallen, stumbled and risen in this parable.  The struggle has not been all a matter of success.  At times we prevailed, the church did well.  We have said sexuality does not restrict ordination; and we have said churches can make up their own minds about marriage.  A compromise true.  But at least we did not go backwards. At times, though, we have retreated to fear or silence.

This was not easy.  Again and again, we have chosen the book over the people; loved scripture more than each other.  We have valued an interpretation of Paul more than justice.

We had a very similar struggle with another claim of Paul.  “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.”  That’s from Paul’s second letter to Timothy.  Lucky Tim!  For many, many years, centuries even, this claim of Paul has been debated.  And the debate, as it became with “lusts of the heart” was not debated as to its veracity; it was debated as to how could the Apostle Paul be questioned?

Paul’s claim about slavery caused the same debate.  Slaves must remain as such; runaway slaves must be returned.  Slavery is a station to be accepted as a part of life.  Arguments could have been made about changes to economy or justice or how slavery is inconsistent with a community formed in compassion and charity.  But in the middle of the 19^th century the debate was over the authority of the Apostle Paul.  It was one thing to question slavery, but to question Paul, to say, we don’t agree with him, that was too much, the risk too great.

We are still struggling with this parable.  The struggle today is seen very neatly in terms of risk.  Do we as a church risk moving beyond acceptance to advocacy; do we add a flag to the rainbow sticker on the marquee?  Do we join pride month, or do we stay in the safety welcoming and including?  Do we speak as a church or do we as a congregation avoid the risk and challenge of speaking up, speaking out, and speaking for members of our families, our congregation, and our community who have suffered discrimination, violence, and disdain? Do we risk the conflict?

When I think back to where I was and what I believed 40 years ago, the definitions and security of the bible as being beyond question, that the Apostle Paul was a first and last word, when I think back to that time my path has been one of profound change, repentance, and failure.  Each risk, each time I had to jettison the safety of my privilege, each time I moved beyond silence to support, and from support to acceptance, and from acceptance to ally, each step was not easy success.  Like the long-term pattern of the market, I believe there is gain, but it’s not a straight line of positive return.

But my journey is not the church’s journey.  My sermon is not your policy.  And without such we are still in this parable, still struggling. What would it mean for this congregation to move from inclusion to embrace, from acceptance to advocacy?  Are we willing to take that risk as a church?  Not just as individuals, but as a congregation?  Are we ready for pride?  Could we risk our silence? Amen.