{"id":2184,"date":"2014-09-09T13:50:35","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T18:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/president\/?page_id=2184"},"modified":"2014-09-09T13:57:59","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T18:57:59","slug":"chapel-talk-09-09-14","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/president\/public-remarks\/chapel-talk-09-09-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapel Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

September 9, 2014
\nMatthew 25:13-30<\/p>\n

Good Morning. There is wisdom for all of us, at the beginning of a new academic year, in the familiar Parable of the Talents that Pastor Katie just read, and I\u2019m not referring only to the opening words \u2014 \u201cTherefore stay alert\u201d \u2014 which, though they offer great life advice, is not where I plan to focus this morning. Instead, I want to focus on a larger topic in this Parable:\u00a0 what we do with what we\u2019ve been given. And, led by today\u2019s lesson, I\u2019m going to do that using the language of finance. Here\u2019s the executive summary of my meditation this morning:\u00a0 \u201cDouble Your Money.\u201d<\/p>\n

You heard the lesson: a man is going on a journey. He summons three slaves, gives them each different amounts of \u201ctalents,\u201d and then goes away. When he returns, he demands an accounting of the use made of those talents, and then judges the slaves by the results.<\/p>\n

The man doesn\u2019t say, \u201cNow, I\u2019m going to be gone for six months. I\u2019m giving you five talents, and I\u2019m expecting an eight percent return, so invest wisely because there will be an accounting when I return.\u201d Indeed, he doesn\u2019t convey any expectation at all with his gifts.\u00a0 But clearly he has one; namely, that he will get back more money than he gave.\u00a0 When he returns and learns that the slave to whom he gave five talents and the slave to whom he gave two talents both doubled his money, he praises them and promises to advance them in his service.\u00a0 But the slave who, because he feared losing money and returning less than he was given, buried his talent and only returned what he had been given, is thrown into the outer darkness.<\/p>\n

The expectation of a return on investment \u2014 ROI \u2014 as it\u2019s called today, is so intrinsic to the Parable that it wasn\u2019t necessary for the man to articulate it to his slaves or for them to ponder and discuss what to do. When your boss entrusts you his money, you are expected to make more with it. This is a parable with a pretty rigorously capitalist environment: having money is a good thing, and making more money is a good thing, but not putting your money to work is a very bad thing.<\/p>\n

The exchange between the man and the third slave is telling in this regard.\u00a0 The slave must have internalized the expectation of a return on investment because, anticipating that his master will be angry with him, he begins making excuses before he even returns the money.\u00a0 \u201cSir, I knew you were a hard man, harvesting 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.\u201d\u00a0 At this point you have to imagine the slave making a strategic shift in tone here, a shift from excuse-making to an attempt to cheerfully validate his actions, maybe a tentative grin on his face:\u00a0 \u201cSee, you have what is yours.\u201d<\/p>\n

We might expect the man to take offence at the way he has just been described by his slave \u2014 as a \u201chard man,\u201d someone who doesn\u2019t do real work like sowing and reaping but rather who makes money off the labor of others \u2014 but he doesn\u2019t seem to mind at all.\u00a0 He\u2019s perfectly happy with his role in a post-agrarian economic model where capital begets capital. \u201cYou knew this about me,\u201d he says, \u201cYou knew planting my money in the ground wouldn\u2019t be good enough.\u00a0 Beans grow in the ground:\u00a0 money doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 And yet you did it anyway.\u00a0 If you didn\u2019t have the courage or the ambition, or the vision to put my money to work, you should have at least put it in the bank where it would earn interest, not in the ground it wouldn\u2019t grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, in Jesus\u2019 day \u201ctalent\u201d referred to money, not to ability, as we think of it today.\u00a0So when the man in the parable gives his slaves talents, he\u2019s giving them money, not perfect pitch or a photographic memory or the flexibility do to the Lotus Headstand with Bound Legs (that\u2019s a yoga pose.\u00a0I Googled \u201cdifficult yoga poses\u201d just so I would have a phrase like that to keep your attention.\u00a0 It looks really hard, by the way).\u00a0 But surely to understand this parable, and to discern its relevance to our lives today, we need\u00a0to think about the \u201ctalents\u201d that are the subject of this parable as more than just money.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s think about \u201ctalents\u201d in our lives not as money but rather as gifts we\u2019ve been given:\u00a0 the capacity to learn languages, the ability to conceptualize abstract ideas and thoughts, the gift of expression in writing, or speaking, or dance, or the visual arts.\u00a0 Analytical powers. Musical ability.\u00a0 Athletic prowess.\u00a0 The capacity imaginatively to identify with others, to understand them, to put them at ease. I could go on, but you know what I mean. We all have gifts. We didn\u2019t earn them. You don\u2019t earn gifts. They\u2019re innate. They\u2019re God-given.\u00a0 And \u2014 this is the point of the Parable \u2014 they are not given to us to use only for ourselves. Even though they aren\u2019t monetized, as in the Parable, we are nevertheless expected to return these gifts we\u2019ve been given \u2014 the capital that has been invested in us \u2014 with interest.<\/p>\n

Now, we could be like the third slave in the Parable and regard this as a threat.\u00a0 \u201cOh no, if I invest my gifts unwisely, I\u2019ll return less than I was given, and that would be bad. To avoid that, I\u2019ll be cautious, defensive, expose myself as little as possible, fly under the radar, and hope nothing bad happens. I\u2019ll plant it in the ground.\u201d The problem with that approach, of course, is that sitting in the Library \u2014 for example \u2014 and completing a reading assignment and then going to class and sitting quietly until class is over while discussion about the assignment swirls around the room doesn\u2019t produce a return on investment.\u00a0 You won\u2019t give the wrong answer, and nobody will disagree with you, but you \u2014 and everyone else in class \u2014w ill leave only with what you came in with.\u00a0 The same thing is true for how you think about your role on a team, or in a music org, or a student org, or on your corridor, or on a service project in the community, or in a discussion about politics or big issues facing our country.\u00a0 To quote a famous line from King Lear<\/em>, \u201cNothing will come of nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another approach, the one recommended in this Parable and in my Chapel talk today, is to think of college as a place to invest your capital.\u00a0 You came to St. Olaf with gifts and abilities, passions and aspirations, commitments and values.\u00a0 Think of them as the five talents given to that first slave in this Parable.\u00a0 What can you do while at St. Olaf to double your money?\u00a0 What are the opportunities to grow your gifts and abilities or to discover new ones? Where are the places where you can confirm and regulate your passions and aspirations?\u00a0 What can you do, in addition to being active in the Chapel program, to fully explore and articulate your commitments and values?\u00a0 And how, in every case, can you share your capital and your investment earnings with everyone else engaged in the same work? <\/p>\n

College isn\u2019t an end in itself.\u00a0 It\u2019s a means to prepare you for what comes afterwards:\u00a0 life in community with others as a family member; an employee or employer; a citizen of a town, a state, and a country; a person of faith and a witness to God\u2019s love. \u00a0College prepares you to be successful, to lead an independent, fulfilled life, to be engaged with your communities.\u00a0 So the idea of a return on investment extends far beyond your four years here.<\/p>\n

At the end of every fiscal year St. Olaf prepares its financial statements and presents them to independent auditors who verify that we have accurately presented the state of our fiscal affairs.\u00a0 Auditing is a good thing.\u00a0 It requires you to look with clear eyes at yourself, to understand your situation objectively, and to report it publicly.\u00a0 As we think about our gifts, our lives, and this Parable that encourages us to double our money, perhaps it makes sense for each of us to do an internal audit.\u00a0 What have I been given?\u00a0 What are my talents?\u00a0 Did I bury them in the ground or did I put them to work?\u00a0 What impact have I made with those talents?<\/p>\n

At the beginning of this meditation I offered an Executive Summary:\u00a0 \u201cDouble Your Money.\u201d I hope that by now that unusual opening to a Chapel Talk makes sense in light of today\u2019s lesson.\u00a0 This profound Parable invites us to grow in\u00a0knowledge and ability, to grow in faith, and to grow in the use of our talents to serve others.\u00a0 So at the beginning of this academic year, when most of the assignments for class are still unread, most of the problem sets unsolved, the pieces not yet played or sung, the games not over, when the Word document that will become your first paper is still blank \u2014 at this time of new beginnings I encourage you to reflect on your gifts, to be thankful for them, and to think of each one as an investment opportunity.\u00a0 Double Your Money.<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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