Who Buries the Talents?

This morning's message was based on the parable of the talents. The key idea was that the world's greatest energy crisis is not oil or electricity, but the untapped potential of human beings — specifically God's people. Like the king in the parable, God has given talents to His people, and will ask what was done with them when He returns. But like the one servant, too many people have let their talents lie buried, never utilized for the Kingdom.

While the language of the sermon clearly indicated that the contemporary problem lies with the individuals to whom the talents are given, I started to wonder whether that is, in fact, the whole truth of the matter. Perhaps it comes from a sensitivity borne from my own experience, but I wonder whether perhaps the truth sometimes lies more in the collective — whether perhaps it is the community to whom gifts are given which is responsible for the suppression of those gifts.

I wondered what would have happened in Calculta had the head of the order to which (Mother) Teresa belonged had not given her permission to leave the teaching ministry of her order to go to Calcutta. I wondered what would have happened had the Pope not granted her the charter to form her own order. Would she have been able to do what she did — to be what some call the 20th century's greatest saint?

I know from personal experience that when one is in church leadership, struggling to find resources and personnel for all the ministries that the church is engaged in, that it is natural to assume that the suppression of gifts in the church is due to the individuals' own lack of initiative in implementing the gifts they have been given. But I wonder what would happen if we were to seriously consider the ways in which we do church collecively might actually be as much a barrier to the expression of God's gifts to the church.

There are so many ways in which the collective body suppresses the expression of gifting in the church. Some are related to our institutionalized goverance structures — where too much has to go through official channels before it is allowed to happen — channels that are often clogged with other things. Others are related to the language structures we employ, that subtly denigrate the gifts of the masses.

I saw such subtle language structures at work when I compared the secular and "christianized" versions of a book we were using in Focus 3. The secular book gave examples of people engaging the world in the areas of their particular strength mix — all of which involved significant and respected roles. The christianized book, on the other hand, had downgraded the examples to some of the most minor tasks one encounters in church life — suitability and/or giftedness for (or lack thereof) ought to have been obvious to all involved, except for those with the limited self-awareness of a Junior High kid.

To be sure, the individual whom God gifts for service in His Kingdom is responsible for his or her own attitude and iniative in exercising and expressing those gifts. But we all, as a collective, are also responsible for the way in which the culture we permit to form around us, and indeed actively maintain, encourages discourages the expression of all the gifts God has given to the collective. And those in express leadership positions have responsibility not only not to squelch the gifts they have been given individually, but even more so not to squelch the gifts given to the flock under their care.

May God forgive me for the ways in which I have failed this responsibility in my own leading.