The Silver in the Rock

November 16, 2023

   The parable of the Talents (found in both Matthew and Luke), has been on my mind all week. Jesus tells the story of some servants who were tasked with looking after a ruler’s estate in his absence. They were each given a sum of silver, measured in talents (a unit of weight or currency worth about 6,000 denarii). When their ruler returned he asked for an account of his servant’s asset management. Two of the servants had invested their allotment of silver and multiplied it. But the third, the one who had been entrusted with the least amount to oversee, was fearful and only focused on his own survival, so he held onto what he was given and buried it so that it wouldn’t be disturbed - or used. That servant was punished and his amount was given to one of the other servants instead. 

     Did you catch that? The man who didn’t do anything with what he had was made to give his allotment to the other servant. 

     I had a good friend tell me something that has been rattling around my head for weeks: God is saying to us “I did not create you to be coddled.” God has certainly been showing me that in this season of change.

     If I'm honest, change is pretty emotionally, mentally, and even physically exhausting. I think of when Moses first led the Israelites out of Egypt and in the wilderness, and God made water flow miraculously out of a rock to quench their thirst. Almost 40 years later when they were reaching the end of their time in the wilderness, God once again told Moses to speak to the rock to call forth water - but instead he hit the rock in anger.

     We could empathize with Moses and conjecture that he was grieving the death of his sister Miriam, or that his was irritated with the Israelite’s incessant grumbling, or that he was exasperated after wandering for 40 years and arriving in the same place - (essentially going in circles), or that he had seen God bring water out of the rock before and wasn’t impressed by it anymore. But whether it was sorrow, frustration, anger, or complacency, he emotionally reacted to the situation rather than acting in obedience.

     Are we guilty of that? I certainly am sometimes. Could God be asking our church to call forth water from a rock and we’re starting to hit it instead? Are we in such mourning, or irritation with each other, or weariness from a hard ministry year, or numb to the wonder of God’s power, that we’ve become cynical?

     We are a people called to obedience, even in our grief, even in our hurt, even in our frustration, and even in our complacency. We can’t let ourselves start sinning in our reaction to change. What God has given us has not even BEGUN to be realized. He wants us to take what we have and make it more. 

     ...We’ve been singing the song Rest on Us in our Sunday services lately. The bridge says Holy Spirit come rest on us, You’re all we want. You’ll often hear me saying "don’t sing words you don’t mean" because I believe it’s important to take the things we say to God seriously. Oak Haven, do we really want the Holy Spirit to come down and rest on our church?

     Because here’s what keeps me up at night: what if we just bury and hoard the blessings He’s given us? What if -in indulging our fear- we isolate ourselves, use all of our resources to serve only us, protect our comfort, and stay exactly the same? The ending of the Parable of the Talents says that God’s going to take away those gifts and give them to someone else who is using them for His Kingdom. Because after all, God doesn’t need Oak Haven for anything. He’s invited us to be a part of His rescuing plan for Anoka County, but if we don’t respond to His invitation He’s just going invite someone else.

     What God wants to do at Oak Haven has not even BEGUN to be realized. I  believe that with things that we have been praying about and working on as a church for decades, now is the time for us to do what the Lord has called us into. We are blessed to be in a season of lots of new babies in our church. Labor is not without pain, but I’m praying that God births in us an appetite for His kingdom, a hunger for the things of God. I’m asking Jesus to reveal Himself to our church in fresh waves, for a fresh work of His spirit in our lives, a fresh revelation of His work in Anoka County.

     Let’s start praying for our loved ones, for our families, for our neighbors, our co-workers, and our church members. God make us a vehicle of Your love to each other, our community and our world, to bring healing to the nations. We want Your will and Your purposes to be done in the life of our church.

Amen!