Risk and Reward

 Matthew 16:21-28During the news cycle of recent weeks, filled with stories of disaster related to hurricane and flood, and potential disasters related to North Korean aggression, perhaps you saw the story of the latest Powerball lottery winner,a health-care worker who says she will never return to work after winning 759-million dollars. I’m always a spoilsport when the topic of the lottery comes up. Personally, I look at all the money people are concentrating in the hands of a few people, and wonder what might happen if, instead, they used the money to do something positive for their family, community, or church. But I think I understand some of the reasons they do, and why it feels good to pay $2 for a chance for a chance that your wildest dreams might come true.There’s a true story about what happened when someone’s wildest dream did come true, a story that started about 17 years ago. Sometime in June 2000, a ticket was purchased at a New Jersey convenience store that turned out to be the only winning ticket for a 46-million dollar lottery prize. No one came forward to collect the prize. People began to imagine that the winner had lost the ticket, or thrown it away without checking the numbers.One Tuesday morning nearly a year later, a lottery official opened a rather plain envelope and found the winning ticket, accompanied by a claim form. The envelope was postmarked just two days before deadline for collecting the prize. The winner was simply following instructions, as the standard claim form says that all tickets worth more than $600 should be sent to state lottery headquarters.[1]Can you imagine the winner standing at the corner mailbox? He has in his hand an envelope that, if delivered to the right person in a timely manner, is worth a fortune. But if that envelope is lost or mishandled, it is worth nothing. He puts it in the box, and walks away. With all due respect to the U.S. Postal Service, the winner’s decision to mail the envelope, rather than hand deliver it, entails more risk than most of us would be comfortable bearing.When we step back from our lives, and reflect upon our daily activities, we will realize that we are constantly making decisions that involve risk. I drive to the grocery store because the potential reward of eating supper exceeds the potential risk that my car will be wrecked. I walk the Nickel plate trail because the potential reward of exercise and fresh air outweighs the risk of being run down by a bicycle. Each day, there are many simple actions we take that require at least some minimal level of risk taking.When it comes to big decisions, we more actively consider risk. It can be painstakingly difficult to weigh the potential risks and rewards of choices that affect our career, home, marriage, children, health, or retirement. We wonder, “What risks are worth taking?”I believe that if we study the sixteenth chapter of Matthew’s gospel long enough, eventually we will find ourselves asking questions about risk.When we first encounter these very challenging words of Jesus, we may be tempted to think that they apply only to the apostles, or to saints like Mother Teresa, or to missionary martyrs like Jim Elliott who, before his death, penned the brave words, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” But Jesus won’t let us off the hook: “If any” – not just Peter, or Mother Teresa, or Jim Elliott – “if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”You and I may have difficulty finding time for one more assignment at work, or gathering energy for one more chore at home. We would like to save a bit of time for ourselves. Then along comes Jesus who says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.We may wonder where the money is coming from to pay for all the gasoline we’re burning driving to work or taking children to activities. We would like to save a little money for a rainy day. Then along comes Jesus who says, “For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?”If we take Jesus’ words seriously, we will wonder about the risks to our physical and financial health that we will encounter by following his advice.Perhaps that’s what happens to Peter. Peter was the first to articulate what the other disciples were thinking. He was the first one who dared to say that Jesus was the Messiah. And now, when Jesus tells about the way his mission will lead to Jerusalem, suffering, and death, again Peter is the first to speak his mind: “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” Peter listens to Jesus describe the dangerous path ahead, and responds as if he’s watching Jesus put a 46-million dollar lottery ticket in the mail – “God forbid it, Lord!” Why are you taking such a risk? What if something happens to you, and what if something happens to us? You can feel the fear in Peter’s response.Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “The deep secret of Jesus’ hard words to us in this passage is that our fear of suffering and death robs us of life, because fear of death always turns into fear of life, into a stingy, cautious way of living that is not really living at all. The deep secret of Jesus’ hard words is that the way to have abundant life is not to save it but to spend it, to give it away . . . .Life cannot be shut up and saved anymore than fresh spring water can be put in a mason jar and kept in a kitchen cupboard. It will remain water . . . but will have lost its essence, its life, which is to be poured out, to be moving, living water, rushing downstream to share its wealth without ever looking back.”[2]The good news for this congregation is that those of you who have chosen to be with us through this moving process already know something about this secret, and are modeling it in ways that some other congregations have not been able.Something has been happening to our Presbyterian congregations, something so uncomfortable that we don’t like to talk about it. Here is a partial list of the congregations in our regional presbytery that have closed during the fifteen years I’ve been part of the presbytery. I don’t want to oversimplify the complex cultural and demographic forces that have contributed to this phenomenon. But I will say that in every case in which I have been involved in, church buildings that were in declining condition or unfavorable locations occupied major portions of the congregation’s energy. While I was on the leadership team, we were managing at any one time up to seven buildings abandoned by congregations. For years, they had resisted change, thinking perhaps that if they were just loyal enough to the memories of their ancestors, and faithful enough through decades of adversity, the Lord would turn around their trend, and place them on an upward path. And so, instead of time spent on supporting vital congregations and dynamic leaders, we talked about contracts to restore broken boilers, sweep birds’ nests out of HVA/C systems, and repair leaking roofs to slow the declining value of buildings emptied of people and value for ministry.As this Fall season begins, I am unashamedly proud of this congregation, and the faith of its people. Yes, we have challenges: the challenge to provide faithful and relevant programming and services, the challenge to staff them with employees and volunteers, the challenge to develop financial resources to support the mission and ministries to which God has called us. But we also have a hopeful future.We have a year ahead of milestones that some of our brothers and sisters in other places can only imagine. That hopeful future is a gift of God’s grace, and it is the result, in some measure, of your choice to follow God’s point down a road less traveled, a road that entails more uncertainty and more risk.Christ’s call to a life of meaning and purpose will continue to place us in a position of evaluating potential risk and reward. How much better it is to step out in faith, and give ourselves to something that matters, than to waste our lives frozen in place with worry. How much better to die living for something we love than to merely exist governed by fear. Jesus, says, “For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life." In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.NOTES [1] Daniel J. Wakin, “Ticket Worth $46 Million Was in the Mail. Honest.” New York Times on the Web, 15 June 2001.[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Risking Life,” The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p. 79.