A. Leonard Griffith - "On Loan from God" (April 21, 1974)

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	(harmonious choir music)	0:04
-	(indistinct words)...of Divine Christ are the	0:17
	nearest thing you will hear in your lifetime	0:19
	to the way this is sung in a church	0:22
	like my grandmother and all those people belted it out!	0:24
	These tunes, magical sound settings,	0:27
	they are not lyric pieces.	0:32
	They are strumming, stomping music, you understand?	0:34
	(speaker begins vocalizing)	0:38
	(heavy organ music: "The King of Love My Shepherd")	0:43
	(choir vocalizing)	1:21
	(music ends)	4:43
-	As we come together this morning,	4:49
	we know that our transgressions as individuals and groups	4:52
	have been frequent,	4:55
	we choose this time and place in our worship	4:57
	to make our public confession to God	5:00
	and our neighbors of our corporate	5:02
	and individual transgressions.	5:05
	Let us pray:	5:07
	"We confess our offenses, oh God,	5:09
	against you, against our neighbors and against ourselves.	5:12
	We have talked boldly of being your people in the world,	5:18
	yet we have used our freedom to forget you.	5:23
	We have bemoaned our little faith.	5:27
	Yet we have been too busy to explore our common.	5:30
	We have celebrated the wonder of your enfleshment	5:34
	in our calm life;	5:38
	yet we have shut you back in a sanctuary,	5:40
	have loved our religion instead of you.	5:43
	We have gazed at this Christ who dared to be fully human,	5:47
	yet we have evaded his call to be fully involved	5:52
	in the lives of our brothers.	5:56
	We have watched your image violently destroyed	5:59
	in the famine in Africa, in a slum tenement,	6:02
	in a suburban split level home,	6:07
	yet we have pretended to be ignorant or helpless.	6:10
	We have offered the chance to help the suffer,	6:14
	yet we have turned our backs and mumbled excuses.	6:18
	We have talked boldly of being your stewards,	6:23
	yet we have been tight-fisted with our money,	6:27
	careless with our time,	6:30
	and grudging with our words and presence.	6:32
	We have talked about our studies as a calling,	6:36
	yet we have made them empty contests.	6:39
	We have acknowledged ourselves	6:43
	as your ministers and mediators,	6:45
	yet we have trusted too little in the power	6:48
	of your church at work in us.	6:51
	We have heard ourselves called to be the church,	6:54
	yet we have begged to remain	6:57
	wayward children a little longer.	6:59
	Oh God, forgive us all that is past	7:02
	and enable us to live in newness of life	7:06
	through our Lord Jesus Christ, amen."	7:10
	Let us continue our prayers with our personal confessions.	7:14
	(organ music begins)	7:45
	(choir vocalizing: "Jesus, Joy of Our Desiring")	7:55
	Here are the words of assurance from 1 John:	9:08
	"This is the message we have heard from Him	9:12
	and proclaim to you,	9:15
	that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.	9:17
	If we walk in the light as He is in the light,	9:22
	we have fellowship one with another	9:25
	and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us of all sin.	9:27
	Amen.	9:32
	(somber organ music begins)	9:38
	(loud choir vocalizing)	10:20
	(choir quiets)	11:00
	(choir vocalizing gets louder)	11:27
	(choir finishes)	14:06
-	Let the congregation stand for the reading of the gospel.	14:21
	The gospel this morning is taken from the Book of Matthew:	14:30
	"For it will be as when a man, going on a journey,	14:35
	called his servants and entrusted to them, his property.	14:40
	To one, he gave five talents;	14:44
	to another, two; to another, one.	14:47
	To each, according to his ability.	14:51
	Then he went away.	14:54
	He who had received the five talents	14:57
	went at once and traded with them	14:59
	and he made five talents more.	15:02
	So also he who had the two talents,	15:06
	made two talents more,	15:09
	but he who had received the one talent,	15:12
	went and dug in the ground and hid his Master's money.	15:15
	Now, after a long time,	15:20
	the Master of those servants came	15:22
	and settled accounts with them.	15:24
	And he who had received the five talents came forward,	15:27
	bringing five talents more, saying,	15:30
	'Master you delivered to me five talents,	15:34
	here I have made five talents more.'	15:38
	His Master said to him,	15:41
	'well done, good and faithful servant.	15:43
	You have been faithful over a little.	15:47
	I will set you over much,	15:49
	enter into the joy of your Master.'	15:52
	And he also, who had the two talents came forward,	15:56
	saying, 'Master, you delivered to me two talents.	15:59
	Here I have made two talents more.'	16:03
	His Master said to his servant,	16:07
	'Well done, good and faithful servant.	16:10
	You have been faithful over a little.	16:12
	I will set you over much.	16:15
	Enter into the joy of your Master.'	16:17
	He also, who had received the one talent	16:21
	came forward saying, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man,	16:24
	reaping where you did not sow	16:29
	and gathering where you did not winnow.	16:31
	So I was afraid, and I went	16:35
	and hid your talent in the ground.	16:37
	Here you have what is yours.'	16:40
	But his Master answered him,	16:43
	'You wicked and slothful servant.	16:45
	You knew that I reap where I have not sowed,	16:48
	and gather where I have not winnowed?	16:52
	Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers.	16:55
	And at my coming, I should have received	16:59
	what was my own, with interest.	17:01
	So take the talent from him	17:05
	and give it to him who has the 10 talents,	17:07
	for to everyone who has, more will be given.	17:11
	And he will have abundance,	17:15
	but from him who has not,	17:18
	even what he has will be taken away.'"	17:20
	Thus ends the reading of the Holy Scriptures,	17:24
	May God add his blessing to the reading	17:27
	and the hearing of His word.	17:29
	(organ music begins: "Great Amen")	17:32
	(choir vocalizing)	17:41
-	Let us affirm our faith.	18:13
	We are not alone. We live in God's world.	18:16
	We believe in God who has created and is creating.	18:20
	Who has come in the true man, Jesus,	18:25
	to reconcile and make new.	18:28
	Who works in us, and others by his spirit.	18:32
	We trust Him.	18:35
	He calls us to be in His church,	18:38
	to celebrate His presence,	18:41
	to love and serve others,	18:43
	to seek justice and resist evil,	18:46
	to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen,	18:49
	our judge and our hope,	18:53
	in life, in death and life beyond death.	18:56
	God is with us.	19:00
	We are not alone.	19:02
	Thanks be to God.	19:05
	The Lord be with you.	19:07
Congregation	And with you.	19:09
-	Let us pray.	19:10
	Almighty and most glorious God,	19:20
	we your most unworthy people	19:23
	give you the most humble and hardy thanks:	19:25
	for all your goodness and loving kindness to us	19:28
	and all other people.	19:32
	Our blessings go forth to you for	19:34
	our creation preservation and all the wonders of life.	19:36
	The means of grace and the glory of hope,	19:40
	but above all for your incredible and overwhelming	19:44
	love for each of us.	19:47
	We know not how to react to it,	19:49
	but we know that it is present,	19:52
	and we thank you that love is so ever-flowing from you.	19:55
	We are also grateful that peace and justice are	19:59
	ever-flowing from you, our God.	20:02
	And we pray that they may be ever-flowing from us as well.	20:05
	Oh God, we know there are so many unloving	20:11
	unpeaceful and unjust situations here among us,	20:14
	that we must include them in our prayers.	20:19
	We pray for all those who hate and must hurt others,	20:23
	enable those around them to help them meet their needs,	20:28
	without inflicting the pain	20:32
	they know themselves, on others.	20:35
	We pray for all the unpeacefulness in our world.	20:39
	Oh God, hold all those peoples	20:45
	in the near east close to your peace;	20:47
	so that they will not have to endure	20:51
	another destructive war.	20:53
	And give the United States and Russia	20:56
	the good sense to quit making weapons,	20:58
	with which the world can kill off its population.	21:02
	And dear God, we pray most earnestly	21:06
	for all the injustice that abounds in our world.	21:10
	Impart in us all, the knowledge of your justice,	21:15
	so that our justice may be just to all involved.	21:20
	Enable all justice to be so engulfed	21:25
	in your love and peace	21:28
	that it cannot be oppressive,	21:31
	and especially that it cannot be racist.	21:33
	Bind us so close to you, dear God,	21:38
	that love peace and justice	21:41
	will mingle inseparably in our lives.	21:44
	Enable us to be loving, peaceful, and just,	21:49
	not only with others, but with ourselves as well.	21:53
	All this we ask in the name of Jesus the Christ,	21:59
	who taught us to pray.	22:02
	Our Father who art in heaven,	22:05
	hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,	22:08
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	22:13
	Give us this day, our daily bread	22:18
	and forgive us our trespasses.	22:21
	As we forgive those who trespass against us.	22:24
	And lead us not into temptation,	22:28
	but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom	22:32
	and the power and the glory, forever and ever.	22:36
	Amen.	22:40
	We are sorry that the Black Mass choir	22:44
	was unable to be with us this morning,	22:46
	but we're very grateful to the chapel choir	22:50
	for providing us with special music for this service.	22:52
	We're also very pleased to be on the air	22:57
	on WDBS this morning;	22:59
	we welcome all our old listeners	23:02
	and any new ones to our broadcast service of worship.	23:04
	Please note in your bulletin that this afternoon,	23:10
	at 4:00 PM in the chapel,	23:13
	there will be a special service of worship,	23:15
	which will honor the ministry of Dr. James T. Clellan.	23:18
	Everyone is invited to attend this special service.	23:23
	We welcome to the pulpit this morning,	23:29
	the Reverend Dr. A. Leonard Griffith.	23:31
	Dr. Griffith is a preacher, a lecturer, and an author.	23:35
	He currently serves as the minister to Deer Park church	23:41
	in Toronto, Canada.	23:44
	Dr. Griffith, we welcome you to Duke chapel.	23:47
-	Good morning.	24:00
	I would like you to think today	24:02
	about a difficult saying of Jesus,	24:04
	in Matthew's gospel 25:29:	24:09
	"For, to everyone who has, will be given more,	24:14
	and he will have more than enough.	24:19
	But from the man who has not,	24:22
	even what he has will be taken away."	24:25
	But that seems unfair, doesn't it?	24:30
	Isn't that exactly what we're trying to change,	24:34
	with our welfare programs and our systems of taxation.	24:38
	Already, we live in a society where some people	24:43
	have more than enough and others don't have enough.	24:48
	And we don't want to widen the gap	24:53
	between the haves and the have nots,	24:54
	we want to narrow it.	24:57
	We want to distribute the world's wealth, more equitably.	25:00
	We feel impelled to do so by	25:04
	the teaching and spirit of Jesus.	25:06
	And yet here is Jesus, Himself, saying	25:10
	that those who have will be given more,	25:14
	and those who have not will lose what little they have.	25:17
	It's all very confusing and seems grossly unfair,	25:24
	until we think about it for awhile.	25:28
	Then we realize that we are dealing with	25:32
	an inexorable law of life,	25:35
	that applies not only to material wealth,	25:38
	but to the treasures of mind and spirit.	25:41
	For example, a well educated man can	25:44
	always acquire more knowledge.	25:48
	A man with next to no education,	25:52
	may lose what little knowledge he has.	25:55
	A person who prays a lot, can always pray more.	26:00
	A person who prays little,	26:05
	may eventually stop praying all together.	26:07
	Nothing succeeds like success,	26:11
	and nothing fails like failure.	26:14
	We mustn't isolate that difficult saying of Jesus.	26:19
	It comes at the close of his parable of the talents,	26:24
	which is a lesson not about economics, but about life.	26:28
	The story concerns a provincial ruler, traveling abroad,	26:34
	who left three servants in charge of his affairs.	26:39
	The first servant received five talents,	26:44
	let's say $5,000, with which to trade;	26:47
	and being an astute businessman,	26:52
	he invested them shrewdly	26:54
	and realized a hundred percent profit.	26:56
	The second servant, a less gifted man	27:01
	was entrusted with two talents,	27:05
	which he probably plowed back into the farm or the business;	27:07
	and by working hard from sunrise to sundown,	27:12
	he made the two talents yield four.	27:16
	The third servant thinking he read	27:21
	his Masters' character correctly,	27:22
	did not want to risk losing his one talent.	27:25
	So he buried it in the ground,	27:29
	the traditional way of saving money.	27:31
	When the Master returned,	27:36
	he praised the first two servants	27:37
	and rebuked the third, saying to him,	27:40
	"At least you could have put my money in the bank,	27:42
	where it would have earned some simple interest."	27:45
	Angrily, he took the man's one talent away from him	27:49
	and gave it to the man with five talents,	27:53
	and that provokes the punchline:	27:55
	for to everyone who has, will be given more,	27:59
	and he shall have more than enough.	28:03
	But from the man who has not,	28:05
	even what he has, will be taken away.	28:08
	Now, there are several ways of interpreting this parable,	28:13
	but I want to suggest that	28:17
	certain general truths emerge from it,	28:20
	if we can go beyond economics and eschatology,	28:24
	and regard it as a parable of life.	28:30
	It tells us first, that life is a trust from God.	28:34
	I read a novel in which one of the characters,	28:40
	a young woman suffering from a defective heart	28:43
	gives thanks that she is allowed to live at all.	28:46
	She says that life however long or short	28:50
	must always be accepted as a gift.	28:53
	Few enough people hold that high minded view.	28:58
	Although the parable goes even higher,	29:01
	the servants were not given their talents	29:05
	to use as they pleased.	29:08
	They were entrusted with them	29:10
	to use on their owner's behalf,	29:13
	and after a period of time,	29:16
	they must give them back again	29:18
	and account for their use.	29:20
	You'd be surprised how many intelligent people	29:24
	regard their money in that light.	29:28
	Few summers ago, when I was preaching	29:33
	down at Lake Junaluska,	29:35
	I listened to a Saturday evening address	29:38
	by the retired president of the University of Tennessee,	29:41
	Dr. Andrew Holt, on the fascinating subject:	29:46
	how to spend $1 000 000.	29:51
	I thought he wasn't talking to me, until he made it clear	29:55
	that his guidelines applied to the spending of	29:57
	$100 or $1 or whatever sum constitutes your total wealth.	30:00
	Taking the prior view that your money,	30:07
	whatever it is, represents your life.	30:09
	In the course of the address, he said,	30:13
	that he and his wife had established a little trust fund,	30:15
	which they replenished from every paycheck	30:20
	and from which come their charitable donations	30:23
	and their contributions to the church,	30:27
	and other worthwhile causes.	30:29
	The Bible calls that tithing.	30:32
	But you could see that his view went far beyond the tie,	30:36
	and he regarded not only his charitable gifts,	30:40
	but his entire gross income, everything he earned,	30:44
	as a trust from God to be administered responsibly	30:48
	on God's behalf.	30:53
	Some people have the same attitude toward their children,	30:57
	and that's why they bring them to church to be baptized.	31:01
	Basic to every doctrine of baptism,	31:06
	is the belief that we receive our children	31:09
	by birth or adoption, as a trust from God.	31:13
	A parent who takes baptismal vows before the congregation,	31:20
	is saying in effect, "My child belonged to God	31:24
	before he belonged to me.	31:29
	He is God's child first, and God will love him	31:32
	more than I can ever possibly love him.	31:36
	Therefore, I cannot bring up my child exactly as I please,	31:40
	or exactly as some psychologist pleases.	31:45
	I must bring him up in a way that pleases God.	31:50
	And in the end, I must account to God for his upbringing."	31:53
	It was through our Lord's parable that the word 'talent'	32:00
	entered the English language.	32:04
	In our idiom, it generally denotes	32:07
	some kind of special ability:	32:10
	artistic talent, athletic talent, musical talent,	32:13
	which we may cultivate and develop,	32:19
	but which we did not create because it was in us,	32:22
	right from our birth.	32:26
	In her autobiography, Marian Anderson,	32:28
	the great negro contralto, says,	32:31
	"The singer starts by having his instrument	32:34
	as a gift of God."	32:39
	But you could see that Ms. Anderson herself	32:42
	held an even higher view during her brilliant career,	32:45
	regarding her voice not as a gift of God,	32:49
	but as a trust from God to be used for God's glory,	32:53
	and the service of all mankind.	32:58
	Life itself is the talent	33:02
	that God has entrusted to all of us,	33:05
	that which we have received	33:08
	and that which we must give back.	33:10
	We belong to God.	33:13
	We are God's treasure,	33:15
	God's investment in the great economy of nature.	33:17
	And God expects a return for his investment.	33:22
	We have already anticipated the second truth,	33:33
	which is: that life is meant to be used.	33:35
	We could say that life is meant to be spent,	33:45
	a nice sounding phrase.	33:48
	Then we remember, that there are different ways	33:51
	of spending life just as there are different ways	33:53
	of spending money.	33:56
	Some people squander their money,	33:59
	as did the prodigal son in another New Testament story.	34:02
	And others can be just as prodigal with their lives,	34:07
	as was the young man who committed suicide	34:11
	in a New York hotel room;	34:14
	having written his last will and Testament	34:17
	on a sheet of hotel paper.	34:19
	"I leave to society a bad example.	34:22
	I leave to my friends, the memory of a misspent life.	34:26
	I leave to my father and mother,	34:30
	all the sorrow they can bear in their old age.	34:32
	I leave to my wife, a broken heart	34:36
	and to my children, the name of a drunkard and a suicide.	34:38
	I leave to God, a lost soul who has insulted His mercy."	34:42
	And yet our Lord's parable never considers that alternative.	34:49
	The sin of the one talent man,	34:54
	and he's the central character in the story,	34:57
	the sin of the one talent man	35:00
	was not that he used his talent wastefully,	35:02
	but that he didn't use it at all.	35:06
	He buried it, he hoarded it in the ground.	35:09
	Recently, a lady in my congregation	35:15
	told me that she inherited a house from an elderly aunt,	35:17
	who had lived alone for many years	35:23
	and never threw anything away.	35:26
	Cleaning it out would ordinarily have been a tedious task,	35:29
	but there was one compensation:	35:33
	she kept finding $10 and $20 bills,	35:36
	stuffed away in the back of drawers and old coat pockets,	35:41
	and between the pages of books and in newspapers	35:46
	thrust behind the heating radiators.	35:51
	Her treasure hunt yielded about $400.	35:55
	That's not a large sum until you realize	36:00
	the interest that it could have earned,	36:03
	or its uninflated buying power 25 years ago.	36:06
	But there it stayed diminishing in value,	36:12
	and getting gradually worthless.	36:15
	The same thing can happen to life.	36:20
	People who hoard their lives:	36:23
	who wrap up their bodies and souls in cotton wool,	36:26
	conserving their energy, saving their strength,	36:31
	protecting their personalities	36:34
	and never giving anything of themselves away;	36:36
	make one serious mistake:	36:42
	they forget that you can't stash life away in an old sock.	36:45
	You can save today's money for next week and next year,	36:51
	but each day's life has to be spent before midnight.	36:56
	When it is gone, it is gone forever.	37:00
	Leslie Weatherhead told me about a wealthy Englishman	37:05
	who retired at age 50,	37:09
	and settled down to a selfish routine of	37:11
	golf and gardening and afternoon tea.	37:14
	He refused to do anything useful or energetic.	37:18
	His great slogan was one must keep fit, fit for what?	37:23
	At age 55, he died while undergoing surgery	37:31
	for a supposed trouble,	37:35
	which a post-mortem showed to be non-existent.	37:37
	The surgeon said that he died of fright.	37:41
	Life is meant to be used, not hoarded.	37:46
	And the more we use it and spend it	37:50
	and invest it in the great economy of God's world,	37:53
	the more happiness it will yield in return.	37:59
	Norman Cousins, when he came away from visiting	38:04
	Albert Schweitzer, said that he brought with him	38:07
	the impression of a man who had	38:10
	learned to use himself fully.	38:13
	That is surely a fair appraisal of Schweitzer,	38:17
	who successfully combined so many careers.	38:20
	It occurred to Cousins that much of the	38:25
	ache and brooding unhappiness of modern life,	38:28
	is the result of man's inability use himself fully.	38:32
	Now not many of us realize that,	38:39
	we blame our unhappiness on all sorts of other things,	38:43
	like not having enough money,	38:47
	enough love, enough leisure time, enough prestige.	38:50
	Whereas the truth is that none of those things,	38:55
	not all of them put together can make us happy	38:58
	unless we realize our God-given potential	39:02
	and use ourselves fully.	39:06
	Unless we released the yearnings	39:09
	and powers of our personalities,	39:11
	unless we achieve a sense of fulfillment	39:14
	through total contact with total challenge.	39:17
	Well, that leads to another truth,	39:25
	which is that life contains the element of risk.	39:29
	One of my friends who used to run a hatchery	39:34
	told me that a few years ago,	39:39
	a young man came to him and bought 50 chickens.	39:40
	Today, He has 300,000 laying hens	39:46
	and he supplies eggs to some of	39:50
	the largest stores in Eastern Canada.	39:52
	When he showed my friend over his farm,	39:56
	he laughed and said, "See what you started?"	39:58
	Well, that's the parable of the talents, isn't it?	40:02
	Now my friend doesn't have his hatchery anymore,	40:06
	and he ruefully admits the reason;	40:09
	in that business, as in any other business,	40:13
	you've got to be willing to run risks	40:16
	or you'll go out of business.	40:18
	Your talent is taken from you and given to someone else.	40:21
	Here's a bit of ancient wisdom from the Book of Proverbs:	40:28
	"Be timid in business and come to beggary.	40:33
	Be bold and make a fortune."	40:37
	Well, the first two servants in the parable	40:41
	must've been bold and the third must have been timid,	40:43
	that was his sin, his only sin.	40:48
	He was not a bad man,	40:51
	not drunken, wasteful or irresponsible	40:53
	else he might've dissipated his Master's money	40:58
	and showed 100% loss.	41:01
	Now it's just possible that if he had shown loss,	41:05
	his Master would have treated him more leniently	41:09
	if the loss had been honestly incurred,	41:13
	but what the Master couldn't stand	41:17
	was his servant's smugness and self-righteousness,	41:19
	his lack of courage and imagination.	41:23
	The man had no vision, no sense of adventure,	41:27
	no readiness to risk.	41:30
	Therefore his talent was taken from him	41:33
	and given to someone else.	41:37
	That can happen even in the affairs of the heart,	41:41
	as it did to Mr. Juggins.	41:45
	Well, he was a fictitious character	41:49
	in one of Stephen Leacock's humorous stories	41:52
	entitled 'The Retroactive Existence of Mr. Juggins'.	41:55
	That worthy gentleman fell in love with a charming girl	42:01
	and intended to propose marriage,	42:05
	but he didn't feel quite ready	42:08
	for such a lifelong commitment.	42:10
	It seemed like a risk.	42:14
	So first he went into moral training by teaching	42:16
	a Sunday school class that led him to a serious study	42:19
	of the history of Israel,	42:24
	and subsequently to a tour of the Middle East,	42:27
	where he stayed for two years until he felt fit to propose.	42:30
	By that time his girl had married someone else,	42:37
	another man who didn't know Moses from Ahab.	42:41
	A generation ago, we took a poll	42:47
	of Canadian university students asking the	42:50
	question: "What, as a result of your higher education,	42:53
	do you expect most out of life?"	42:57
	The majority replied that they wanted security,	43:02
	which they defined in terms of the right to work,	43:07
	a guaranteed annual wage, unemployment benefits,	43:11
	pension schemes, insurance policies,	43:15
	the freedom to enjoy life knowing that they need not	43:18
	worry or be anxious about the future.	43:22
	Now I may be wrong, but I get the impression	43:27
	that the picture has changed radically.	43:29
	And that a new generation of students has emerged	43:33
	with a new idealism, a new discontent,	43:36
	a new readiness to risk.	43:40
	Like all middle-aged people,	43:44
	I criticize the younger generation,	43:46
	but I'm also aware that young people are rebelling against	43:48
	my standards, the standards of their elders.	43:52
	They can see that the tragedy of many lives,	43:57
	even useful lives,	44:01
	is the illusion that you can have courage without adventure;	44:03
	freedom, without initiative;	44:08
	strength, without suffering;	44:11
	achievement, without failure.	44:14
	They take seriously the dictum of Paul Tillich:	44:18
	"He who risks and fails can be forgiven.	44:21
	He who never risks and never fails	44:24
	is a failure in his whole being."	44:28
	One more truth,	44:33
	we are accountable according to our ability.	44:37
	Now it's well to remind ourselves that we are accountable	44:41
	because it reverses the situation,	44:44
	as we commonly understand it.	44:47
	Encouraged by some selfish social philosophies,	44:51
	we normally think in terms of what life owes to us.	44:55
	Whereas the parable suggests that we owe something to life.	45:01
	Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist who spent the war years,	45:09
	in one of Hitler's concentration camps,	45:12
	repeatedly says in his books	45:16
	that a man should not think in terms	45:18
	of what he may expect of life,	45:22
	but should rather try to understand	45:26
	that life expects something of him.	45:29
	Life, says Dr. Frankl, is a task, a mission,	45:35
	and there is a task master,	45:39
	a source of the mission.	45:40
	For thousands of years, that source has been called God.	45:43
	That we are accountable, according to our ability,	45:49
	presupposes, as the parable makes clear,	45:52
	that all men do not have equal ability;	45:55
	that doesn't go down very well in our egalitarian society,	46:00
	where politics, the labor unions and the media,	46:04
	treat all men as one-talent men,	46:07
	because it's simpler that way.	46:11
	But I believe that our Lord's parable comes closer	46:14
	to the truth about life as it really is:	46:17
	insisting that all men should have equal opportunity,	46:21
	it insists also that	46:25
	Shakespeare has five talents in literature,	46:26
	Michelangelo five in art,	46:31
	the majority of people have two talents	46:34
	and no one is left empty handed.	46:37
	We all have at least one talent,	46:40
	at least some measure of life and ability	46:43
	to use and invest and risk in the economy of God's world.	46:46
	But you see the one-talent man, resented that situation.	46:54
	He resented it so much that he depreciated his talent,	46:59
	refused to use it at all and buried it in the ground.	47:02
	You can imagine him saying "The boss is being unreasonable.	47:07
	If he expects so much of me,	47:12
	why did he give me only one miserable talent?"	47:14
	But the point is that the boss didn't expect that much.	47:19
	He judged each servant on the basis of his ability,	47:23
	not someone else's.	47:28
	He commended the two-talent man in identical language	47:30
	with that spoken to the five-talent man,	47:35
	not a word is changed,	47:38
	not an accent in the voice is different.	47:40
	"Well done, good and faithful servant!"	47:42
	Notice, he does not say successful servant.	47:46
	God rewards not success, but fidelity,	47:50
	so we can stop resenting what	47:54
	God has entrusted to other people,	47:57
	and try to use faithfully the measure of life and ability,	48:00
	which he has entrusted to us.	48:05
	On that basis alone, we shall be held accountable.	48:08
	You know, the five-talent man could have shown	48:13
	a similar resentment.	48:16
	He could have said "The boss is being unreasonable.	48:18
	Why did he have to give me all this money?	48:21
	Any fool can double one talent, but five?	48:25
	That means I've got to work like a dog."	48:29
	Exactly.	48:32
	The more life gives, the more life expects.	48:34
	Unto whomsoever much is given,	48:39
	of him so much be required.	48:42
	Oh, I believe it's a lot more difficult	48:46
	to start from everything than to start from nothing.	48:48
	That's why I have always admired a man	48:53
	like Sir William Osler,	48:56
	the great teacher and practitioner of medicine	48:59
	of whom it was written that he was	49:03
	'tested in the furnace of good fortune'	49:05
	after Osler's death, his biographer wrote:	49:10
	"When we pass and review the great physicians,	49:13
	those who by their teachings, their writing,	49:17
	their practice and their example,	49:20
	have exercised the greatest influence	49:23
	on the greatest number of their fellows.	49:25
	Putting together the qualities that make	49:28
	the complete physician, Osler must be awarded first place."	49:30
	That were surely but a faint echo	49:37
	of God's verdict on his greatly gifted,	49:39
	highly privileged, five-talent servant.	49:42
	Well done, good and faithful servant.	49:45
	You have been faithful over a little,	49:48
	I will set you over much.	49:50
	Enter into the joy of your Master.	49:52
	Who says so?	49:58
	Why should we believe this parable?	50:01
	How do we know that it's true?	50:05
	We don't know, except that Jesus told it,	50:08
	and it's a parable of life, and he was a master of life.	50:14
	He was not a master of politics or engineering or music.	50:21
	He never constructed a government, a bridge or a symphony.	50:27
	But he did construct a life.	50:33
	He made of our life,	50:37
	the most splendid thing ever to appear in this world.	50:38
	He accepted it as a trust from God.	50:44
	He used it more fully than it has ever been used.	50:47
	He flung it down on a cross for the world's salvation.	50:52
	He carried it unhurt through death.	50:56
	Jesus is the master of life.	51:01
	He teaches us how to live.	51:04
	Let us learn from Him.	51:07
	Let us pray,	51:12
	Now unto Him, who is able to do exceeding,	51:15
	abundantly above all that we ask	51:17
	or think according to the power that works within us,	51:19
	unto Him, be glory in the church by Christ Jesus	51:22
	throughout all ages, world without end.	51:25
	Amen.	51:29
	(organ music begins)	51:33
	(choir vocalizing)	52:00
	(choir and organ music ends)	55:25
	(organ begins new song: "Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley")	55:36
	(choir vocalizing)	55:56
	(music ends)	1:01:00
-	Oh, God, of whose gifts we have all received,	1:01:02
	accept this offering of your people.	1:01:07
	Remember in your love,	1:01:10
	those who have brought it	1:01:11
	and those for whom it is given.	1:01:13
	And so follow it with your blessing,	1:01:16
	that it may promote peace and justice and love	1:01:19
	among all your people.	1:01:23
	Amen.	1:01:25
	(organ music begins: "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee")	1:01:27
	(choir vocalizing)	1:02:08
	(music ends)	1:05:01
	Please be seated.	1:05:03
	Go out in peace to serve God and your neighbor	1:05:10
	in all that you do.	1:05:15
	The blessing of the Almighty God, Father, Son,	1:05:17
	and Holy Spirit is with you always.	1:05:22
	(choir vocalizes quietly)	1:05:29
	(bell tolls)	1:06:43
	(organ music abruptly starts)	1:06:54

Item Info

Title:

A. Leonard Griffith - "On Loan from God" (April 21, 1974)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r48052m1t

Date:

April 21, 1974

Speaker:

Griffith, A. Leonard

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0702
ref6605_dlr
uachapelsermaud
duke:627926
dcrau002679
ark:/87924/r48052m1t
c8147064-f643-4589-9032-21c567e16e43

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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Limited Re-Use

Educational Use Permitted

Rights Note:

This material is made available for educational and non-commercial use. This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the license indicated here. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For other reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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A. Leonard Griffith - "On Loan from God" (April 21, 1974)

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1. A. Leonard Griffith - "On Loan from God" (April 21, 1974)

Duke University Archives

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A. Leonard Griffith - "On Loan from God" (April 21, 1974)

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Duke University Archives

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