Not Hiding: Parable Of The Master & Talents - Kayla McClurg in inward/outward

What a mess I make when I see my higher authority, the one who provides, as harsh and demanding. Oh, what weeping and gnashing of teeth I endure when I hide out, when I bury precious parts of myself rather than risk having the whole me be brought to the light.

I think Jesus teaches with stories not to give us answers but to urge us to participate. Stories invite us to interact with him, to ask questions, to challenge and even disagree.

We are not being prepared for a pop quiz on Monday; we are being prepared for our lives.

I notice we tend to interpret parables in the same ways we interpret ourselves. If I am feeling judged or judging, cast out, pretty much a failure where Jesus or any other higher authority is concerned, then I see these in the parable. At other times I see myself as having been entrusted with resources and doing as well as I can with what I’ve been given.

One of the things I see today is what a mess I can get into when I am afraid that I won’t have enough, that I won’t be enough. What a mess, when I see my higher authority, the one who provides, as harsh and demanding. Oh, what weeping and gnashing of teeth I endure when I hide out, when I bury precious parts of myself rather than risk having the whole me be brought to the light.

Maybe with in the parable of the Master and Talents, he hopes beyond hope that we will not continue to be stony-faced listeners.

Maybe he wants us to react and stop accommodating the myth of this kind of master, the master of mammon and harsh punishment who would cast people away. We can stand up and come into our own. Jesus is a new kind of master, and we can be a new kind of servant.

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Having What We Need: The Parable of The Lamps - Kayla McClurg in inward/outward

I act responsibly about half the time, but expect others to reliably meet my needs the other half. I am five parts filled, and five parts depleted. Having a lamp does not mean I will have enough oil to keep it burning. I might look prepared, but am I really?

In recent passages of scripture in the lectionary, I hear Jesus telling the hypocrite parts of me that I don’t always do what I intend; I set a standard for others that I don’t keep myself; I am not as sincere as I want to seem.  So when Jesus tells this parable about some folks waiting for a bridegroom who has been delayed, I am prepared to see that they, too, might be parts of me. In my long wait for wholeness—my journey to ’10’ you might say—I am found to be equal parts foolish and wise.

I act responsibly about half the time, but expect others to reliably meet my needs the other half. I am five parts filled, and five parts depleted. Having a lamp does not mean I will have enough oil to keep it burning. I might look prepared, but am I really?

All of us run low sometimes. All of us fall asleep. We have perfectly good lamps, capable minds and hearts, but our hope and patience and kindness and forgiveness—the oils that allow us to “shine out loud”—drain away and our spirits darken. The essential oils of all things juicy and creative and alive in us dry up. The eternal flame that burns away the superficial and ignites our compassion grows dim. We cannot be replenished by ourselves. This oil is not a commodity to be purchased. Only you, only I, can plug into the pipeline to be refilled.

We cannot continually resupply what we need.  We simply are not able to give and do and be for each other, or for ourselves, all that is needed all the time.

We can wait together. We can listen for the arrival of love. We can notice each other, and point toward the filling stations. But no one person can be my singular source of hope and creative purpose any more than I alone can be that for anyone else, including myself.

We can only remind each other to get refilled, to return to the wellspring often for replenishment and reconnection with Spirit and/through each other. If we hope to outlast the dark, we will need for all of our lamps, small as they are, bright as they can, to shine.

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