In my professional life, I’ve worked in a lot of different places and types of organizations, large and small, but looking back on it, there’s a pattern to a lot of those places that was pretty clear to me at the time and is even clearer looking back. And it’s this: The main concern of most of the people at most of those companies was not taking a risk; and in many cases, the main concern of the whole company was making sure that the people that worked there didn’t take any risks. It’s one of the very natural but kind of negative downsides of being even a little successful, the fact that all of a sudden you don’t want to mess up whatever got you there, and you don’t want to change the formula. Even when that success you had starts to head downhill, as all success does, you don’t want to change what you know, since the thing you know is always better than the thing you don’t, even when the thing you know isn’t working any more. Business is funny that way – but it isn’t really business that is this way, it’s human beings. Whatever we might say to the contrary, change comes hard to us, because with change comes risk, and risk, well, what if it doesn’t work out?
This gospel about the wealthy landowner and I guess maybe we could call them the three MBAs working for him isn’t really about business, of course. It’s about people like us, and in particular of course we need to look at the third investor here, the one to whom the landowner gives the least amount of money, maybe realizing that he doesn’t have very good business instincts. MBA number three would rather bury the money in the ground, keeping it safe, than risk getting fired for losing it. He seems to think that his boss would prefer a lack of effort to an actual failure, but he’s wrong. This landowner, like most smart businesspeople, knows you can’t win without putting something at risk.
So what does this have to do with us? This story about the nervous investor getting yelled at by his boss doesn’t sound much like a Jesus story, does it? It doesn’t sound like the same Jesus who says that his yoke is easy and his burden is light, and who tells us that there is nothing we need to do on this earth to merit God’s love, we have it without asking for it or earning it. But really what Jesus is saying in this parable is a logical extension of our not needing to earn God’s love, because what we see here is Jesus telling a story that asks why we don’t act like we know that is true. Because if that’s all true, if we can’t lose this love that God has for us, if we feel it in our lives, if we can’t get fired, then why are we so afraid, why are we so reluctant to take risks for God, why do we worry about failing, since when it comes to God we can’t lose what we have, why would we so often rather bury what has been given to us by God instead of putting it to work? This landlord has his head in his hands with his third employee, asking himself, why is he so worried about my being angry when all I want him to do is get out there?
So this is a gospel story for those of us who don’t want to take some risks living out what we’re being called to do, and that, I think, is probably many of us. When it comes to building the kingdom of God on earth, which Jesus told us was the way we should live, there’s almost nothing that isn’t risky. Everything we do as Christians is risky, or it should be, and if we’re avoiding that feeling of risk, then we have misunderstood the work given to us. Trying to help people in need runs the risk of frustration and ingratitude and failure; a lot of times it doesn’t work in the way we’d all like it to. It’s a risk. Changing careers to one that puts you more directly at the service of others means giving up the present for an uncertain future. That’s a risk. Even deciding to try again fixing up a broken relationship, or confronting our own past and moving on from it, those are risky, they upset our status quo. And too often, we’d all rather have a sad status quo we know than something new.
So everywhere, there is the risk of the cross, but without taking that risk of losing, of being hurt, says this gospel, not much good can happen either. Not to risk is burying ourselves alive, the way the third man in the gospel buried the money, trying to protect it, and instead, losing it. We’re being pushed a little hard in this gospel to worry less about what we might lose in life, and to set our eyes on what we might win, if only we allowed ourselves to feel God’s love and would put ourselves and our gifts and our talents out there.
One of the things that is most enjoyable about Pope Francis as a leader is that he says he wants the church to take risks. Do something new, he says, when you see that what has been done in the past isn’t working any more. I mean, imagine that! If the Catholic church can do it, surely we can do it. Today’s gospel wants us to put fear of the future aside — it is not promising us success in everything, but that the risk of trying to put God’s gifts to work is worth it. Don’t bury what you have. The treasure God gives us to invest does no good in the ground. Dig it up, and take a good look at what yours looks like.