Talents: Lost and Found -- Thoughts on Remembrance Sunday

 

All Souls Propers

10 November 2024

 

Anglican Parish of the Epiphany

Surrey BC

 

         On my first day as a curate at Christ Episcopal Church in Denver, CO, I was handed a stack of files with weddings that I was now responsible for as a priest in the parish.  In the course of preparing for one of these weddings, I became acquainted with family friends of the bride and the groom.

 

         After some time had passed after the wedding, I received a call from this family.  Their youngest child had just been diagnosed with cancer at the age of sixteen and was being treated at a nearby hospital.  They asked if I would visit Danny and so off I went.

 

         Danny and I became friends over the months of his illness.  He shared with me his works of art.  He was a gifted cartoonist and had a gift for story-telling.

 

         When Danny died, I was deeply affected.  For weeks, perhaps months after his death, I found myself mourning the loss of his talents as well as his death.  Even now, forty years later, I try to imagine what Danny might have accomplished had his life not been cut short by cancer.  If he had lived, Danny would now be in his late fifties.  Would he have become a well-known author of graphic novels?  Might he have become a newspaper cartoonist?  My ‘what if’ questions can multiply five-fold, ten-fold, even as I speak to you this morning.

 

         Remembrance Sunday brings upon us a host of emotions.  We give thanks for our loved ones who have served and survived, even as we grieve our loved ones who served and did not survive.  We pray for peace in the hopes that we might see an end to wars and armed conflicts throughout the world, even as we realize that our hopes for peace seem unlikely to be fulfilled.

 

         But we also can imagine what might have been had so many lives, whether of soldiers or civilians, had not been lost.  I think of a series on CBC Radio some year ago that featured the music of what we might call ‘lost voices’, musicians who were killed on active duty or of diseases or injuries brought on by armed conflict or who died in concentration camps.  What music might they have composed to enrich our lives?  How many students might they have inspired?  But their talents, like Danny’s, were unfulfilled, brought short by the cruel realities of human life.

 

         But the memory of what might have been need not be only an experience of sorrow.  Remembering what might have been can also be empowering for us who gather on this and similar occasions to remember the past.  Our pondering of the loss of the talents of those whose lives were cut short by war or disease can lead us to re-commit ourselves to using our talents more intentionally in the here and now.

 

         Last week I spoke about how the saints lived and live in kairos, a sense of every moment of the present as a moment in which God is present and active in our lives.  This Sunday I invite all of us to think about the talents God has given us and how we might use those talents to further God’s mission and our ministry in this place and time.

 

         In the New Testament there is a special word for such talents – charismata.  A charism is a gift of a talent or an ability which enriches the whole community.  None of us has all the gifts needed to do God’s work, but all of us, working together, bringing our talents, our charismata, to the table, “ . . . can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine”.

 

         Just as talents are lost through death, so can the be lost when they are not used.  And there is no one here today, whether sitting in the pews on-site or sitting at home or elsewhere on Zoom, who does not have God-given talents that God intends to be used.

 

         Paul writes in his letter to the Christians in Rome about the importance of using all the gifts that God has given to the disciples of Jesus.

 

We have many parts in one body, but the parts don’t all have the same function. In the same way, though there are many of us, we are one body in Christ, and individually we belong to each other.  We have different gifts that are consistent with God’s grace that has been given to us.  If your gift is prophecy, you should prophesy in proportion to your faith.  If your gift is service, devote yourself to serving.  If your gift is teaching, devote yourself to teaching.  If your gift is encouragement, devote yourself to encouraging.  The one giving should do so with no strings attached.  The leader should lead with passion.  The one showing mercy should be cheerful.  (Romans 12.4-8 CEB)

 

If Paul had wanted to write more, then he could have gone even further:

 

·      If you’re good at welcoming newcomers, then welcome them.

·      If your good at working behind the scenes, then work behind the scenes.

·      Whatever you’re good at doing, then offer it freely to God’s use whenever and wherever you can.

 

         Danny’s artistic talents did not survive his death, but his talent for friendship changed my life.  He made me a better priest.  So all was not lost.  May it be said of us in the months and years ahead that our talents, our charismata, have not been lost.  May people see and know that we have been, are and will be co-workers with God to prepare the way of Christ in the here and now.  For nothing good is ever lost in God’s loving purpose; it just waits to be revealed and unleashed.