Archive 1a

Do you remember the song “Fly Like an Eagle” by the Steve Miller Band? Remember how it starts out? “Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future.” Boy, doesn’t it?

When we’re kids, time doesn’t seem to pass fast enough. When we’re grown, we can’t seem to hold on to it enough.

Time is something that we all relate to. And what seems to be our most common complaint? We don’t have enough time. We need more of it to complete everything we need and want to do. And, through some of you in this congregation, I’ve learned that for many years I’ve lived under the delusion that once I retire, I’ll have all the time necessary to do all of those things. You have informed me that I’ll be just as busy in my retirement years as I am right now! Lord, help me!

Paul reminds us today that we don’t get limitless time. We don’t have an endless supply of our own time – or an endless supply of God’s time. Therefore, we need to make good use of the time we have.

He tells us that this isn’t a surprise. As verse 4 says, we are not in darkness, to be surprised. We are children of the light. We know that Christ is going to return once again! We aren’t going to be able to stand back and say, “What’s going on here?!” Paul was very specifically talking about the return of Christ but we can apply it another way. We all know what waits for us at the end of our life: Death does not pass any of us by.

Paul warns us in today’s text not to fall asleep and to remain sober. This means more than just being aware that Jesus is returning. Let me show you what I mean.

Jump over with me to Matthew 25 – the gospel lesson for today. It’s a parable that you might be familiar with but we going to look at it a little bit differently today.

[READ MATTHEW 25:14-15. 19-29 ON SCREEN]

Many people interpret this parable in one way and that’s money. But they don’t stop to consider that a “talent” can also mean a literal talent – gifts and graces given by God to be used for God.

Now, I can hear you all now. “I don’t have any talents, Amy!” YES, YOU DO! You have at least one. But we can’t limit what we think of as a talent to something like musical ability or artistic ability. We need to look at 1 Corinthians 12:4-11