There's something perverse about conducting a stewardship campaign using preaching texts about the end of the world. It's an inevitability for lectionary preachers whose stewardship campaigns fall in November, so maybe that's why today's parable feels like the classic text for stewardship sermons. The ludicrous story of a master giving unthinkably huge sums of money to slaves while he disappears for an unspecified period of time feels more like unstewardship to me. Adding to the muddle, the unit of money given the slaves is referred to by the same term we use to speak of God-given abilities like piano-playing and cooking. Compounding the misery, most stewardship sermons equate the master with God. No wonder congregations feel guilty, confused, or frightened when they are then asked to make a financial pledge. If the master is God, "arbitrary and capricious" would be a nice way of describing what happens to the play-it-safe slave who is thrown out to weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Presbyterian stewardship theology is supposed to be about a response of gratitude to God's abundant grace.

Let's avoid thinking the master is God. While Presbyterians focus on the Giver, rather than on either the gift or the recipient, that theology won't work in this parable. It would take someone of Bill Gates' wealth to take such a cavalier attitude toward handing out cash to underlings, but even Bill Gates wouldn't leave his staff without some sense of accountability.

Go with me on this-the master is a character in the story, a device for getting money to the slaves. Because this is a parable about choices. The third slave sees a lose/lose situation and opts for security when the master hands him the money. It was illegal for slaves to have money of their own, let alone such fabulous sums. Financial risk-taking by slaves-investing or trading-was also against the law. Compounding that, the master stated no expectations for growing the money. It was trouble at every turn. Who could blame that slave for believing that holding the money was the cautious thing to do? But the way Jesus tells it, silence and inaction will not keep us safe.

My sister says her son will never be a great hockey player. He thinks too much, weighing potential risk before making a play. But risk-aversion is more than hockey or investments. Stories abound of people whose natural gifts remain untapped because of caution. The college student who passes up working in Brazil with Bible translators, because she can't afford to go but is too embarrassed to ask for financial support. The young man whose "artistic bent" is never trained because he's afraid of failing. The talented kitchen drudge who never starts her own restaurant.

This parable portrays the three slaves' choices in terms of serving another or self protection. The first two slaves see a chance to serve their master. The third slave's caution is based on self absorption. To be self-absorbed, by its very definition, is to be separated from God and others. This slave can neither experience nor express gratitude for the trust his master places in him, because he only sees his master in comparison to himself. When the focus of our discipleship is "being saved," the end goal is about us. When the master commends the first two slaves, of course he says, "Enter into the joy of your master." For disciples who reach out and invest their gifts in the world around them, joy abounds. When an adult tutors a beginning reader at the grade school, which of the two experiences joy? Ask the folks who've been helping with the Katrina mop up in the Gulf States. Is it safer to stay home? Did they go hoping to work out a trade for yard work next summer? Did they experience the joy that can only come from helping others? My friends who have spent 15 years of vacations in Haiti building medical clinics and digging wells don't go out of pity. They go because of the joy. Springwater put together 13 Hope-In-A-Box kits. I thought the first 4 were because it was a good thing to do, but the other 9 had to be for the sheer joy. We risk who we are and what we have when we respond with grace to grace. But without doubt, we will hear, "Enter into the joy of your master."

We can stay home. We can hold everything close and hunker down, but we'll never hear the invitation to share the master's joy. The kingdom takes work. Don't pity the third slave. All three slaves receive into their care something of the master's. Two of the slaves choose to work on the master's behalf, even though he's gone. The third slave decides to hang on. Being a disciple takes work. It involves risk. How easy it is to blame God for our inability to be good, faithful disciples. "You gave me these gifts . . ." and "You didn't give me. . ." It is just as easy to blame God, calling our failures "punishment" or hanging on to the familiarity of our fear, as if it's a viable option.

Within today's Thessalonians text is Paul's comment on the parable. In its barest essence it is Paul's advice to "stay alert-and help each other do that." "Stay alert," as opposed to hiding that which God has entrusted to you. "Stay alert," as in respond to God's grace with grace toward others. "Stay alert," as in this is how we partner with God in the coming and being of the kingdom. Hunkering down and hanging on is neither alert nor is it waiting.

There is a parenting principle that runs like this: "watch them like a hawk and catch them doing something good." Anyone who has tried to teach a puppy to "sit" or "come" knows how elementary this is. Rewarding good behavior works much better than punishment for bad. God has entrusted the Church with the job of watching each other like hawks in order to encourage each other to good. That's why we have stewardship campaigns. Not just to pay the church's bills, although that's a good thing. Not just to give money away to people and missions that need it, although that's a good thing. We have stewardship campaigns to provide each other with opportunities to grow in discipleship. To provide options for being good stewards like the first two slaves. Giving is good discipleship. Obviously, it doesn't make sense to bury money. Nor would our risk-taking be appropriate stewardship if we put all our money in a Donald Trump luxury condo and casino in downtown Estacada. That would be risk, but it wouldn't be a kingdom risk. Kingdom risk mirrors God's grace. Kingdom risk shows we're trying to be like Jesus.

Kingdom risk is like the movie, Pay It Forward. The premise is a grade school class assignment to come up with a project that will change the world for the better. One kid decides that doing three good deeds will change the world. The trick is that the good deeds are not to be "paid back," they are to be "paid forward." You don't "pay back" the person who helps you, you find three others to help as the means of paying "forward." Those three do not pay back, but rather pay forward three more good deeds to others, which becomes nine good deeds to pay forward, which becomes twenty-seven more good deeds to pay forward.

You can see where it would soon make a difference. Kingdom risk is like that, because it invites us to partner in bringing the kingdom by being the kingdom. We always have choices, and those choices always have an impact. People who choose not to act, to hang onto what they've got, they miss out on kingdom joy. When you dare to take kingdom risk, you will certainly share the joy of partnering in God's kingdom.