TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Prayer of the Day: Righteous God, our merciful master, you own the earth and all its peoples, and you give us all that we have. Inspire us to serve you with justice and wisdom, and prepare us for the joy of the day of your coming, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
“So teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.” Psalm 90:12.
Counting our days is about the only way to acquire a “wise heart.” It has been said that we learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history. Those of us who are parents should understand that. We ache to see our children making the same mistakes, falling into the same traps and chasing the same illusory promises of happiness that entangled us in our younger days. We would like to warn them of their peril and so spare them the heartaches we endured. Perhaps we have tried. But they are convinced we don’t understand, that we can’t possibly know what they are going through, that we just “don’t get it.” They spurn the hard won wisdom we would share with them. I see their point. After all, we have left them a dying planet, a nonfunctioning government and a world on the verge of potentially catastrophic wars. And now we presume to wag our moralistic fingers in their faces and impart to them our wisdom? I can hear the collective younger generational sigh already: “Give me a break!”
The truth is, wisdom is the product of learning from mistakes. Where there is no freedom to make mistakes, there is little learning and no maturation of wisdom. That point is made with blunt clarity in a saucy little song written by Susan Gibson and made famous by the country western trio, The Chicks.[1] The song Wide Open Spaces reflects the feelings of a young woman leaving home to start a new life in an unidentified western place. It is a place with “wide open spaces” representing a plethora of possibilities, choices and paths. It is a place wide enough to allow for making “the big mistakes.” As the young woman is brimming with excitement and expectation, her parents express the fear and anxiety parents typically feel as they watch their young, inexperienced and vulnerable children venture out into what they know is a dangerous world. We remind our children to do the common sense things like “check the oil,” but the weightier lessons in love, moral responsibility and vocational direction can only be learned the way we learned them, that is, by experience. The kindest thing we can do for our children is give them enough space to make mistakes.
Jesus would have his disciples know that faith gives them the freedom to make mistakes. I believe that is what the parable of the talents in Sunday’s gospel is all about. We might be tempted to pity the poor fellow in the parable who hid his talent in the ground rather than investing it. He had so little to work with compared to his fellow servants. He was afraid of losing that with which he had been entrusted. How could he know that the years ahead would bring a bull market? What if the market had gone south and his fellow servants had lost everything? If that had been the case, he could proudly bring forth his talent and boast of his prudence and care-unlike his risk taking companions. The worst you can say about this poor fellow is that he was “risk averse.” Depending on the state of the economy, that could well be the best strategy. We might view him as simply a victim of market vagaries. But that is a misreading of the parable. Note well that the master does not commend the two servants who increased their holdings for their success and business acumen. Instead, he commends them for their faithfulness. Faithfulness is all that is required of the disciple. God will see to the success.
The servant who hid his master’s money in the ground says to his master, “I knew you to be a ‘harsh man’.” But was that really the case? The servant says, “I was afraid” and that says it all. Perhaps it is because he saw his master, and everything else for that matter, through the lens of fear that he viewed him as a punishing tyrant rather than one who had enough confidence in him to place his own money under his care. The servant was so afraid of making a mistake, so terrified of failing, so fearful of doing something wrong that he did not do anything at all.
Jesus would have us know that ours is a God who gives us plenty of “wide open spaces” to make the “big mistakes.” To be clear, this is not a license to be reckless and irresponsible. It is a recognition, however, that we are creatures who learn the meaning of friendship through disappointment and betrayal; we learn love through heartbreak; we learn about the beauty and complexity of our world by having our simplistic notions about it shattered again and again; we learn to know our God by discovering, through sometimes bitter experience, that we cannot make a mess of our lives bigger than God is able to clean up.
This is incredibly good news for people like me who are by nature “risk averse.” It is incredibly good news for college seniors who are beginning to wonder whether they chose the right major, the right career or the right job offer. It is good news for two people about to enter into a lifelong relationship-and sometimes wonder whether they are doing the right thing. It is good news for a church about to launch an untried program of mission and ministry. The worst that can happen is that you will make a mistake-which means you will have the opportunity to “gain a wise heart.”
Here is the text of the song Wide Open Spaces written by Susan Gibson and performed by the Chicks cited above:
Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about?
Who’s never left home? Who’s never struck out?
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone
Many precede and many will follow
A young girl’s dreams no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out West
But what it holds for her, she hasn’t yet guessed
She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes
She traveled this road as a child
Wide-eyed and grinning, she never tired
But now she won’t be coming back with the rest
If these are life’s lessons, she’ll take this test
She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes
She knows the high stakes
And as her folks drive away, her dad yells, “Check the oil!”
Mom stares out the window and says, “I’m leavin’ my girl”
She said, “It didn’t seem like that long ago”
When she stood there and let her own folks know
She needed wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes (wide open spaces)
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes (wide open spaces)
Source: Susan Gibson (c. Pie Eyed Groobee Music). Susan Gibson is a singer/song writer who works out of Wimberly Texas. She was born in Fridley, Minnesota. She has released six solo albums and was the lead singer for the country western band, The Groobees. You can read more about Susan Gibson and her music on her official website. The Chicks (formerly The Dixie Cicks) are an American country music band from Dallas. The band currently consists of Natalie Maines (lead vocals, guitar) and sisters Martie Maguire (vocals, fiddle, mandolin, guitar) and Emily Strayer (vocals, guitar, banjo, Dobro). The Chicks have won thirteen Grammy Awards. Days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Natalie Maines told a London audience that the Chicks did not endorse the war and were ashamed of President George W. Bush. The remarks triggered boycotts in the United States and a backlash from fans. Still the group’s popularity continued to grow. By July 2020 the Chicks had become the best-selling all-woman band and best-selling country group in the United States.
[1] Formerly known as the Dixie Chicks, the group dropped the Dixie label following the murder of George Floyd and the civil rights demonstrations that followed.
Peter's Outer Cape Portico 