“Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things; I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’”
—Matthew 25:20–21

When I was in Grade 7 or 8, all of us at R.G. Sinclair Elementary School were summoned to the gym to hear the Frontenac High School Senior Band play for a thing called “Assembly.”

Do you all remember Assembly?

That all-school event where we were sat down on the dusty gym floor in class rows and were supposed to receive some kind of supplementary education or culture?

I was never a fan.

It’s hard to sit “criss-cross applesauce” for an hour on a hard gym floor. It’s even harder not to visit with your friends when you’re in the same room where you normally have wild games of dodgeball.

This Assembly started out no differently than the others. We were sent to the gym in lines and sat in our class rows, with a teacher at the end desperately trying to hush us and keep us in order.

Then the band started to play.

I honestly have no idea what they played, but it was raucous. It was loud. And more than anything, it was fun.

I knew I was headed to high school shortly, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to be part of the band. They just seemed sooooo cool.

In particular, I wanted to be a drummer. A drummer with a full setup of snares and cymbals and a little stool to sit on at the back of the band. Because you all know that being at the back of the band is the coolest part of the coolest band.

And having a stool instead of a folding chair? Cooler, of course.

I even pictured myself playing in the band wearing a denim vest.

Because, you know, there’s nothing cooler than a denim vest.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, so playing the drums was not something that would ever come to fruition. But that didn’t stop me from dreaming.

At twelve, I thought being a drummer in the high school band was the best possible use of any “cool” factor I might have. My natural abilities in other places weren’t even on the table.

I’ve thought about this a lot this week.

I’ve had the opportunity to sit down with my new colleagues—who are all brilliant, by the way—and talk about what it means for Communities of Faith to thrive.

We know something about what puts churches “at risk.” The United Church of Canada’s Towards 2035 documents are pretty clear about those things. What we don’t have is a convenient way to measure thriving.

All of us agreed that thriving is about more than increasing attendance and comfortable budgets. But the factors that allow communities to thrive seem to be multifaceted and individual.

Except we could identify two things: resilience for change, and a clear understanding of identity and capacity.

In other words, thriving communities know who they are, have some idea what they can do, and are willing to adapt when the world around them changes.

They don’t all need to be drummers.

Enter the parable of the talents.

A man is going on a journey, and he entrusts his property to three slaves. To one he gives five talents, to another two, and to another one. The first two put what they have been given to work. The third, afraid of the master, buries his talent in the ground.

When the master returns, the first two are praised. The third is punished.

Now, before we turn this into a cheerful little lesson about using your singing voice in the choir, we need to acknowledge that this is a difficult story. It takes place in a world of slavery and enormous wealth, and the master’s treatment of the third slave is harsh. We should be careful about assuming that everything the master does tells us exactly what God is like.

There is also the matter of the word “talent.” In this story, a talent is a large sum of money, not a special ability. But the parable still invites us to think about what has been entrusted to us and what we do with it.

One of my commentaries points out that the first two slaves receive the same praise, even though they have different amounts. The question is not whether one has produced as much as the other, but whether each has acted responsibly with what was entrusted to them.

I think that matters for Communities of Faith.

We spend a lot of time comparing ourselves. We remember the days when the Sunday school was full, the choir had more voices, and there were enough volunteers to run every committee, supper, and fundraiser.

Or we look at the church down the road and decide that if only we had their people, their building, or their budget, we could thrive too.

But we cannot build a faithful future by wishing we were someone else.

And we cannot discover what is possible now if we are spending all our energy trying to recreate what was possible forty years ago.

Please don’t hear me say that the past doesn’t matter. It does. Those Sunday schools, choirs, suppers, and fundraisers represent generations of faithfulness. They hold memories of people we love, some of whom are no longer with us. It is natural to grieve when a community changes.

But honouring the past is not the same as burying ourselves in it.

Sometimes our fear of decline and closure becomes so powerful that it determines every decision. We hold tightly to a building, a program, or a way of doing things because we hope that if we can just keep everything exactly as it was, we can stave off the loss we fear.

Meanwhile, the gifts we have now remain underground.

The people who know how to listen. The ones who can organize a meal or welcome a stranger. The relationships we have with our neighbours. The space we could share. The wisdom of people who have lived through change before. The questions and ideas of those who have not yet been invited to speak.

These are not consolation prizes because we no longer have what we once had.

They are resources for ministry.

Of course, knowing our capacity also means being honest about our limits. A small, tired congregation cannot be expected to do everything, and asking the same exhausted people to take on more is not a thriving strategy.

It might mean laying down something that no longer fits. It might mean working with another community, sharing a building, changing a tradition, or asking our neighbours what is needed before deciding what we should offer.

And yes, it might mean having a difficult conversation about closure. A community can be faithful and loving even when a congregation’s life comes to an end. Thriving is not a guarantee that every church will remain open.

But as long as we are here, we have a choice about where we place our attention.

Are we using our gifts for the sake of God’s love in the world? Or are we burying them in an effort to preserve a past we cannot recover.  One of my commentaries asked me to pay attention to the invitation to “enter the joy” of the master; that that joy not as a lesson in accumulating wealth, but in sharing and giving ourselves away.

I wonder what might happen if we asked about joy as often as we ask about survival.

Where do we see God’s love being shared? What are we doing that brings life to our neighbours and to us? What do we have that we can offer, not because it will save the church, but because it is ours to offer?

Perhaps thriving begins there: not with a perfect plan or a promise that nothing will be lost, but with the courage to look honestly at who we are and use what we have.

The band needs more than drummers, after all.

Even drummers in denim vests.

Blessings today, and remember you are Loved.

~Rev. Lynne