1. The most important relationship we have is the relationship we have with God.

2. Who we believe God is determines, in large part, that relationship.

The third slave, the one who buried the funds entrusted to him in the ground, believed the Master to be a harsh and cruel person who reaped where he had not sowed.  To lose that Master's money would be tantamount to death.  Of course he could not risk death.  His life was bounded by his fears and limited by the threats he saw on all sides.  Better to play it safe.  Best not to be the first by whom the new is tried.  Better to be safe than sorry.  So he did the smart thing.  He preserved the funds against all harms.

The other two slaves must have seen the Master in a different light.  They took chances.  They had to.  To return a 100% return on that which was invested in them they must have taken huge risks.  At the end, they heard the Master's voice inviting them into joy, praising them for their efforts.  After all, life was at stake there - real life.

Brian Wren wrote, in 1989, a poem entitled, "Are You the Friendly God?" in which he lifted up various images some of us have of God.  One stanza goes like this:
    Are you the gambler-God, spinning the wheel of creation,
    Giving it randomness, willing to be surprised,
    Taking a million chances, hopeful, agonized,
    Greeting our stumbling faith with celebration?

Before a God like that we are freed to risk, indeed, are invited to take a chance, to spin the wheel.  I daresay that much of the prevalent timidity of the clergy finds its roots in our image of God, not the "gambler-God" of Brian Wren, but some passive, non-threatening, all-absorbing deity who neither challenges us nor invests deeply in us.  We allow the minority to tyrannize us because we have not believed deeply enough in a Master who encourages risk, who expects, not success but courage, who matches our abilities with sufficient challenge to make life an adventure to be had instead of a time to be endured.

There are smart risks and stupid risks.  But all risks have the possibility of failure, loss, setback and disaster.  Of course, the alternative is to bury safely in the ground....

- David Digby - 1st Christian Church, Ames, IA