Trustworthiness: more than preserving the past.

Clements, Keith

 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" (Matt. 25:21).

Let us go in imagination to London, to the south bank of the river Thames, to the Tate Gallery of Modern Art. We pass through the foyer, into a huge, long, immensely high hall. It is almost totally empty, but we gaze in astonishment and wonder. For at the far end there glows a great image of the sun, golden-red against the darkness, and we see it through misty vapours rising slowly from the sides of the hall. It's as though we're seeing the sun for the first time, rising over an arctic landscape, on the fourth day of creation. By turns we're awed and inspired by this vision, and so are the other people standing around us. We smile and raise our eyebrows at each other, lost for words but knowing that we are together in a special kind of shared experience.

This exhibit, which opened in October 2003, was the work of Danish artist Olafur Ellasson. It's not surprising that it hit the front pages of several British newspapers. But what I find so telling is not merely the image itself but where it is. For the Tate Modern Gallery is not itself a modern building. It is quite an old building, and wasn't built as an art gallery. It is an old power station, and the hall in which Olafur Eliasson has constructed his stunning work is where in former days the turbines hummed and throbbed, generating electricity for London. The old power station eventually outlived its days; the turbines were shut down. But instead of just being preserved as a museum of former industrial technology, it has been transformed into something new. Instead of being a monument to past engineering, it is now providing energy and inspiration of a different kind for contemporary people. Out of an inheritance from the past, a new vision is being created to capture our imagination.

Perhaps that is a parable to set alongside the parable of Jesus in the 25th chapter of Matthew. There, we hear the story of a rich man who takes a somewhat unusual risk. He goes away on a long journey and entrusts his wealth to his three slaves. A "talent" in those clays was a lot of silver, amounting to fifteen years' wages for a labourer. So the one who was handed five talents had 75 years' worth of wages entrusted to him; the one handed two talents had 30 years' worth of silver to look after; and even the slave given one talent could hardly complain about having only 15 years' wages in his hands. The first two slaves go out with their hoard, and do business with it, doubling their amounts by the time their master returns. Like their master himself, they take a risk and venture out with what they've received, for the sake of their master. The third daren't take that risk. He's so scared of losing what he's received that he buries it in the ground for safety and leaves it there. This story is about trustworthiness in God's kingdom. Trustworthy faith dares to look forward in creativity, unlike a pseudo-trustworthiness which hesitates, which wants only to preserve what has been received in the past.

The two really trustworthy servants receive their master's warm approval when he at last returns: "Well done, good and trustworthy servant!" These words have of course often been heard in funeral eulogies to worthy figures, and they also adorn many a Christian gravestone. (I can't forbear to mention the unintended irony of one such epitaph where these words are found, on the grave of a British officer in India in the 19th century, who had been accidentally shot by his houseboy.) "Well done, good and trustworthy ones!" Each of us of course would like to hear these words addressed to us, especially those of us who labour long and hard in the churches and in public life. But as European Christians and churches, where do we actually stand in the story as Jesus tells it? Which of the three servants are we in truth closest to? There is a sharp cutting edge in what Jesus says. On the one hand, there is what often passes for faithfulness, trustworthiness, which simply keeps safe what has been given. On the other hand, there is the quite different kind of trustworthiness which dares to go out and seek added value to what has been given, to give added joy to the master when he returns. On which side do we stand today as European Christians and churches?

"When Jesus himself told this parable, he may well have aimed it especially at those religious circles in his own Jewish community who were so concerned for the law of Moses to be preserved in all its purity, that they hedged it round with all manner of extra rules and regulations. And so the heart of the law, the Torah--love of God and love of neighbour--was lost to view. It was buried for safe-keeping in the ground of complicated religious rituals, and the ordinary people in their day-to-day lives had no access to it. The truly faithful servants in Jesus' view are not those who bury the law for safe-keeping, but those who actually go out with it and live it and risk everything on it: where they meet a wounded man on the Jericho road, where they meet the poor, the lame and the blind and the forgotten ones of the land. Many years after, the parable was preserved in the teachings of the early church and included in the gospels, just at the time when the Christian community was moving out of its Jewish context into the wider world of the Roman empire and--yes!--Europe. It now had new cutting edge. The treasure of the gospel had to be kept, but more than that it had to enter the market-places of Corinth and Athens and Rome itself, it had to be traded at the new frontiers of ideas and beliefs which those Christians were encountering. It could not just be buried in memory and tradition.

So what of us today, and Europe today? What sort of trustworthiness is ours, at this critical moment in the story of Europe and of the European churches? For many of us gathered here, it would be great if the preamble to the European constitution were to include mention of God. Others would be satisfied if a specific reference to Christianity as foundational to Europe was made. Let that debate go on. But let us also be careful. Suppose our aspirations for the wording of the constitution were indeed met. What then? Would we then say, "Ah! We've got it in! It's safe now!"? If that's all we feel at that point, we would be the third servant, the hesitant one, the one who's concerned only not to lose the master's treasure, and the constitution might simply be the ground in which we bury it for safe-keeping.

Or are we the ones who dare to go out and trade with our faith in the markets of secular Europe today? Not to exchange our faith for something else, but to enable it to be of even more enriching power than we have seen so far? A few months ago in Durres, Albania, I attended the assembly of Syndesmos, the world fellowship of Orthodox youth. Under the hot Mediterranean sun His Beatitude Anastasios, head of the Albanian Orthodox Church, gave his keynote address on the Christian mission which includes engaging with the public issues of the day. When the time came for responses from the floor, one of the most interesting questions asked was whether there was not a risk involved in such engagement: the risk of our faith losing its specific and unique quality. I say it is an "interesting" question because it's a very pertinent and honest question. Yes, there is a risk that when we dialogue with politicians and policy-makers and media people, we allow the gospel to become just another social or political ideology among others, and the church to be just another non-governmental organization with an opinion to advocate; the risk that we ourselves fall for the temptation of just playing at politicians in religious dress, instead of being missionaries of the apostolic faith.

But risk is what Jesus in this parable calls us to. There's no avoiding it if we have our eyes set on the future possibilities rather than cherished memories of what "Christian Europe" once was, or what we suppose it once was. Let us be quite clear: the treasure of the gospel we have received, which is enshrined in our scriptures and liturgies and confessions, is talent after talent of priceless silver. It is not to be exchanged or debased into something else. It remains: "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!" But precisely because of the nature of this treasure, it gathers to itself further riches as it is brought into the life of the world. It is not to be buried for safety in history or even a constitution. It is actually to be traded within the life of our time, for the sake of the life of our time.

To us has been entrusted the talent of belief in creation: the world, visible and invisible, which is from God and in God and for God. The world doesn't just happen to be here, to be used and misused as a tool or a plaything, to be exploited and degraded for selfish and short-term interests. It can only be truly enjoyed if it is first loved as God loves it.

To us has been entrusted the talent of belief in human beings as made in the image of God--an image which is deeply marred by greed and lust but never totally effaced. Human beings are those created neither just to toil nor to consume, but to rejoice in loving as God loves, in community and in freedom. They are even, as the Orthodox among us put it, intended for theiosis--divinization. As citizens on earth they are intended for the citizenship of heaven, for unforeseen possibilities, and to be honoured and dignified accordingly.

At the same time, to us has been entrusted the talent of the uncomfortable belief in the endemic tendency of human beings to pursue their own self-centred ends at the expense of others and to wish to escape accountability for their actions: the perception which is a stern counter to all easy optimism, to all romanticism about our own ability to create paradise on earth.

Yet to us is also entrusted the priceless talent of belief in grace: the faith that in face of all frustration, guilt and despair, all that seems to say "no" to our failing endeavours, there is a "yes!" waiting to be said to the broken and contrite in heart: the assurance that the divine never gives up on us, that out of the past wreckage of sins and conflicts new beginnings can be made for justice, peace and reconciliation.

These are the talents we are to trade with in the making of the new Europe, in that open, regular and transparent dialogue which we hope will be confirmed in article 51 of the constitution, and in whatever other ways we engage in the shaping of our society. It will not be easy. If we have our doubts about our capacities as Christians and churches, others have their doubts about the value of the talents we offer for trading. If we fear the risks involved to our faith, others fear the risks of letting religion into the public debate--which might provide us with further excuses for leaving our treasure safely buried somewhere else. Just over two hundred years ago, the great German theologian Schleiermaeher addressed whose he called the "cultured despisers" of religion in his contemporary Europe. There are many more of them today! They think that faith at best props up insecure individuals in their private lives, and at worst breeds conflict and fanaticism in the public realm.

As we go out with our talents into the public sphere, we shall encourage people to do business with us not so much by loud declarations about how important Christian faith has been in Europe's past, but by demonstrating the enrichment it can offer for the present and future. The point at which the hard bargaining will take place will be where we dare to ask what are the presuppositions lying behind practices and policies: especially, the presuppositions about what it is to he human. Where is the reverence for all creation? What has happened to the imago Dei in your proposals for genetic engineering? Where is the possibility for "freedom in community" in your legislation? What is left of the value of every woman, man and child in a society if it excludes so many from the fullness of life, inside and outside Europe? Where are the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned--all those whom Jesus talks about immediately after this parable of the talents (see Matt. 25:31-46)? Where is the encounter with the holy, in the otherness of the other person and the all-encompassing otherness of God, the "beyond in the midst" as Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls it? These are not the questions of religion poking its nose into other people's affairs. They are the means by which the vision of the fullness and wholeness--and the mystery--of what it means to be human are kept open. We must dare to say that for its own good Europe needs the continual surprise and disturbance and enlivening inspiration signalled by faith, borne by the humility and courage of our believing communities as trustworthy servants of the gospel.

May we dare to hope that by this trading of our God-given talents, added value may be given to what we have historically received instead of being left buried in the past, and faith again become a living rather than a nominal reality in the life of Europe. May Christianity itself be seen no longer as an obsolete power-station, a museum of the past, but a place where again people wonder in new ways at the glory of God and the possibilities of grace-filled human life, as though seeing the sun for the first time. And above all, may we dare to hope that we shall not be dismissed as hesitant, fearful servants, but come to be regarded as those who have taken risks and looked forward to what might yet be, hearing the returning master's voice: "Well done, good and trustworthy ones! Enter my joy!"

Keith Clements is a general secretary of the Conference of European Churches (CEC). This sermon was preached in the Chapel of the Resurrection, Brussels, at the opening worship of the CEC Church and Society commission consultation on "The EU Constitution and the Churches", 23 October 2003. It is offered here by the author in grateful appreciation of Konrad Raiser who so notably has exemplified the spirit of genuine "trustworthiness".