Taking a Risk

Taking a chance

Sometimes when I hear familiar passages from the Gospels, I think we've got it all wrong. For example, take the story of the Prodigal Son. It seems pretty straightforward. Squander your livelihood, and you'll end up crawling back begging for forgiveness.

 

Yet, having read this story for years, I’ve finally come to realize a different interpretation. I think the story is really about each one of us, and how God gives us an inheritance and sets us free to follow the desires of our hearts. The message is not that such adventure is sinful, but that not all adventures turn out right. Best of all, God does not expect us to get it right the first time. Instead, God waits for us every time. God is there when we need to return and think again. Furthermore, if the prodigal had never gone away and seen life from a different perspective, he would never have come to really know his father. Knowing that father took the honesty of acknowledging he'd made a mistake. And as the story so dramatically portrays, the Father didn't love him less for that, but more.

I sometimes think our tidied up religion keeps us from seeing the reality of life. We cannot live within a structure that keeps us from all harm. That isn't living; that is slavery. To venture forth means to deal with life as it really is, with choices that may not turn out well, and decisions that need revisiting. And at some point, we will find ourselves “robbed,” we will end up on a dead end road, and we will feel betrayed by what we thought was our own best selves. But that is not the end of story (like time now to crawl back and beg for forgiveness). As the story tells us, that is a part of our journey.

I know only too many who, for fear of making a mistake, continue in a false life. They live according to what others tell them, and do not risk change because it is an “unknown.” Such lives offer no challenges. They progress on "more of the same." A life with security, but no growth, where expectations can be met, and no surprise will throw them off guard. Yet, they are some of the most unhappy people I know.

The prodigal son took a chance at life. And in the end, he grew. What am I willing to chance for spiritual growth?

Risk making a mistake

The parable of the talents (Mt 25:14-30), when each person is giving a sum of money, and the lord of the house goes off on a journey. When the lord returns, he asks each of the persons with money to return it. The first two have invested, and so return it with interest. The third has buried it to keep it safe, and returns only that.

I've often wondered what hidden meaning I should get from this parable. I've heard many sermons that focus on the investing part, and that God expects us to make good use of our gifts, and will only give us more if we have prospered. A God who is watching and counting. But I was delighted when I heard a sermon that explained the parable in a way that spoke to my heart.

"God is less concerned about our mistakes than we are," the priest said. He explained the parable as a story about a willingness to take risks. Anyone who invests knows exactly what he is talking about.

The first two people spoken of in Matthew's parable were willing to risk. The story isn't that their investment produced more, but that they took a chance. They dared to try. The third person in the story would not. He was afraid of making a mistake.

As I think about it, I find that I have, in my past, feared too much to make mistakes. I saw God as one who keeps score, who wants us to choose wisely and rightly, one easily disappointed. Yes, my God was one who watched and counted.

But that is not the real God; that is only my own inner fear of God. As I've taken chances, made mistakes, gone forward, I've come to a better understanding. Mistakes do not keep me from going forward in my spiritual life; fear to make them does.

I often find myself thinking of the words of Paul in Cor. 2:2, that it has not even entered into our hearts what God has prepared for those who love him. I think of the qualities that make a good friend. A friend is not one who watches and counts my mistakes. A good friend believes in me more than I believe in myself. A person I want to be with. I remind myself, God is that and more.

That is my image of God. And that is the why mistakes mean little to the one who is Divine. Effort, intention, and attempts, these are the things that matter.