Art

The sermon is based on Matthew 25:14-30. We are invited to put ourselves into the story. It is the Parable of the Talents. 

Talents were worth a lot. Even one talent pretty much equals an average lifetime of earning. Looked at this way, the servant with one talent spent his lifetime of work avoiding any productive use of his talent. One translation has the master displaying disgust for the "play it safe guy who won't go out on a limb."

Not using my talents for God equals an absence of joy. We express love by using our gifts for God. 

The word talent in its present meaning came from this parable. That is way cool. 

Talent means "the natural endowments of a person." When we don't use our talents "we forfeit our own good."

God doesn't ask for more than what we are capable of doing or being. 

In the "divorce" between Catholics and Protestants, Protestants got the Bible and Catholics got everything else. We cannot lose the art - the beauty that saves the world. 

God is the Great Creator and our creativity is our imaging of God. Art is spirituality. 

Art is the expression or application of human skill and creativity. 

To create is to bring into being. 

Acting intuitively is acting on truth without conscious reasoning (instinctive). 

We are gifted with stories. We have a sacred duty to clothe the world in stories. 

Why don't we create? Fear. Creating and sharing what we create makes us vulnerable. 

Come what may, I will create today. 

Prayer is a right brain activity. It is creative. It allows God's creativity to be expressed through us. Contemplate where you allowed God's creativity to flow today and where you blocked that flow. 

"What we play is life." Louis Armstrong

Michelangelo believed every stone held a figure captive and he sent these prisoners free. When we create we set free the beauty in the world. 

We put ourselves into our art and into our story.