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The following message for the moment is delivered by the Reverend Dr. Bruce Wheeler Thielman. Today's sermon is entitled, "Of Bulls, Bears, Serpents, and Doves." The scripture reading of the morning is the gospel according to Matthew chapter 25. I begin the reading at verse 14.

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For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.

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He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's

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money. After a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward bringing five talents more, saying, "Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more."

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His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master." He also who had the two talents came forward saying, "Master, you delivered to me two talents;

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here I have made two talents more." His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master."

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He also who had received the one talent came forward saying, "Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not winnow. So I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours."

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But his master answered him, "You wicked and slothful servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sowed and gather where I have not winnowed. Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was mine own with interest.

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So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have abundance. But from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness, their men will weep and gnash their

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teeth." May God bless to us and to our understanding his reading from his holy words. Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

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I speak this morning to the theme of "Bull, Bear, Sheep, Wolves, Serpents and Doves." Have you ever watched the New York Stock Exchange in action? It is a veritable blizzard of activity. Electric boards carrying all kinds of numbers and letters, hundreds of traders yelling and

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waving their arms. You look at all this cacophony of confusion and you wonder to yourself, "Does this have any meaning at all?" Well, of course it does.

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This is the market economy in action. And then later that day on the evening news, radio or television, some reporter will say something like this, "Investors on Wall Street today, etc., etc." I began to think about that phrase, "Investors on Wall Street."

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The fact of the matter is that it's only partially correct. There are not only investors on Wall Street, but there must be divestors as well. There have to be buyers, but there must also be sellers. There have to be willing to be people who are in advancing and people who are in retreating.

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There have to be, to use the parlance of the market, bulls and bears. A bull is someone who charges ahead, investing more and more. A bear is someone who hugs to himself what is his and backs off, taking it with him. Now in the parable of the talents, which I have just read in your hearing, we have two

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bulls and one bear. To one bull is given five talents, and he charges out and makes five talents more. To another bull is given two talents, and he charges out and makes two talents more. But to the bear there is given only one talent, and he, unwilling to run the risk of investment,

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buries the talent in the ground so that it doesn't even earn the interest it might have earned had it been put into the bank. And Jesus has the master in the story, the featured character, say to the bulls, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

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But to the bear this character says, "You are wicked, you are lazy, take away from him what he already has and throw him into the outer darkness." I think it's obvious from this parable that Jesus is bullish about faith. He wants us to invest for the kingdom's profit.

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He expects there to be some risk in our religion. He stands with the bulls and not with the bears. Now think with me for a moment about bulls and bears. I'm sure you have known individuals, as I have, who when they came to faith came with

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very noble goals and aspirations. But somehow their later life does not display the fulfillment of those goals and aspirations. You have known people, just as I have known them, who are converts to the faith, and when they are converted they make high resolutions about having an aggressive discipleship.

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But somehow across the years this aggressive discipleship disappears. It's rather like the story of the patient in the hospital who was very near death. He said to his doctor, "If you and the hospital can make me well, I will give you $50,000 for your new medical wing."

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Well the man did become well, and some months later the doctor was walking down the street and saw the patient. He said to him, "Well, you've been out a while now. How are you feeling?"

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He said, "I feel wonderful." "Well, that's fine," said the doctor. "Then there's something I want to talk to you about." "What is that?"

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"Well, you said while you were in the hospital that if you became well you would give $50,000 to the building of our new wing." The patient looked at him with a startled expression on his face and said, "Great gun! That shows you how sick I really was."

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There are a lot of people who, caught up in their sins, find themselves in desperate need of repentance and beginning again. They come to Christ and they offer themselves to him, and they receive from him their salvation and the promise of all eternity.

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But somehow the enthusiasm that arose out of their need disappears, the warm glow of their vigorous promises vanishes away, their religion turns from risk into routine, and their faith becomes dull and unexciting. They sometimes even wonder, if they are honest with you, why they were excited in the first

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place. Jesus talks about people like this. In the book of Revelation he addresses the members of seven different churches. When he speaks to those who are part of the church at Ephesus, he says these words, "I

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have this against you. You have abandoned the love you had at first. Think back. Remember how you were when you first believed.

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Repent of your present lifelessness and do the work that you did at first." Jesus says this to many congregations and to many individuals today. "Be a bull, charging with aggressive discipleship. Don't be a bear, clutching to yourself what you have and not seeking to gain any more."

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Langton Gilkey is one of the best-known Christian teachers and authors in America. In one of his books, entitled Shantung Compound, he tells about the extended length of time that he spent in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War. Conditions were very hard there.

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Everyone was hungry and there was great privation. The only thing that kept the 1,500 prisoners together, the only thing that gave them hope, was their faith. Out of their faith in God, they came to a meaningful commitment not only to God but

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to each other. And this mutual support enabled them to endure what the Japanese called upon them to endure. One day the gates of this prison swung wide, and in came a whole train of donkey carts. Each of these carts was loaded to the very top with Red Cross parcels, all of them sent

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from America. There were 150 Americans amongst the 1,500 prisoners there in the camp. Some of the Americans argued that because these packages had come from the American Red Cross, they should be distributed only to the American prisoners.

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But this was thought to be quite outrageous by everyone else in the camp, and they protested. The matter was taken to the commander of the camp for judgment. He decided that every person in the camp should get one parcel, and that the Americans could receive one and a half parcels each, and they were to be distributed the next morning at

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ten a.m. The night before was like Christmas Eve, everyone looking forward to the treats and perhaps the comforting clothing that they would be receiving out of these boxes, the things that they hadn't had and so desperately needed.

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They were all gathered there at ten o'clock the next morning, but no one came out to distribute the heavily guarded packages. Finally one soldier came out and nailed an announcement to the bulletin board. The announcement read that seven Americans had protested this decision by the commander,

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believing that all of the packages should go to the Americans. And so the commander, to settle the matter, had sent off word to Tokyo for a final judgment. Ten days passed, and in those ten days a great amount of discord grew up amongst the prisoners. Where there had been unity, there was disunity.

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Where there had been peace, there was peace no more. Where there had been mutual support, it had vanished away. People got into fights with one another. In one instance, two little boys were fighting, and their fathers went over to stop the fight

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and became involved in the fight themselves. Everything that held them together was lost. And then word came back from Tokyo, and the word was, "Each person in the camp will be given one package, and all of the other packages will be sent on to other camps."

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So the Americans in the camp did not get nine and a half packages each. They didn't even get one and one-half packages each. Because of the higher morality of an Emperor-worshipping general back in Tokyo, the packages were distributed in a more equitable manner.

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Why do I share this story with you? Because the resistance and the strength, the toughness, the ability to stand up to privation which these people had, the bullish, aggressive faith that they had, was destroyed when the bears took over, when selfishness became the order of the day.

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Unity was gone. And where before there had been the flame of a hot faith, there was at best now only a very tepid discipleship. That's the difference between the bull who wants to grow and grow with others in faith,

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and the bear who wants to keep everything to himself. Just about five days ago I received a letter from a woman who had just gotten home from the intensive care unit of one of our Pittsburgh hospitals. Not a member of this Church, she regularly listens to our radio broadcast.

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She told me in this letter how she was suffering from terminal cancer. She had heard me there in the ICU preaching a sermon about tithing. She wrote to me, "You know, my husband and I were married 45 years ago, and we began tithing the very day we were married.

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We have not had everything we wanted in life. Sometimes we have lived in rather dilapidated housing. But we never gave up tithing. We had two children, both of whom have grown up to honor us.

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One is a teacher and the other is an engineer, and they both are tithers. Our cup runneth over," she wrote. And then in the next paragraph she said, "For eight years I have been fighting cancer, and I have watched your television show and listened to your broadcast.

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And your Church has so much to offer when compared with our little congregation. That's the reason I like to be one with you over the air. But you see, when you were preaching that sermon on tithing, there was a nurse trying to help me, so I couldn't hear the whole sermon, and I'm wondering if you could send me a copy

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of it, and also if you would put my name on the prayer list in your congregation." I was thrilled with her letter. Here is a vital and vibrant woman who has gone through a great deal. She has persisted with her husband in her tithing, and out of this she has kept this

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aggressive, bullish faith which even now, in the face of an eight-year war with cancer which she describes as being terminal, even now she wants that faith to continue growing. May I have a copy to read it, to edify myself by it, to gain more in the things of the faith. And the PS in the letter read, "Please excuse my handwriting.

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My hand is very shaky because of all of the needles that were put into it, but I'm practicing every day to learn to write better." That's an inspiring woman. That's the testimony of a bull, not a bear.

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Now of course, being bullish does not mean that we are to be stupid. And this brings us to another word of Jesus, a word in which he speaks about sheep and wolves and serpents and doves. He says to his disciples, "I send you out as sheep among wolves, so be wise as serpents

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and harmless as doves." Now if I may make a colossally mixed metaphor here. What we're being told in these two passages is that we are to be aggressive in our believing like a bull, not selfish like a bear.

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We must recognize that the world in which we are living is a world filled with ravenous, selfish wolves. And into the midst of that world, believing what we believe and living as we are called upon to live, we go like sheep.

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And so it's very important that we be as quick-witted, as intelligent as a serpent, and at the same time as harmless as a dove. It's a very interesting picture that is given to us. It's interesting to notice that the serpent is really a rather stupid animal.

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Wolves are generally not as intelligent as mammals. But because the snake is very quick, because it moves silently, because it is seen to be a rather crafty animal and can vanish in but an instant, because of these things Old Testament writers thought of the serpent as being particularly intelligent.

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That's the reason we read that sentence in Genesis. Now the serpent was the most subtle of all the beasts of the field, and Jesus picks up this Old Testament image, and he is using it here. The dove, and this is interesting, too, is not a particularly intelligent bird.

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But there are two characteristics about a dove that are together absolutely unique. First, the dove will offer up its life in the protection of others. Other birds will do that, too, but the dove will do it. But the dove goes beyond that to something else.

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The dove will not fight. That is the reason it is the traditional symbol of peace. A dove will permit itself to be pecked to death by other birds without ever once acting in opposition.

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What is being said to us, then, when Jesus says we are to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves, is this. Like sheep, like doves, we are to be guileless, but that does not mean we are to be gullible. Like sheep and doves, we are to be simple, but that does not mean we are to be simple-minded.

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Like sheep and doves, we are to be soft-hearted, but that does not mean that we are not to be hard-headed, as intelligent, as clever, as wise as the serpent. If you bring this description of discipleship which Jesus gives to our own day and age, it presents some very interesting options.

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We all know we are living in a difficult time. Our country is caught in some kind of recession. No one seems to know whether it's ended, if it's going to get worse, when it will end. But we do know these things.

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We do know that unemployment is up 9.7 percent. We do know that 50 percent more businesses failed in the first six months of this year than the first six months of last year. We do know that government on the local and state and federal levels is having to cut

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back on its programs and to increase the tax burden which comes upon us. We do know that the lowest number of job opportunities were presented to the unemployed in the last quarter in this year of 1991, the lowest number in any quarter of the last eight years. We do know that the average American family income is declining.

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We do know that two million more of our citizens have slipped below the poverty level in the last 12 months. What does this say to us as Christians, as people who are to be aggressive like bulls and sensitive and offering like sheep and wise like serpents and self-sacrificing like

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the doves? Well, it seems to me it says very obviously in the first place that we are to be economically very careful, that we are to be frugal, that we are to be thrifty, that we are to seek to save and not to enter into foolish and unwise expenditures.

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But at the same time, this picture that Jesus paints of what disciples ought to be, this mix of metaphors says that we are to be in our carefulness and in our frugality no more restrained or no more tight-fisted when it comes to our faith. Our sacrificial giving should be growing as we grow in the things of Christ.

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If I may put it this way, we are not supposed to be like Donald Trump, who builds his empire on borrowed money and junk bonds and ends up the foolish spectacle that he is today. We are instead to rely upon the present power of the Holy Spirit. We are to use what we have with great wisdom.

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But part of that wisdom is that we do not deter our growth as Christians. We are to be frugal in everything but our faith, and in our faith we ought to continue to be aggressive and self-sacrificing. It has often been noted of Mark Twain that he was a very lazy man.

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And fortunately he was also a spendthrift. I say "fortunately" because what he would do was, he would spend himself into debt to such a degree that he would be forced to sit down and write something. And that's how some of his most excellent writings came to be.

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We are not to be lazy, and we are not to be selfish, and we are not to be profligate, but we are also not to forget our indebtedness to God, and we respond to it with our minds and our muscles and our money. I think this is what the Bible means when it talks about tithing, which is giving one-tenth

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of your net income to building the kingdom of God in one way or another. Those who get more are to give more, proportionate giving. And in all giving there is to be this spirit that is aggressive like the bull, that is never selfish like the bear, that is self-giving like the sheep, that is careful in the midst

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of a world of wolves, wise like a serpent, self-sacrificing like a dove. Because no matter how bad off we may think our society is, it is still the most high-living society on the face of the earth. And we are amongst those who enjoy that high living.

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And we are called as Christian servants to extend all the mercies we can offer to those here and to those far away from us, in the name of the Christ who gave everything for us. You all know, I'm sure, of how just a year ago a painting by Vincent van Gogh and a painting

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by Auguste Rodin, sold together for over 80 million dollars. Now, if that amount of money even moderately, remotely, represents the fair valuing of these things or these painters in terms of their impact on the world, then how much more is Jesus Christ?

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And how much more is there to be found in the people of Christ? To be in Christ is to be like him, and that is to offer oneself to the uttermost, actively, wisely, lovingly, sacrificially, anything less than that, is the course of falling. You see, in the end, the kingdom of God must live on our pledges of self and substance.

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But Jesus points out to us that so must we. We must live on our pledges of self and substance. And those who sow much will reap much, and those who sow little will reap nothing at all.

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To some he will say, "Depart from me, I never knew you, you are for the outer darkness." But to others he will say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord." Let us pray.

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It would be less than honest of us, our Father, if we did not say we are not frightened by this time, not full of questions and anxieties. If we have any sensitivity of mind or spirit, we must be concerned, and we must be careful. Amen.

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