The word cloud for this week is stark. I didn’t change anything in how it came back. Usally I’ll change the color scheme or try and get it to give me a word in a different location. This week the Black and White with Debt at so starkly contrasted to Jesus seemed correct. Out debt is rediculously large and stark, but the answer is Jesus.
In writing the presenting I had two concerns. 1) I did not address 9/11. In the past few years that would have be gross negligence in reading the context of the congregation’s life. When I learned that the twin spotlights were allowed to fade with the morning light on 9/12 this year, I thought that the commemorations had there proper ending. 2) I started in the introduction with monetary debt and relatively quickly transition to moral debt. I feared that I might have brought up uncertainty or fear without addressing it. In that I decided I paralleled the parable. It starts out as just a king settling accounts. It quickly gets to the point where we are not talking about just money or talents. After it makes that transition it doesn’t go back. The temporal points to the eternal. The eternal overshaddows the temporal. If we have eternal peace with God because He has removed those 10,000 talents of sin, then the troubles of today may not disappear, but they are put in the proper context.
Blessings on your week.