Christ, I Plunge
Audio / Produced by The High CallingTranscript
In the parable of the talents, Jesus says the people most likely to fail him are the one-talent people. The five- and ten-talent people both did well, but the one-talent man buried his talent. He buried it because of his low self-image. He said, "I was afraid, and you are a hard man" (Luke 19:11-27).
That is precisely our self-deprecating mentality as lay people. We say to ourselves, "Anything that I do is so trivial it's not worth doing; it's not worth the risk. If I do it, it will make no appreciable difference. If I leave it undone, it will never be missed." And so we bury our talents.
All of us are not Billy Grahams. All of us cannot be Pope Johns. All of us cannot be Mother Teresas.
Robert Browning prayed,
Are there not . . . Two points in the adventure of the diver, One—when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge, One—when, a prince, he rises with his pearl? Festus, I plunge!
A Christian is a person who says, "Christ, I plunge. I take the step. I form the discipline of doing it every day."
from a talk called "The Laity Lad" delivered in 1987 at Laity Lodge in Leakey, Texas
He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation."
