Here's a story written by
Helen
O'neill
about an
Ohio minister who gave each of his congregants
$50 and an assignment: Use it and their
God-given abilities to raise money. In doing
so, they received a true gift.
The Rev.
Hamilton Coe Throckmorton shivered with
anticipation as he gazed at the loot - wads
of $50 bills piled high beside boxes of
crayons in a Sunday school classroom.
Cautiously, he locked the door. Then he
started counting.
Throckmorton was oblivious. For hours,
perched awkwardly on child-sized wooden
stools surrounded by biblical murals and
children's drawings, the pastor and a
handful of coconspirators concentrated on
the count.
Forty-thousand dollars. Throckmorton smiled
in satisfaction as he stashed the money in a
safe.
That Sunday, the 52-year-old minister donned
his creamy white robes, swept to the pulpit
and delivered one of the most extraordinary
sermons of his life.
First he read from the Gospel of Matthew.
"And unto one he gave five talents, to
another two, and to another one; to every
man according to his ability."
Then he explained the parable of the
talents, which tells of the rich master who
entrusts three servants with a sum of money
- "talents" - and instructs them to go forth
and do good. The master lavishes praise on
the two servants who double their money. But
he casts into the wilderness the one so
afraid to take a risk that he buries his
share.
Throckmorton spends up to 20 hours working
on his weekly homily, and his clear diction,
contemplative message and ringing voice
command the church. Gazing down from the
pulpit that Sunday, Throckmorton dropped his
bombshell.
Like the master, he would entrust each adult
with a sum of money - in this case, $50.
Church members had seven weeks to find ways
to double their money, the proceeds to go
toward church missions.
"Live the parable of the talents!"
Throckmorton exhorted, as assistants handed
out hundreds of red envelops stuffed with
crisp $50 bills and stunned church members
did quick mental calculations, wondering
where all the money had come from. There are
about 1,700 in the congregation, though not
everyone attends each week.
The cash, Throckmorton explained, was loaned
by several anonymous donors.
In her regular pew at the back of the
church, where she has listened to sermons
for 40 years, 73-year-old Barbara Gates
gasped. What kind of kooky nonsense is this,
she thought.
"Sheer madness," sniffed retired accountant
Wayne Albers, 85, to his wife, Marnie, who
hushed him as he whispered loudly. "Why
can't the church just collect money the
old-fashioned way?"
In a center pew, Ann Nagy's eyes moistened
as she considered her ailing, beloved
father, his suffering, and the song she had
written to comfort him near death. She
nudged her husband Scott. "Give me your
$50," she whispered. Nagy knew exactly what
she would do.
Throckmorton wrapped up his two morning
services by saying that children would get
$10. And he assured the congregation that
anyone who didn't feel comfortable could
simply return the money. No consignment to
outer darkness for those who didn't
participate.
Throckmorton is warm and engaging and
approachable, as comfortable talking about
the Cleveland Indians baseball team as he is discussing scripture. At the Federated
Church, he is known simply as Hamilton.
"There was definitely this tension, this
pressure to live up to something," said Hal
Maskiell, a 62-year-old retired Navy pilot
who spent days trying to figure out how to
meet the challenge. Maskiell's passion is flying a four-seater
Cessna 172 Skyhawk over the Cuyahoga County
hills. He decided to use his $50 to rent air
time from Portage County airport and charge
$30 for half-hour rides. Church members
eagerly signed up. Maskiell was thrilled to
get hours of flying time, and he raised
$700.
His girlfriend, Kathy Marous, 55, was far
less confident. What talents do I have, she
thought dejectedly. She was tempted to give
the money back.
And then Marous found an old family recipe
for tomato soup, one she hadn't made in 19
years. She remembered how much she had
enjoyed the chopping and the cooking and the
canning and the smells. With Hal's
encouragement Marous dug out her pots. She
bought three pecks of tomatoes. Suddenly she
was chopping and cooking and canning again.
At $5 a jar, she made $180.
"I just never imagined people would pay
money for the things I made," Marous
exclaimed.
Others felt the same way. Barbara Gates
raised $450 crafting pendants from beads and
sea glass - pieces she had casually made for
her grandchildren over the years. Kathie
Biggin created fanciful little red-nosed
Rudolph pins and sold them for $2.50.
Twelve-year-old Amanda Horner pooled her
money with friends, stocked up at JoAnn's
fabric store, and made dozens of colorful
fleece baby blankets, which were purchased
by church members and then donated to a
local hospital.
But it wasn't the money; everyone said so.
It was something else, something far less
tangible but yet so very real. For seven
weeks an almost magical sense of excitement
and energy and camaraderie infused the
elegant church on Bell Street,
spilling over into homes and hearts as the
parable of the talents came alive.
In her sun-filled studio on Strawberry Lane,
Shirley Culbertson felt it - a joyful sense
of purpose that she had rarely experienced
since her husband passed two years ago.
Culbertson, 81, is a gifted painter and watercolors fill her house. But she
discovered another talent during this time -
knitting whimsical eight-inch stuffed dolls
with button noses and floppy hats. She
raised $90.
Martine Scheuermann lived the parable in her
Elm Street kitchen, transforming it into an
"applesauce factory" for several weeks. The
49-year-old human resources director would
rise at 6 a.m. on Sundays in order to have
warm batches ready for sampling at church
services.
In his origami-filled bedroom on Bradley
Street, Paul Cantlay lived the parable too.
Surrounded by sheets of colored construction
paper, the 9-year-old crafted paper dragons
and stars and sailboats. He set up an
origami stand at the end of his street,
charged 50 cents to $5 depending on the
piece, and raised $68.
The pretty little village on the Chagrin
River falls had never seen anything quite
like it. Everyone seemed to be talking about
the talent challenge: over the clatter of
coffee cups at Dink's restaurant, at the
Fireside bookshop on the green, sipping
drinks at the Gamekeeper's Taverne. Even
members of other churches weighed in: Have
you heard what's happening at Federated?
Tesar, a 58-year-old retired nurse,
discovered her talent in buckets of
flip-flops for sale at Old Navy. She stocked
up on yarn and beads and made dozens of
funky, fluffy decorative footwear that were
a huge hit with teens. Tesar raised $550 for
the church, is still taking orders and is
thinking of starting a business. Now even
her children call her the "flip-flop lady."
"It wasn't exactly spiritual, but I had a
lot of fun," said Quintin, whose husband,
Mike, made glass birdfeeders. "And it was
just this great way of bringing everyone
together and connecting with the church."
Kathy Wellman quilted. Mary Hobbs knit
shawls and penciled portraits. Cathy
Hatfield auctioned a ride in her hot-air
balloon. Norma and Trent Bobbitt pooled
their money with another church member to
hire a harpist from the Cleveland orchestra
and host an elegant evening dinner party.
Folks paid $50 each to attend and the
Bobbitts made over $1,200.
The deadline to return the money was Sunday,
Oct. 28. Nervously, some church council
members suggested posting plain clothes
security guards at services that day. But
Throckmorton would have none of it. He
insisted that the spirit of the challenge,
which had already inspired so much goodwill,
would carry them safely through. And it did.
Organ music filled the church as people
silently filed down the aisle, dropped their
proceeds into baskets, and offered
testimonials about what living the parable
had meant to them. Throckmorton thanked
everyone for their generosity. Then he
started counting.
A week later he delivered the joyful news:
They had more than doubled the amount
distributed.
The initial take was $38,195 over the loan,
but the amount is still growing. Some people
didn't make the deadline, or extended it in
order to finish their projects.
The final sum will be divided equally
between three charities: One-third will go
to a school library in South Africa where
the church is involved in an AIDS mission;
one-third will go to micro-loan
organizations that provide seed money for
small businesses in developing countries;
one-third will help the Interfaith
Hospitality Network in Cleveland,
specifically programs for homeless women.
Throckmorton is asked all the time if the
talent challenge will become an annual
event, but he is doubtful. It was a special
time and a special idea, he says, and he is
not sure it could be re-created or relived.
Yet in a very real sense, it lives on.
Church members who never knew each other
have become friends. And orders for
applesauce, flip-flops and Rudolph pins are
still rolling in for Christmas.
There are other, more poignant reminders.
Like Ann Nagy's haunting tribute to her
father, who died of brain cancer on Oct. 11.
Nagy, 44, has always been a singer with a
clear lovely voice. It wasn't until her
father grew ill and moved into a hospice
that she started writing songs. She found
solace in the music and a way of
communicating that was sometimes easier than
spoken words.
At hospice, patients are taught five simple
truths to tell their loved ones before they
die: I'll miss you. I love you. I forgive
you. I'm sorry. Goodbye.
Borrowing from that theme, Nagy wrote a
farewell song for her Dad. She pooled her
$50 talent money with her husband's share
and cut a CD to sell to church members.
Ironically it was finished just an hour
before her father passed, on Oct. 11. Nagy
stood by his bed and sang it for him anyway.
On Nov. 11 - her father's 72nd birthday -
Throckmorton preached a sermon about dying.
He invited Nagy to the altar. There,
accompanied by a cellist and a pianist she
sang "Before You Go."
Her voice soared. The congregation wept. The
parable of the talents had never seemed so
alive.
The
ability to convert ideas to things is the secret to outward success.-Henry Ward Beecher
The
highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he
becomes by it. -John Ruskin
|
Tim