November 13, 2011
Matthew 25:14-30
I came across a quote by Maya Angelou this week that read: “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” I wish I had come across this quote last week, for there is a lot of truth in it. It went with last week’s sermon but it also fits today as it goes with my next quote.
Another thing I read this week was an article that was a little disturbing. The author, from across the pond (he was British), addressed some of the issues being raised by Occupy Wall Street and other such movements circling the globe. The author is well traveled; the article was titled “The Self-Attribution Fallacy,” which is crediting yourself with outcomes for which you are not responsible. The first sentence of this article read, “If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.”[1] You know, he’s got a point. People in the Third-World work hard just to put a pot of beans or a bowl of rice on their table in the evening. Reading this article, as I was pondering what I was going to say about Jesus’ Parable of the Talents, gave me a lot to think about.
I want to approach this passage on a “post-stewardship Sunday” from a different perspective that it is often used. It’s often used as a stewardship sermon, but there is more to it than just asking people to make a pledge to their church’s budget. The passage from Matthew’s gospel isn’t just about hard work being rewarded; in fact, it may not be about that at all. It’s about being called to be faithful regardless of where we find ourselves. Whether we’ve been given a little or lot of whatever—brains, money, opportunity—doesn’t matter in God’s eyes. What matters is how faithful we are with what God has given us. READ MATTHEW 25:14-30.
###
I’m normally rooting for the underdog. Well, not always. Friday was an exception when Carolina was playing Michigan State on an aircraft carrier out in California. Whenever the Steelers or Carolina are playing, my fondness for the underdog wanes. Of course, with the Pirates, they’re almost always underdogs. But when I don’t have a perceived stake in the game, I want to see the underdog do well. And I think Jesus is that way, too. After all, he has all those sayings about the last being first.[2] Which makes this parable a little hard to understand? Why does the man’s master pick on this poor guy? After all, he must have limited abilities since the talents are handed out based on the ability of each recipient. And this guy gets only one. Furthermore, he’s obviously afraid of his master. He’s infected with a paralyzing fear that keeps him from action and this fear the gets him consigned to hell. Don’t you agree; it just doesn’t seem right! But here it is in Scripture; therefore we must deal with it.
Matthew sets this parable in a unique place, right between several parables that deal with judgment. In fact, the 24th and 25th chapters of Matthew are about the end of the age, and the return of the Messiah for judgment. The way Jesus begins the Parable of the Talents links it with grammatically with the preceding Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids.[3] And the parable that follows, about the judgment of the Nations, continues this theme of Judgment that is found throughout these two chapters. So, this parable isn’t about the right to make a profit nor does it support (or challenge, for that matter) a capitalist economy (which wasn’t even known in Jesus’ day). Instead, Jesus is saying something about how we are to live our lives. We’re living in the in-between. Jesus came and called us. All three of these guys claim to be disciples; they all call Jesus “Master.” He came, forgave and called us into his ministry and sends us out to recruit and to make disciples, with awareness that his return will bring judgment. The question that this parable should leave us asking is “How are we doing?” Jesus is coming back, what will he think of how we’re living?
As I said, this parable not only follows but is linked to the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids. Both parables address Jesus’ delay and the difficulty it created within the early Christian community. People expected Jesus’ return to be imminent, and as the months became years they began to worry. In recalling these two parables, Matthew reminds the community that Jesus hinted that his return might be delayed. In emphasizing his delay, Jesus tells this story about a man who goes on a trip and entrusts his slaves with his wealth. Two slaves, as we see in this story, go out and double the Master’s money, but one of the slaves hides that which he was given. The two who take the risk receive an even a greater reward while the one who takes the easy path—not even putting the money in a saving account so it gains a bit of interest—is punished. The surface meaning here is fairly clear. Doing something is better than doing nothing. Laziness is not a Christian trait. We’re not to just sit back and wait for Christ’s return. Instead we’re to take what God has given us and use it; we’re to be good stewards of the time, talents, and blessings God has given us, using our gifts wisely until either Christ returns or we’re called to our heavenly home.
As I have often talked about, the idea of a steward can be understood in the relationship between kings within the great empires in Biblical times. These large empires, like Babylon and Rome, were too big for one person to rule. Think about Herod, King of the Jews. Herod wasn’t the final authority; that was Caesar Augustus. All that Herod controlled belong ultimately, not to him, but to Caesar in Rome. Caesar entrusted Herod with his holdings in Israel. It’s the same with us, God entrust us with certain gifts and talents and blessings. But they’re not really ours, these talents and blessings belong to God. We’re just stewards of them. That’s something that all three of the slaves in this parable understand. What they have and what they make isn’t theirs. It belongs to their master.
Right after I came back from my Sabbatical, I showed a clip in the sermon that came from the movie Shenandoah. It starred Jimmy Stewart as Charlie Anderson, a farmer in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War. Charlie’s prayer at the beginning of the movie is classic:
Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested it. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be eatin’ it if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel. But we thank you just the same for this food we’re about to eat. Amen.
Too often that’s our attitude. We should be thankful for the land, the ability to clear it and to plant and harvest and for the sun and the rain… The slaves in the parable knew the talents weren’t theirs to keep. The same is true for us. Our lives are not ours, nor are our abilities or our opportunities. We were placed in a particular spot within history and on the globe and are to make the best of the situation in a way that will honor the Creator.
Now let me address the poor guy who got only one talent. He sounds so poor, like he only received a dollar for an allowance when his older brothers got two and five. But a talent was a significant amount. We’re not talking about the widow’s mite here. A talent was 10,000 denarii and each denarius represented a day’s labor in the ancient world. So, he’s given what he could have expected to earn as a laborer during a lifetime.[4] That’s a lot of cash at one time, so maybe we shouldn’t feel quite so bad for him. Furthermore, maybe we can more easily relate to him.
Part of the problem with the man who received only one talent is that he has no love for his master. He acknowledges his master’s power, but instead of loving him, he fears him.[5] This guy reminds us that not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom.[6] We have to do more than proclaim Jesus with our lips; we have to follow him. This calls for personal examinations that’s not pleasant to do but is necessary because the consequences are so high.
Frightened, this slave does nothing. Inactivity on our part is a sin. We’re called by Jesus not just because he’s a good guy who wants to forgive us our sins; we’re called to do his work in the world. The slave who received one blessing fails to do his part and is found guilty. He serves as a warning to all of us. We’re all given a life and we’re given some opportunities and some skills. What do we do with them?
God wants us to partner with him for his work in the world. Too often we think of God as the Santa Claus in the sky, the one whom we turn when we need something. And although we’re to go to God with our needs, we should have another view of God, one who calls us to work with him for the life of the world. God isn’t there just to give us stuff for our own enjoyment. Instead, consider this, God invests in us. God gives us the things we need to do our work and then calls us to partner with him as we serve as his ambassadors in the world. What do we do with the investment God has made in us? Think of the investments you make in life and how you judge them… Then, put yourself in God’s shoes and consider the investment God has made in your life.
God also calls us to take risks. Often we want to be like the guy with one talent and want to take the easy way out. But we see where that got him. Instead of taking the easy path, God calls us to step out on faith, to trust him, to take risks. You know, when you invest, if you expect any kind of return, you have to take a risk. The greater the return, the greater the risk! It’s no different with our faith.
If we want an example of a risk taker, we should consider what God has done for us. There is no greater risk in the history of the cosmos than sending Jesus. God took a huge risk by becoming one of us! God took a risk on us; we’re called to take a risk for him. In doing so, we will grow in faith.
We might wonder what would have happened if this servant who did nothing had invested and lost the talent that had been entrusted to him. First off, I can’t think of any more horrible of a fate than being assigned to outer darkness. What else could the master have done to him? Would the master have been upset if he’d lost his talent? There is one other place in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus speaks of the talent as a unit of measuring wealth. In the 18th chapter Jesus tells the story of the Unforgiving Servant. With this story, you have a servant who is forgiven the debt of 10,000 talents—far greater than the amounts referred to in this parable. Such forgiveness implies that faithfulness, not success, is at the heart of the Christian message. The guy in Matthew 18 has lost a fortune that’s beyond the comprehension of the guy who had a mere talent, yet he is forgiven. Will not God also forgive us?
What are the talents that God has blessed you with? And more importantly, are you using them to their fullness? Are you willing to step out and take a risk, knowing that’s what our Master expects of us? Or, do you prefer to play it safe? Would you prefer to play it safe knowing it jeopardizes your eternal security. God gives us blessings and grants us responsibilities accordingly. And no one can deny that God has not blessed us—all of us—richly. We live in the richest nation in the history of the world, yet, as a people, as our wealth have grown, we have statistically become less and less generous. That is, we’re given a smaller percentage of our income to church and charities. We place our trust in bank accounts and retirement funds and possessions—and are less willing to take a risk, to step out in faith and partner with God to do the work to which he has called.
This is a parable of judgment. We are reminded that we are responsible for what God has given us, which includes not only our possessions, but also our time, our abilities, our imagination, and our intellect. We belong to God! But do we live like it? It’s a tough question, but we should be asking that for the eternal consequences are high… Amen.
©2011 Jeff Garrison and First Presbyterian Church of Hastings
[1] George Monbiot, “The Self-Attribution Fallacy,” The Guardian (November 8, 2011).
[2] Matthew 19:30, 20:16; Mark 9:35, 10:31.
[3] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Churchbook: Matthew 13-28 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 552
[4] Bruner, 553.
[5] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation: A Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993), 286.
[6] Matthew 7:21
