Have You Buried Your Talent?
At this time of the year, we read many scripture passages that have to do with judgment and the second coming of Christ. It is the end of our church year… just before Advent and the beginning of a new look at Jesus’ life and ministry. Next Sunday is Christ the King Sunday when we actually celebrate the promised return of Christ and there are always two messages: “Isn’t it great that our Savior will return to be with us again?” and “Oh, by the way, what have you been doing while he has been gone?”
I love it that, from time to time, the Bible gives us an illustration that is so specific that only a targeted group might fully understand the example. This time, the epistle lesson tells us that the day of the Lord will come “like a thief in the night.” If you have ever been robbed, then you know the sensation of feeling safe and secure one moment and totally vulnerable the next. That one event can forever change the way in which you keep your valuables… the things that you treasure. It may even change your perspective on what is valuable in your life. The second example of the day of the Lord says that it comes “like labor pains come upon a pregnant woman.” Those of us who have waited through the long nine months of pregnancy know the uncertainty of those final days… a day we all eagerly wait for… and yet a day whose timing we cannot fully predict. After that day comes, all first-time parents can reflect on the radical way in which their lives were changed by this one event and how their earlier assumptions of what was important were changed by the advent of those labor pains and the birth of that child.
The last time that I preached on this passage from Matthew three years ago, I talked about members of this congregation and the different talents that they have… and how important it was to develop those talents and use them to build up the Kingdom of God in this world. But there is another way for us to look at this passage of scripture and draw some different interpretations of the story from this same text.
The master in our story went away and left his three servants with different amounts of money. These servants knew the master would return, but they did not know when. While the text from the New Revised Standard Version suggests that the entrusted his own money to these servants, the word used in the Greek more commonly meant that the master gave this money to them… to use as they saw fit. But, while he did give it to them and did go away on a lengthy journey far from his home, this gift was, in some ways, a test of their abilities and their faith. For the master did intend to return and, at that time, ask for an accounting of the gift that he had given. We will explore more about that later.
First, let’s talk about this incredible gift that this master gave to his people. When we read this passage, we may not think that one talent is a significant amount of money, but a talent was the largest denomination of currency in use in the Middle East at that time. Does anyone know the largest denomination of currency in use in the United States today? It is $100,000. That is the largest bill that the US Treasury produces. It is a nice “chunk of change”… the equivalent of several years’ pay for most of us. One talent, in Jesus’ day, was also a substantial sum of money. The average working person of that time never saw a talent… only a denarius… the equivalent of one day’s wages for a common laborer. In today’s economy, that might be $75-80. That denarius… one day’s wage… was equal to half a shekel… making a shekel equivalent to perhaps $150 in today’s money. It took three thousand shekels to equal one talent… so, a talent was then almost half a million dollars in today’s money… or half a lifetime of wages… the combined earnings of twenty years of labor or more. One talent was a small fortune.
So, the first servant received more than two million dollars… the second received around one million dollars and the third received about half a million dollars in today’s money. Let’s not feel sorry for that last servant. What he received was nothing to sneeze at! These were all gifts of money that no servant of that day might expect to receive… so already, Jesus’ parable has stretched the boundaries of what any person who was listening might be able to comprehend. What an incredibly generous person this master was! No other master would give such a valuable gift!
If the first point of the parable revolves around the incredible generosity of the master, the second point revolves around the actions of the servants. And apparently the actions of these servants depended upon their view of their master. Did they see their master as someone who would encourage and support their every effort to use the master’s gifts, praising them for their efforts regardless of the outcome, or did they see their master as a cruel and vengeful judge who would punish any misstep on their part, taking every opportunity to humiliate and degrade them? The first two servants did not seem to be concerned about the risk of investing their money for greater return. The third servant, however, was so concerned about the judgment of his master that he felt the safest thing to do was to simply bury the money in the ground so that he could produce it whenever the master might request it. This, by the way, was the common practice of the time… burying the money.
The Bible certainly allows us to view God and God’s actions in history in different ways. There are lots of stories of a God of judgment and wrath… and lots of stories of a God of love and mercy. Which picture of God do you carry in your heart… and how does that picture of God influence the way in which you use the gifts that God has given to you? Some commentators suggest that we look at the “self-fulfilling prophesy” theory to find our answer. According to this theory, what we believe in our hearts tends to be what happens in your lives because researchers have shown that we create scenarios in our lives that support our own beliefs. We also tend to interpret what happens to us through the lens of our beliefs. If, for example, we believe that God is a vengeful God of wrath, we will find evidence in our lives…and the world around us… that supports this view of God. If, on the other hand, we believe that God is a God of boundless love and mercy, we will seek evidence in our lives… and the world around us that supports this view of God. We, ourselves, will take actions in our own lives that reflect our own view of God. Just as children who feel they are surrounded by love and support take greater risks that those who are fearful, we as children of God also take greater risks in our lives and ministries if we believe that the God we worship is one of love, mercy, and boundless grace.
So, we have looked at the generosity of this master toward his servants and we have looked at the servants’ actions and their beliefs about the master that they serve… and we have examined both of these things in light of what we believe about God and God’s actions toward us. The last piece of the puzzle that I want to raise with you today is the question of what the treasure is that the master gave to his servants. Traditionally, this passage has been used as a stewardship message… a discussion of the money that we have and how we will use the money that has been given to us. I will not deny that it always falls at the time of year when we are considering our pledge to the church and must make a decision about our commitment to next year’s budget. We, of course, always broaden the message to include “talents” that we have beyond the money we possess… so that everyone can contribute, regardless of their financial capabilities. This was, indeed, the focus of my sermon the last time we looked at this passage.
Today, I want to ask a more provocative question: What if the treasure that the master gave to these servants was not money at all? If you recall, we have been examining several parables that have to do with the Kingdom of God and what the Kingdom of God is like. We have been comparing Jesus’ view of the Kingdom of God with the Pharisees’ view of the Kingdom of God and one of those pictures has always come up lacking. Jesus has been illustrating the size of the gap between the Pharisees’ view of God and Jesus’ perspective of God. What if we applied that same logic to this parable? What if the treasure that the master gave these servants was not money at all? What if it was something much more valuable than money? What if the treasure that the master gave was the “pearl of great price”… the bridegroom who arrived at midnight… the feast to which all are invited… and so on? What if the treasure that the master gave was the knowledge of his son and the grace that was given to all through him? Have we not all received this gift of indescribable value? And what have we done with the gift that we have received?
Thought-provoking, isn’t it? What have we done with the gift of grace that we have received? Have we buried it in the ground… hoarding it for ourselves… so that on the Day of Judgment, we can retrieve it and “prove ourselves worthy”? Do we want to have it safe at hand so that when the One who will judge the world comes we can show it to him and say, “Look, I did what I was supposed to do? I listened. I repented. I took Jesus as my Savior. I am born again!”
The most amazing thing about this trip to Thailand was the wonder of being in church with young people who shared with me that their grandparents had been Christians and that they had grown up in a Christian home. That could only have happened in this Buddhist country if someone had been willing to share the gift that they had received with others. The fruit of those first Presbyterian missionaries who came to Thailand more than one hundred and fifty years ago was the church of two thousand members where I preached two services last Sunday. It was the cab driver who drove us from the airport to the Christian Guesthouse who knew of Jesus Christ. It was the abandoned woman with leprosy whose three lovely children all have master’s degrees and a solid faith in God today. Someone told them the story. Someone shared the treasure that they had received… and today, the value of that treasure has been multiplied by the number of people who have also received it.
Have you buried your talent? When was the last time that you shared the treasure you have received with someone else? That’s a question that I ask myself every day. I find that, if I look for opportunities to share that story, those opportunities are always there. Take the risk. Share the treasure. Believe that the God who loves you and blesses the work that you do in his name will multiply your efforts in ways that you cannot imagine… just as the early missionaries to Thailand could not possibly imagine the number of Christians in that country today. Don’t bury your talent… share it! Amen.