27th Sunday after Pentecost [Pr. 28] November 16, 2008 “Series A”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, through our baptism into the death and resurrection of your Son, Jesus the Christ, you have called us to be your apostles, to be witnesses to your redeeming grace in our world. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, open our hearts and minds to accept your gift of redeeming grace, and empower us to be your disciples, that we might use the talents that you give us to further your kingdom that you have entrusted to us. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
Charles Bartow, in his book God’s Human Speech, says, and I quote, “The Parable of the Talents is preached every fall when the leadership of the local congregation gets after the membership for money. Tithe your time. Tithe your talents. Tithe your cash. That is the conventional wisdom, and there is nothing wrong with it. It is wisdom that has stood the test of time and circumstance. That is precisely why we call it conventional wisdom. It may be tried and trite, but it is also true.
We do expect members of the church to turn over a portion of their assets to the church’s care. We look for quarter tithes, half tithes, full tithes, and we do not look in vain. Many members of the church are exceedingly generous in their support of their congregation, and its mission.”
But then, Bartow continues, “There is more to the Parable of the Talents than that, however. There is this: There is a master who turns over to his slaves enough of his own wealth to scare half to death even the most confident Wall Street money manager…” End quote. [Cited from Pulpit Resource, 1999]
So just what is this wealth that the master in our Lord’s story entrusts to his “servants,” a term that I prefer, as the Revised Standard Version of the Bible puts it, rather than the term “slaves”, as recorded in our lesson sheet. Well, as I learned from the various commentaries that I read in regard to our text, a single talent was, in the time of Jesus, worth what would be the equivalent to five years wages for the average worker.
Now, we might gain a greater appreciation for this story. To the one servant, whom his employer felt had the least ability, he hands over to him the equivalent of five years of his wages. To the second, he entrusts to him two talents, or the equivalent of ten years of his wages. And to the first, and most skilled servant, he entrusts him with ten talents, or the equivalent of a lifetime of his earnings. And then the master went on vacation. Well, I don’t think that I would be exaggerating by saying that these three gentlemen were given a huge hunk of cash, more than you or I might be used to dealing with at any one time.
And what do these three servants decide to do with all this money that they have been entrusted. Well, the ones who have been entrusted with the most, decide to take the risk of investing it in the market. And wow, the servant who was entrusted with a lifetime of earnings, doubled his masters money, before he got back from vacation. Likewise, the servant who had been entrusted with ten years of wages did the same. And they both received the praise of their master, and were given a huge and well deserved promotion.
But the third servant, the one who had the least ability, took what he had been given, which would have been like a suitcase full of gold, and buried it in the ground for safe keeping. Now here was a person who didn’t have any particular talents, other than being a common worker, who thought to himself, “I’ve got to protect this money, for if I lose it, I’ve got to work five years for nothing to repay it.”
And here lies the puzzle of this story. According to William H. Willimon, in his commentary on this text, The first-century Biblical scholar, Eduard Schweizer, says that the Jewish law of that day reads, ‘Whoever immediately buries property entrusted to him is no longer liable because he has taken the safest course conceivable.’ Thus the man who had received the one talent has followed the letter of the law, and has acted responsibly. Why wasn’t the master more impressed with this servant’s responsibility?” End quote.
This is a great question, especially in light of the volatility of the global stock market over the past three or four months. Can you imagine the turn that this story would have taken, if those servants who had been entrusted with over sixty years of wages, had invested all of that money into the market six months ago. They would have lost nearly forty percent of their master’s money, and the servant who had buried what had been entrusted to him would have come off looking like the hero.
I don’t think that I need to say much more, especially to those who are now retired or nearing retirement, such as I am, about the risk we take by investing money in the stock market. Yes, it is possible to increase your assets, even double them over a short time. But it is also easy to lose a huge portion of your investment in a short period of time as well. Thus, I doubt very much that this parable of our Lord can be taken as his advice to invest in the market.
In fact, I really doubt that this parable can really be understood literally as applying to money at all. And I believe that the directive to look at this story as an abstract expression of a greater reality comes from our Lord himself, who began his parable with these words: “For it is as if…”
In other words, Jesus tells this story, as he does most of his parables, asking us to think of the kingdom of God, as a means of interpreting the story he is about to tell.
With this in mind, let us look at the story from this perspective. And before we focus on the vast sum of riches that the servants are each entrusted with, let’s begin with who it is that entrusts them with such a wealth. As a story about the kingdom of God, it does not take a lot of imagination to realize that it is God who has entrusted to each of us this huge endowment of caring for his estate.
First, I believe it begins with the acknowledgement that it is God who has created and owns the universe, and all that is in it. And we are but his servants. Now I realize that this may not be a very popular belief in today’s culture, but it is the very basic premise of the Judeo-Christian faith. God is the master who has given to us, entrusted to us, the gift of life, and all that is needed to sustain it.
Before we begin to think about the number of years it would take to earn the value of what the master entrusts to his servants, we need to realize that the servants already are indebted to their master for their very life. It was to their master that these servants owed their very existence, who gave them the means to sustain and enjoy life, as toilsome as it may have seemed.
Given this, the enormous gift of wealth entrusted to each of the servants, according to their abilities, seems of lesser consequence, other than it was given to each according to their ability. The truth is, God has given to each of us an enormous trust, to use our life, according to our ability, to further his kingdom. And if I understand this parable correctly, we are not supposed to play it safe, to bury the various treasures that God has given us, but to take the risk of using and investing those gifts to increase God’s kingdom.
Can there be any greater example of what this parable means, than to look at the life of Jesus. Although being the master’s Son, he risked it all, he gave his all on the cross, that we might, through faith, come to be those whom God trusts with his inheritance.
I know that each of us have been blessed in many ways, with many talents, entrusted to us by God. May we, through the power of God’s Spirit, be open to using those gifts to further our master’s kingdom. And I believe that God’s Spirit, through his grace, can lead us to use our gifts for his benefit.
For example, William Willimon concluded his commentary with this story. “I know somebody whom God has given only one talent, from what I can see. God has given her the talent of being the best baker of oatmeal cookies, at least in her neighborhood. But she never bakes a batch of cookies for her family or friends that she doesn’t expand the recipe and make a batch for the prisoners at the county jail. She ties these cookies in little packages, and in her graceful handwriting writes, “I know you are going through a rough time. But God loves you. God wants to be with you.
Being able to bake good cookies is not a huge talent. But when used in service to God’s kingdom, it can be a marvelous gift.” End quote.
God has blessed each of us in many ways. And I believe that if we are open to the power of God’s Spirit, God can enable us to use those gifts to further his kingdom. And the neat thing about it, is that all of our lives will be enriched.
Amen.
