The Trouble With Squirrels Series

But they didn’t know – in the middle of the story - that they would double their investment. Perhaps there were times when it seemed they would lose everything.

But they took the risk and used the gift

The 1-talent guy told the master he had been afraid

He decided to “play it safe” He hid the money to make sure it wouldn’t be lost. He accomplished exactly what he set out to achieve: nothing

Just like one of my friends used to say, “If you aim at nothing, you hit it every time.”

But there is something about the master that all three of them knew, but only one of them came out and said.

That is: he was a man who reaped where he had not planted and gathered harvests where he had not scattered any seed

Doesn’t that mean he was a man who expected his servants to plant and scatter seed for him?

That he was a man who expected his servants to use what he gave them to get a return?

The first two men don’t say that about their master, but their actions proved they knew it all the same

Although the master hadn’t given them precise instructions about what to do with the money, they knew they had better “plant” & “scatter” it, so their master would have a harvest to reap when he returned.

The third man understood his master’s nature perfectly well.He understood what he expected from his servants.

But he refused to take the risk to do it. He said he was too afraid to take such a risk

But shouldn’t he have been more afraid to fail to fulfill the master’s will and expectation? He wanted to “play it safe” – but did he? If I were to choose who I am most like in this parable, I would definitely pick the 1-talent guy. Not so much because I think God hasn’t given me much, But because for so long, I was afraid to use what God gave me

I’ve always been the kind of person who really didn’t want to get in trouble. I didn’t want to make waves

But this parable has changed my life

In fact, if this parable weren’t in the Bible, I doubt very much I would be standing here this morning. I want to talk about something I rarely talk about, but I am only doing it because I think it illustrates something very important about this parable.

Like most, maybe all, of you, I wasn’t raised thinking that “woman” and “pastor” went together. I knew there were people who believed it was OK, biblically I did a lot of reading to try and understand. I came to the conclusion that there were solid arguments on both sides of the issue.

So how do you decide? And especially how do you decide if you have a sense that God is calling you into pastoral ministry?

I thought, “Well, if the passages specifically referring to women don’t give conclusive answers, maybe I need to look more broadly at other Scriptures to see if I can find principles which would apply.”

And that led me here, to the Parable of the Talents.

I was afraid that if I used my gifts in pastoral ministry, I might be doing something wrong. I didn’t feel that I could be absolutely certain the Scriptures taught that it was acceptable for a woman to be a pastor.

Some people are content to just wave their hands at some of these passages and say, “Oh that was just all 1st century culture.”