Sermon Tone Analysis

Last week we began this series on stewardship by laying a foundation on one simple phrase from Psalm 24.

The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it.

Our first step was to get past any notion that this world belongs to me.

Every possession and every ability which we have is a blessing from God. and God’s blessings are given for the purpose of cultivating and developing his shalom flourishing of all creation.

That’s where we began last week.

I am a steward of this world and all that is in it because it all belongs to God.

Let’s be honest.

This is often hard for us to do.

Maybe we are okay with generosity, so we think we have it all nailed down and put together.

But stewardship is more than generosity.

Stewardship pulls upon the reasons and motivations for being generous in the first place.

Today let’s dig into a story from Jesus and uncover one of the barriers that holds us back from turning our generosity into stewardship.

The Parable of the Talents

Maybe a little context around this story would be helpful.

It is commonly referred to as the parable of the talents.

First, a quick reminder on Matthew’s gospel.

This is good background now that will help us focus in on an ultimate meaning and application for this story from Jesus.

If you were to do a quick study of this passage and dig in a little bit, you might quickly discover that this story seems to appear in two gospels.

It is here in Matthew 25 as we have read today.

and a similar story also comes up in Luke 19.

But the setting, the audience, and the telling of the story are completely different between Luke and Matthew.

Whenever I see this kind of discrepancy in parallel passages in the gospels, it always causes me to pause and take note of the surroundings of the story to see why and how the gospel writer uses the story.

arrangement of Matthew - five discourses, echo five books of Torah

Matthew writes his gospel for an audience of Jewish Christians.

More than any of the four gospels, Matthew assumes his readers will have a solid understanding of Jewish Old Testament customs and scriptures.

This may well be the reason why Matthew organizes his gospel in a way that divides the spoken teachings of Jesus into five segments, or discourses.

Because the Jewish people would be very familiar with Old Testament concept that the law of God was revealed to them through Moses in five books.

The first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch, make up the Torah law for the Jewish people.

Matthew tells the story of Jesus in his gospel writing in a way that communicates to the Jewish people that Jesus is a mirror of the Torah.

He is the fulfilment of the covenant relationship which God began in the Old Testament.

chapter 25 is in the fifth discourse - focus of Jesus’ teaching is to look ahead

Now then, whenever we pick a passage out of Matthew that is a spoken teaching of Jesus, it is always good to stop and remind ourselves of the place in Matthew’s gospel where that teaching belongs.

Here in chapter 25 of Matthew we are looking at the fifth discourse of Jesus in the five segments Matthew uses to organize his stories about Jesus.

The audience here is just the disciples of Jesus.

This is sometimes labeled by biblical scholars as the Olivet discourse.

how to live now in a way that anticipates what Jesus is bringing next

In general, the fifth and final discourse of teachings from Jesus in Matthew revolves around the theme of looking ahead.

There are teachings about the signs of the end times.

And there are these parables about what it means to live as a disciple who is looking ahead for the coming kingdom of God which is being revealed.

This story does that.

This parable of the talents is a story that looks ahead and demonstrates how disciples should be living now in a way that anticipates what Jesus is bringing ahead.

We did not look today at all the parables in Matthew 24 and 25.

They all share this common theme, but they also each have a particular focus.

Here are the ones that I skipped.

The ending verses of chapter 24 tell the story of the two servants as a focus upon responsibility.

The opening verses of chapter 25 tell the story of ten virgins as a focus upon readiness.

Then comes the story we read today about the talents which focuses upon productivity.

And chapter 25 closes with the story of the sheep and the goats as a focus upon accountability.

The parable of the talents fits into that bigger picture of stories all carrying the theme of living as disciples who look ahead to where Jesus is bringing his kingdom.

This is a forward-looking story.

Jesus is saying, keep your attention focused ahead on the kingdom of God that is yet becoming; not behind on what has already been.

These are all stories that carry an anticipation of what is coming next.

That will be important to remember when we get a little further along in this message to application for us today.

first two servants double the resources = use what is given to its fullest potential

Take a closer look with me, then, at the parable of the talents.

A wealthy man divides resources among three individuals.

The discrepancy of those amounts is not alarming nor a cause for concern.

The master then leaves on a journey and the servants put their resources to work.

When the master returns, the first two servants report back to their master what they have done.

Each one of them doubles the money.

Here again, the amounts themselves are not significant.

The doubling is what should be noted.

It is simply a way for Jesus to convey in the story that each of the first two servants used what they had been given to its fullest potential.

That’s all.

Jesus says, here is what those two were given; and they each used the full potential of what they had received from the master.

third servant keeps resources hidden to himself, does not use what is given

But just like the other parables in this chapter of Matthew, the story turns.

The third servant takes what he is given and hides it away, not using the potential of his resources at all for the master.

And in the end it doesn’t turn out so well for him.

Let’s turn our attention there and figure out why he buried his treasure and what that has to do with us today and stewardship.

Buried Treasure

Whenever we find ourselves in a bit of a tight spot, perhaps the first inclination is to always give an explanation.

This story is no different.

The servant who buried his resources explains why he did it.

Here is what he says.

“Then the man who had received one bag of gold came.

‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.

So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground.

See, here is what belongs to you.’

third servant views the master as not being fair

He just held it.

He did not do anything with it.

And the explanation he gives points towards his view of the master.

The NIV English Bible translates the Greek word sklaros as “hard.”

It appears in other English Bibles as harsh.

The word carries the notion of being stubborn or unyielding or determined or unrelenting.

But beyond that, the servant notes the way in which the master harvests in places where he has not sown.

This is confusing.

Some biblical scholars suggest that perhaps it is a nod to the way in which the gospel message through Jesus now extends the harvest of God’s people beyond the nation of Israel.

But that explanation seems to stretch beyond the point which the parable is trying to make.

It is much more likely that the servant held a view of the master in which he judged the master to be unfair.

do I hold back generosity because I haven’t been given as much blessing as others?

There is no further explanation for this.

Maybe there does not need to be, because this is the point at which the listener is meant to be inserted into the story.

I mean, we all have our moments of casting some questionable doubt upon the fairness of God.

maybe this servant was put out because the other two servants were entrusted with so much more of the master’s property than he was given.

It didn’t seem fair to him that they got so much more to work with while he had to settle for just one portion.

I suppose we could all make our lists detailing the ways in which it feels like God has poured blessings so much more extravagantly upon others.

It just doesn’t seem fair.

How could God possibly make a demand for a useful deployment of my talents and resources when it looks like others have so much more compared to me? It’s not fair for God to make that requirement unless he is going to give me as much as or more than everybody else.