The Parable of the Talents - Revisited

The Parable of the Talents Matthew 25:14-27 We have had some discussions at Administrative Board meetings about this Scripture and how we might best respond to it when it comes to the savings and endowment funds we have, relatively modest as they may be. I’ve been at churches which have had one to two million dollar endowments and tens of thousands in savings. Investments were made outside of banking institutions and we did pretty well; and when we didn’t do as well as we might have, we changed financiers and did better. My churches have been all three of these guys. We have only a small percentage of those figures I mentioned, but we still have a decent amount that begs the question: How should we best invest the monies we hold in reserve? One major concern is not to lose a dollar of your hard-earned money which you have donated to the church. We wouldn’t want to invest with a firm that promoted a 5-15% interest rate and then lose money because of market fluctuations. So we just sit on what we have, knowing the only insured investment is with the bank which at this time gives less than one-half of one percent. According to the parable, this is about what the guy who buried his trust did, which the Master highly disapproved of. So what are we to do – invest with a reputable firm, but with no insurance, or sit on it at the local bank with FDIC coverage and earn virtually no interest? We may well have such non-banking investments with our personal funds, but should we be so conservative as to do nothing with our monies? That’s the question for the day which the parable may address, and it would seem that the answer is obvious. It would seem so… Let’s look again at this parable and what all it may mean and how we may apply it to our times, in faithfulness to the Lord. A master puts his servants in charge of his wealth while he is away on a trip. Upon his return, the master assesses the stewardship of his servants. He evaluates them according to how faithful each was in making wise investments of his wealth to obtain a profit. It is clear that the master sought some profit from the servants' oversight. A gain indicated faithfulness on the part of the servants. The master rewards his servants according to how each has handled his stewardship. He judges two servants as having been "faithful," profitable, and gives them a positive reward. To the single "unfaithful" servant, who played it safe, a negative compensation is given. That’s the story line, but let’s start again at the beginning. What was a talent in Jesus’ day? A talent was an ancient unit of weight that was used to measure precious metals like gold and silver or coins. A talent weighed approximately 80 pounds and as a unit of currency and was worth about 6,000 denarii. A denarius was the usual payment for a day's labor or 312 denarii/year, assuming they took the Sabbath off as a day of rest. At one denarius per day, a single talent was worth nearly 20 years of labor. So five talents of 2 money were worth 100 years of labor or nearly three life times; two talents was worth 40 years of labor, or a really long life time in those days. The third servant was condemned as wicked and lazy, because he should have at least deposited his talent, his wealth or trust, with the bankers. One author noted, that "the very least the slave could have done, as to make money in this way (giving it to the bankers), required no personal exertion or intelligence" and that the labor of digging a hole and burying the talent was greater than the labor involved in going to the bankers. But why did Jesus have this man so severely punished? Sounds a bit out of character. Maybe Jesus was talking about more than just money, and that the real treasure wasn’t money at all. Traditionally, the parable of the talents has been seen as an encouragement to Jesus' disciples to use their God-given gifts in the service of the Lord and to take risks for the sake of the Kingdom of God. These gifts have been seen to include personal abilities ("talents" in the everyday sense), as well as personal wealth. Failure to use one's gifts, to sit on them, to do nothing with them, to waste them, the parable suggests, will result in a negative judgment. The failure - is to fail - to feel God's love and grace and mercy and generosity; to ignore His gifts, his trust, his treasures of the heart and soul, to disregard them, overlook them or take them for granted, to assume that they will always be there even though unused or unappreciated. The first two servants are able to see God in a positive perception, as understanding, generous, and kind, while the third servant sees God as harsh, demanding, and critical. Some parallels and lessons we may understand from this parable are: 1. The “man” or Master is Christ who has all the treasures life could ever have. 2. The journey of the Master to another place and His return speaks of Christ's going away to Heaven at His ascension and His return as the time when He comes again. 3. His entrustment to His servants of His possessions while He is away on His journey should be Christ's gifts and various possessions, the "capital" if you will, given to the believers in His church in anticipation of them producing a spiritual "profit" for Him in the Kingdom of God. While He is away, He expects His believers to “do business with this until I come back” (Luke 19:13). 4. His evaluation of the business they have conducted during His absence takes place upon His return and is an account of their activity. This must be the Judgment Seat of Christ, which is only for believers. This pictures an evaluation of stewardship. 3 5. The positive rewards for two of the servants are based upon their faithfulness to properly use what Christ entrusted to them. This probably speaks of a positive reward for believers who are faithful to serve Christ. 6. The negative reward (which is too horrible to imagine) for the unfaithful servant likely speaks of some negative dealing by Christ with an unfaithful believer. Bottom line, the talents, the treasures in this parable, are a share in the mercy of God, a participation in the weightiness of the divine love, more so, but not to the exclusion of one’s personal abilities or wealth. As noted in the beginning, a talent in ancient Jewish times was very weighty; five talents were extremely heavy, 400 pounds. Such heaviness is to remind us of the heaviest weight of all, the greatest, most valuable treasure of all; namely, the mercy of God. Mercy is a heavy lift when given to someone most offensive, and our sin is most offensive. Our response, our greatest return for God’s investment in us, is our gratitude and our ability to love; and in this enterprise, the champion is the greatest risk-taker, the one who loves others as Christ has loved them, which means, the one most willing to invest him/herself in those who don’t know the love and mercy and forgiveness of Christ. If you do know that, have received it and keep it to yourself, or “hid it under a bushel” as the children’s song goes, then you are in danger of the Lord’s displeasure or worse. So, here are five life lessons from the Parable of the Talents: 1. God gifted and entrusted us with blessings. The things we have in life are blessings from God and He has entrusted us with them. He hasn’t given us all the same things. We each have differences in financial status, health, intellect, skills and talents, etc. But no matter how much or how little, they are all gifts from God. 2. He expects us to use our gifts wisely. What will we do with the blessings we’ve been given? God gives us free will to choose. He loves us so much that He allows us to freely decide our path in life. He desires that we grow our gifts for His glory, but it’s up to each of us to decide. Will we help the needy? Clothe the naked? Feed the hungry? Show mercy? Grant forgiveness? Love one another? Or will we squander our money and blessings? Hide or misuse our talents? Use our skills for ill purposes instead of good? Worship money and financial status above God? 3. He doesn’t judge us all by the same standard. The talents (gold/coins) were given according to each person’s ability. We are created with different skills and abilities and are never entrusted with more than God knows we can handle. He ensures we have the money, resources, aptitude, skills, and ability to accomplish His will for our life, no matter how small or great the goal is. He assesses our 4 performance not based on how our accomplishments compare to others, but upon how well we’ve lived for His good and glory according to our abilities and resources. 4. We will be held accountable. Judgment Day will eventually arrive. We don’t like to think about our Heavenly Father as a judge, but consider God’s love in comparison to a perfect human father. Even though human fathers aren’t perfect, we can imagine that a father who loves his children and wants the best for them has expectations of them. He sets rules and boundaries to keep them safe and on the right path. When they go astray, he corrects them. So it is with God’s judgment. He looks kindly on those who use His gifts and blessings well and prudently. He’s disappointed in those who turn away from Him and choose to bury their gifts or misuse them. Indeed, He says they will be judged harshly. 5. We are called to grow in the Lord. The Lord gives according to our abilities; but as we prove ourselves trustworthy by choosing God’s will, growing in faith, and sharing His glory, He entrusts us with more. This is similar to how a child earns his parent’s trust by doing the right things in small matters until he proves himself worthy of more freedoms, responsibility and perks, i.e., blessings. So what is the profit we might return to the Lord? As for the money issue earlier, let’s be prudent but not paralyzed with investing. More importantly, though, let us live a faithful life, demonstrate a righteous living, an honorable, trustworthy character and have integrity and respectfulness with each other. What is the profit we might return to the Lord? How about making disciples, prospering the church with people – “bringing in the sheaves” as the hymn sings. Do you remember the lyrics to that hymn? The first verse goes: Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness, Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve; Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping, We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. Refrain: Bringing in the sheaves, Bringing in the sheaves, We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves; Bringing in the sheaves, Bringing in the sheaves, We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. As we seek Jesus with all our heart and work for His good, we deepen our relationship, prove our growing abilities, and eventually become entrusted with more blessings to be used for God’s glory. It’s an expanding cycle of God’s amazing design that is ours if we are willing to work for it. The moral lesson of the Parable of the Talents is that we are to use and grow our gifts, all our blessings from God, for His glory.