We know we’re in a tough economy these days, and it seems like there’s nowhere you can put your money where you know it is safe. Banks have failed, your 401k or pension is losing your money rather than gaining it, and the amount of interest you’d get on a savings account is so negligible that it’s not worth the amount of money you’d pay for in gas to take you to the bank to deposit the check.
Many people, in fact, are thinking about taking their grandparents’ advice from the days of the Great Depression: stick your money under the mattress! Of course, this being the 21st century, we’ve upgraded that strategy. While people generally still use the bank for most of their money, many are hiding more of their discretionary cash around the house these days.
According to a 2012 Marist poll, 27% think the best place to hide their cold hard cash is, well, in the freezer, while 19% of people sock away cash in, you guessed it, their sock drawers and 10% put their dough in a cookie jar (I’ll stop there).
If the third slave in the parable we just read had had it available, he certainly would have frozen the assets he was given by the master next to the Tater Tots in the fridge. As it was, he buried the talent he was given—no small amount of cash given that a talent was equal to 15 years worth of wages for a day laborer. Burying money to keep it secure was considered to be an acceptable monetary strategy in the first century, and most people would have commended the slave for being wise with the money his master had entrusted to him.
But like most of Jesus’ parables, this one sets conventional wisdom on its ear. Jesus tells this one as the last of a string of three parables about the kingdom of God coming in the “last days.” In 24:3, after Jesus foretells the destruction of the temple, the disciples ask him to tell them, “When will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Notice, it’s the end of the age, not the end of the world). Jesus gives them a string of images and metaphors about the coming kingdom, culminating in these three parables that are all about a master who goes away and then returns to judge what his servants have done in his absence.
In the first parable about the unfaithful slave (24:45-51), the master leaves a slave in charge of his household. If the master returns and finds the slave faithfully at work managing the master’s assets and caring for the other slaves, he will be given more responsibility. If he sees that the master is delayed, however, and begins to squander the master’s resources and mistreat the other servants, when the master returns unexpectedly there will be hell to pay (literally). In the second parable, ten bridesmaids are waiting for the bridegroom to return for the wedding feast to begin. Five of the bridesmaids were ready with oil for the lamps in case the groom came at night, five blew it off and took a nap. When the bridegroom showed up, those who were ready got to go into the banquet, while the others were shut out. They are parables about being diligent in preparation for the master’s return—Jesus’ return—being faithful in his absence. Failure to manage the master’s affairs will lead to ruin for the unfaithful and unprepared.
The parable of the talents, then, wraps up this theme with stark contrasts. The departing master this time leaves his servants some of his money—a great sum of it, in fact. One servant receives five talents (75 years worth of wages), another 2 talents and the third servant, one talent. Each servant is given what the master thinks they can handle. It’s not unfair that each servant is regarded differently, what matters is how each of them regards the talents with which they’ve been entrusted.
The first two slaves regard their trust in the master’s property as an opportunity to please him. Without needing instruction, they “went off at once” and began working with it. The NRSV here in 25:16 says that the slave “traded with them,” but a better translation would be that he “worked with them.” The Greek word is ergasato, the root from which we get our word “ergonomic.” The slaves aren’t passively dropping the money in the bank in order to get a modest return. You can’t double your money in a short time like that. You have to really go to work. Jesus doesn’t tell us what they did, but he implies that they had to make a serious effort to get that kind of return. Like the wise bridesmaids and the diligent servant in the first two parables, these two slaves see their master’s absence as a time to continuing doing what he would do, working to increase the master’s success and expand his holdings. They looked forward to the master’s return because they wanted to give a good accounting of their work and re-gift the master for his trust in them.
The third slave, however, has a very different attitude about the master. Rather than loving the master and wanting to please him, this slave operates out of fear. Nothing in the parable gives us any indication that the third servant had a reason to fear the master. Quite the opposite, in fact. The master still entrusts this slave with a huge sum of money—not something you do to someone you can’t stand! The third slave’s fear isn’t really about the master, but about himself. Where the first two assumed that the master’s money was a gift to be used, the third slave assumed that he had been given a gift that could only be lost or used up. He feared losing what he had been given, so he turned the gift into a possession. The first two knew that the more they tried to secure the master’s gift, the more likely it would be lost. They knew that the master’s pleasure would come not from protecting his assets, but by using them for the master’s purpose and glory.
Notice what happens when the master returns. The first two servants have worked hard and done well with the master’s gift. They approach the master with joy—“Look what I did with the talents you gave me!” they say. They can’t wait to tell him the story. The master responds to each in turn: “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things , I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master” (v. 21).
The third servant comes to the master with a talent that’s caked with dirt, or still frozen from the freezer. He approaches the master not with joy, but with blame! “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours” (v. 24-25). He is more concerned about preserving himself that pleasing his master. In fact, he seems to have contempt for the master, even though the master had given him a great gift to manage just like the others. The master calls him “lazy” because he didn’t even take the passive step of investing the talent in the bank where he could have at least gotten half a percent of interest and a free pocket calendar. Where the others “worked” their talents to maximize the master’s talents, the lazy slave does nothing with what his master has given him. As a result, he has his talent taken away and given to the slave who has the most capacity to do maximize the master’s gift.
There are lots of texts we could use to talk about financial giving, which is this week’s topic in the series, but this one puts our giving—not only our financial giving, but the way we spend our whole lives—into a larger perspective: the perspective of God’s coming kingdom. Last week we talked about witnessing and one of the points we made is that disciples of Jesus are to have a sense of urgency about the coming of his kingdom. Jesus elaborates on that here toward the end of Matthew’s gospel—that the time is coming for the master’s return and, when he comes, what will he find us doing? Will we be sitting on our assets or will we be using them in ways that promote the master’s cause and increase his glory?
Throughout Scripture, God is always inviting his people to invest themselves in his work. Indeed, God constantly reminds them that everything they have isn’t really theirs—it’s a gift from God that they have been given to manage, not for their own security but for God’s glory. The concept of first fruits and the tithe, the first ten percent of the harvest given back to God, was a reminder that, ultimately, God was the one who had provided for them. Giving tithes and offerings back to God was and is a response of gratitude to the one without whom we have nothing.
Failure to do anything with that gift other than keep it for themselves was as good as burying it in the back of the freezer next to last year’s Thanksgiving leftovers. In Malachi 3:8, God sounds a lot like the master who has discovered that his slaves have been lazy with his property.
“Will anyone rob God?” God says to Israel. “Yet you are robbing me!” How are they robbing God? By failing to give their tithes and offerings, keeping them buried in the backyard rather than presenting them and their increase as an offering to please God. They are “cursed with a curse,” but I don’t think God is the one who is cursing them. They are cursing themselves just like the lazy servant did. Their fear makes them lazy and useless.
But God does not leave them there. Look at Malachi 3:10 and the promise of a God who will take the investment of his people and multiply it exponentially: “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you and overflowing blessing.” The servants who work for the master will see their investments grow!
Now, to be clear, I’m not suggesting, like some prosperity gospel preachers suggest, that the more we give the richer God will make us individually. That’s not the point here, though I would say that when we are faithful, God is faithful. The point here is that the more we work at and invest the gifts God has given us, the more we begin to see the whole world blessed—the “windows of heaven” and the joy of God’s kingdom raining (and reigning) on the earth. The more we do that, the more we work and give in light of the coming kingdom and the master’s return, the more likely we are to hear those words of blessing: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master!”
You know, I think that the place where we can invest in God’s kingdom most effectively is the local church. It’s in the local church that we can begin to see the return on our investment most immediately: a building where people of all ages and stages of life can gather to hear the Word, to worship, and become disciples of Jesus; mission projects that change the lives of people here in the community and around the world; staff that help our children, our youth, and adults become equipped to serve God; every parking space, every classroom, every worship service, every paycheck, every cup of coffee, every thing and person you can think of in this church contributes to our mission: making disciples of Jesus Christ for the work of his kingdom—a mission in which all of us participate. Every dollar you invest in the offering plate represents a use of the master’s gift. Will we invest in ways that please the master and reflect his generosity, or will we keep those assets frozen because we’re afraid?
All of us have a different amount of talents, just like those slaves in the parable. Some are gifted with much, some with very little. The amount doesn’t matter, only what we choose to do with it. God is less concerned how much we give than with the attitude in which we give it. Do we offer it with joy, or do we offer it out of obligation and fear? Paul says that God loves a cheerful giver, and the parable seems to prove that as a truth.
I wonder what would happen if every family at TLUMC decided that, this year, they weren’t going to keep their talent hidden—that we would all take the step of faith to tell God what we plan to do with his blessing and gift? My guess is that we would see an abundance—“a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over” as Jesus says in Luke 6:38—an abundance to be used for his kingdom.
Times are tough, but experts tell us that even in tough times we should be investing since the market tends to trend upward over the long term. There’s no better investment that trends upward, however, than investing in God’s kingdom!
God is known as supernatural creativity of life. According to their religion view they have their own gods. I hope service to mankind is service to god.
Posted by: http://www.sampleresumeobjectives.org/teacher-job-objective.html | October 17, 2012 at 05:31 AM