Don’t Bury Your Talent!
Matthew 25:14-30
Pastor Deb Troester, STHPC, November 12, 2023
Recently Joe and I have been cleaning out our storage unit. We have keepsakes, photos, and heirlooms, inherited from both sides of our family, going back a couple of generations. We have souvenirs from our travels all over the world. We also have things we put in storage when we moved to Africa in 2006 and are just now unearthing again. In all, we moved 5000 pounds of stuff – some 2 ½ tons of it – from Illinois to California, and now we are trying to sort through it. I suspect some of you can identify with our situation.
The wealthiest man in Kentucky, billionaire Wayne Hughes, made his money by establishing Public Storage, one of the first storage companies in the U.S. There are now over 50,000 such facilities in the U.S., with a total of some 2.8 billion square feet of rentable self-storage space, so Joe and I are not alone.
In earlier times, people seldom had the luxury of accumulating goods. Most people lived day-to-day, unable to save up much money. Banks were non-existent, so if someone did save up some money, burying it in the ground for safe-keeping might have seemed the best way of storing it. At least, that is what the third servant in the parable of the talents does.
When we first read this parable, we may be shocked at the cruelty of the master, who punishes the third slave for burying his money in the ground instead of investing it. The master seems mean and the punishment barbaric. It’s troubling. So what is going on here?
Let’s step back and view the setting of this parable within the events of Matthew’s gospel. Two chapters ago, Jesus severely criticized the religious leaders of his day. He accused them of not practicing what they preached, of doing their deeds not to honor God, but only to be seen and praised by others. He called them hypocrites and blind guides, who tithe the tiny leaves of herbs and spices, yet neglect the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy and faith. In a bit of humorous hyperbole, he adds, “You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!”
They are legalists who have developed their own interpretation of God’s laws, then judge anyone who doesn’t come up to their expectations. There might be a few people like that today.
Theologian N.T. Wright explains: “The scribes and Pharisees had been given the law of Moses. They had been given the Temple, the sign of God’s presence among them. They had been given wonderful promises about how God would bless not only Israel but, through Israel, the whole world. And they had buried those promises in the ground. They had turned the command to be the light of the world into an encouragement to keep the light for themselves.”
After Jesus criticizes the actions of the religious leaders, he then tells four parables about what his disciples should be doing. In these parables, he teaches a better way than mere legalistic posturing. He tells about faithful and unfaithful servants, prepared and unprepared bridesmaids, the parable of the talents, and finally the judgment of the nations, in which people are divided, as a shepherd divides sheep from goats, into those who helped “the least of these,” and those who did not. You will hear sermons from some of these other parables in the coming Sundays. The parable of the talents is meant to tell us how to live our lives in the light of Jesus’ teachings, keeping in mind that someday he will return and we will be asked to give an account of what we did with what God entrusted to us.
A talent, talanta in Greek, was a large amount of money, worth approximately fifteen years of earnings by a day laborer. Each of the gifts the master gave to his servants was enormous – five talents was more than a lifetime’s worth of earnings for an average person. If we take the California minimum wage of $15.50 an hour and multiply it out, it comes to nearly $2.5 million. Jesus purposely exaggerates here for dramatic effect. To carry that much money around, you would need a wheelbarrow, if not an ox-cart! But this huge amount points to the extravagant generosity of God who has given us so much more than we can ever comprehend: our families and loved ones, all the beauty of creation, our life, our health, a relationship with the God of the universe through Jesus Christ, his Son.
Not only that, but God has given us a tremendous responsibility – to use that which he has entrusted to us to build up the Kingdom of Heaven: to spread the gospel, feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, visit the prisoners; to bring justice, mercy, and peace to this world. That is actually what this parable is about.
Two servants took what the master gave them and invested it wisely. The third servant did what many people of that day would have considered prudent: he buried the money. That is, he kept it in a safe place. He didn’t risk losing it, but he did nothing with it. Does this parable relate to Jesus’ saying that, “…those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it”?
Remember, this is a parable, not an investment guide. What Jesus is really talking about is investing our lives in serving God. You have probably heard the phrase, “Time, Talent, and Treasure.” Each of us is given a certain amount of time on this earth, whether long or short. We all have talents we can use, whether many or few, and we all have a certain amount of “treasure” –
money, possessions, or less tangible resources. This parable challenges us to use these gifts of time, talent, and treasure for the good of others, for building up what Jesus called “the Kingdom of Heaven.”
As theologian John Buchanan writes: “The point here is not really about doubling your money and accumulating wealth. It is about living…It is about taking risks. It is about Jesus himself and what he has done and what is about to happen to him.” He is on his way to the cross. Buchanan continues, “It is about being a follower of Jesus and what it means to be faithful to him…The greatest risk of all, it turns out, is not to risk anything, …not caring, not loving, not rejoicing, not living up to the full potential of our humanity, playing it safe, being cautious and prudent, digging a hole and burying the money in the ground…Jesus’ warning is that the outcome of playing it safe is something akin to death, like being banished to the outer darkness.” I don’t think the punishment alluded to at the end of the parable refers so much to hell as it does to the regret we might feel if we come to the end of our lives and realize we have squandered all that God gave us in pursuit of lesser things:
earthly wealth and ease, popularity or prestige, the accumulation of money in our bank accounts or of possessions in our storage units.
Most people don’t think faith is very risky. We think of faith as being comforting, and, indeed it is comforting to know that God loves us and cares for us. Yet God also challenges us. God gives us responsibilities commensurate with our abilities. Like the master in the parable, who entrusts the talents to his servants, then goes away on a long journey, God has given us the freedom to use our gifts – our time, our talents, our money and possessions – pretty much as we wish. What we sometimes fail to realize is that we are responsible to answer to God someday for what we have done with that which God has so freely and abundantly given us. For the parable clearly shows that the talents – talanta – distributed to the three servants were not really theirs, but their master’s, even though the master gave them great leeway in how they invested – or didn’t invest – them.
Being good stewards of God’s gifts is one way we thank God for all the bounties so freely bestowed upon us.
That is what stewardship is all about. It means managing our resources not just for our own purposes and plans, but using them so that God’s plans can be accomplished here on earth “as it is in heaven.”
New Testament professor Thomas Stegman writes, “The industrious slaves are positive examples of how Christians are to conduct themselves in the present… they have acted with fidelity and responsibility, producing works of love and mercy [which is] what the talents symbolize.” Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” The man who buried his talent was like those who put a lamp under a bushel basket. What God has given us – in time, talents, and treasure – is meant to be used to do good works and to glorify God, not hidden, or wasted, or just kept for our own selfish purposes.
This Stewardship Sunday, let’s take a risk with our faith: we cannot outgive God. Let’s trust God by using our time, our talents, and our treasure to put our faith into action. If we do this, we will one day hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Come, enter into my joy!” Amen.
©Deborah Troester 2023