This year, as we encounter the Parable of the Talents in the
lectionary, we read it differently than in years past, don't we?
This year, for the first time, we think that the guy who took the
one talent, buried it and returned it at full value looks to be
the smart one in the story. After all, he was the only one this
year whose third quarter brokerage statement did not cause him to
have a stroke. He was the one whose housing investment had not
seen the value of the home drop below the amount of the mortgage.
He was the one who did not have to worry about being able to
secure another loan so that his daughter could return for her
senior year of college next fall.
It is a difficult, frightening and uncertain time right now
as concerns our finances. And all the talking heads say that it
is going to get worse before it gets better. Hmm. Where is the
nearest pick and shovel?
As the story unfolds we find three servants. One received
five talents with which to trade, one received two talents, and
one, one. By the way, talents were significant amounts of money;
it would take nearly 20 years of work at the basic wage of one
denarius per day to equal one talent. The master was incredibly
generous to all the slaves, even the one who received only the
one talent (twenty years worth of earnings, remember). If you
want to understand it in 21st century American terms, presume a
minimum wage of $7.15 an hour, times 40 hours, times 52 weeks,
times 20 years, and that is $297,440 - big bucks.
The first fellow followed the market closely, knew the
prospects of the crops, anticipated the arrival of the caravans
from Damascus, marked the movement of the Roman legions. On the
information he gleaned, he invested his five talents...shrewdly -
he made a profit of one hundred percent on his transactions. Not
bad.
Another servant was entrusted with two talents. Here was a
blunt and honest man, probably a down-to-earth fellow who
believed in getting money the old-fashioned way...EARN it. I can
envision him as a farmer, driving his oxen hard, tending his
vineyards carefully, laboring from sunup to sundown. By the
sheer faithfulness of day-to-day work, he made his two talents
yield another two - a total of four.
The third servant was different. He hid his one talent in
the ground. The action, as judged by the standards of that day,
was not lazy, and by the standards of our rather shaky day, was
downright prudent. In the first century, to hide money in the
ground was the traditional way of saving. He was scrupulous with
what he had been given. Too scrupulous. That was his downfall.
He would have been a better servant had he planned and risked and
lost.
It is hard to escape the conviction that this story was told
mainly for the one-talent fellow's benefit. There are far more
one-talent men and women in this world than five-talent folks.
Only a very few have the literary capabilities of a Shakespeare
or a Hemingway; only a few have the inventive abilities of a
Thomas Edison; only a few have the musical abilities of a Bach or
a Beethoven or even the Beatles; only a few can preach like Billy
Graham. The temptation for the one-talent person is to say, "I
don't have much, so don't expect anything of me. What can I do?"
But the real reason for the one-talent fellow's failure (and in
Jesus' mind, the big danger that faces ALL one-talent people) is
fear - the man said, "I was afraid." He had paralysis from
analysis.
This gospel story has given an important word to our
language - talents - and it comes through a MISunderstanding of
the Greek word tálanta. No longer do we think of a talent as a
sum of money (which we should), but rather an ability or
collection of abilities that allow individuals to excel.
The egalitarian in us would like to believe that "all men
(or all women) are created equal," but, despite what our
Declaration of Independence might say, we know such is not the
case. Jesus knew and clearly taught that people differ in
talents. There are diversities of gifts as the Apostle Paul
noted in Ephesians. Some draw plans for cathedrals, some compose
music for its organ, some carve the stone and some build the road
to the door. But everyone is talented. No one is without some
gift essential to the building. (1)
Indeed, the one-talent person is often critical to the
success or failure of an enterprise. Shakespeare may have been
an incredible literary genius, but the world would not know of
Shakespeare if not for the singular gift of someone who could run
a printing press. The one-talent person is one note on the
piano, but failure to play that note can wreak havoc on the
resulting tune.
Note that the story says the master GAVE to each according
to his ability. God is a giving God. The "givingness" is called
grace. In the beginning, God gives the newly created world to
humanity and calls us to be good stewards over it. God gives the
covenant to the people to assure them of their relationship to
the divine. God gives the law, the prophets and finally gives
Jesus to redeem the world. Many believe that the important
religious question is "What must I do to get?" The question of
grace is "What must I do with what I have been given?" So with
the fellows in our parable; they are not are confronted with the
job that they have to do in order to get something, but they are
given a gift which they must manage and use. (2)
If you are worried whether you can succeed in putting your
talent to use, think of this. During the filming of the movie
"Ben Hur", Charleton Heston had to learn to drive a chariot. He
was having terrible trouble, so he complained to Cecil B.
DeMille, "I can barely stay on this thing. I can't win the
race." DeMille answered, "Your job is to stay on it. It's my
job to make sure you win." That is God's promise to us. Stay
faithful. God trusts us to handle our gifts appropriately. God
will ensure the outcome.
Sir Michael Costa, the celebrated conductor, was holding a
rehearsal. As the mighty chorus rang out, accompanied by scores
of instruments, the piccolo player - a little pint-sized flute -
thinking perhaps that his contribution would not be missed amid
so much music, stopped playing. Suddenly, the great leader
stopped and cried out, "Where is the piccolo?"
The sound of that one small instrument was necessary to the
harmony, and the Master Conductor missed it when it dropped out.
The point? To the Conductor there are no insignificant
instruments in an orchestra. Sometimes the smallest and
seemingly least important one can make the greatest contribution
and even if it does not seem to make that big a difference to the
audience at large, the conductor knows it right away!
In the church the players and the instruments are diverse --
different sizes, different shapes, different notes, different
roles to play. But like the piccolo player in Sir Michael's
orchestra, we sometimes decide that our contribution is not
significant. What we do or fail to do could not possibly make a
difference. And so we quit playing. Stop doing that which we
have been given to do. We drop out. But the conductor
immediately notices. From our perspective, our contribution may
be small, but from his, not small at all. (3)
I know I am talking to some piccolo players this morning,
who have dropped out of the orchestra, for whatever reasons:
pain, exhaustion, insecurity, criticism, laziness, misbehavior.
Convinced that your contribution doesn't mean a hill of beans in
the bigger scheme of things. We have buried our talent in the
ground. The word of the Lord is be careful about that.
From this parable comes a rule of life that is apparently
universally true. It tells us that, to those who use what they
have, more will be given, and those who do NOT use what they have
been given will LOSE even what they have. The meaning is this -
if a person has talent and exercises it, he or she is
progressively able to do more with it. But if that person has a
talent and fails to exercise it, he or she will inevitably lose
it. If we have some proficiency at a game or an art, if we have
some gift for doing something, the more we exercise that
proficiency or gift, the harder the work or the bigger the task
we will be able to tackle. However, if we fail to use it, we
lose it. This is equally true for playing golf or playing the
piano, singing songs or writing sermons, carving wood or thinking
out ideas. It is the lesson of life that only way to keep a gift
is to use it in the service of God and in the service of our
fellow human beings. (4)
Years ago, one of my seminary professors told the story of a
student of his who, when he was a little boy, won a cake at a
church social. It was the first thing that he had ever won, and
he was so proud of it that he would not let anyone even touch it.
He took it home and put it on a table in his room and just looked
at it. He could not bring himself to eat it or share it with his
family. Then one day he noticed that the cake was starting to
turn green. It was good for nothing but to be thrown away. A
cake is meant to be eaten, and unless we use it, we lose it. (5)
When Pablo Casals was 90 years old, the greatest of all
cellists, he kept practicing the cello for four or five hours
each day. Someone asked him why, at his age, he worked so hard
at the fundamentals of his art. "Because," he said, "I think I
am making some progress." (6) Don't LOSE it. USE it!
What is your TALENT? It should be noted that the story does
not indicate that anyone received no talent. No one was left
empty-handed. Everyone is in some regard "talented", and
remember, the talent is no small sum.
There are LOTS of talents represented here this morning.
Some are talented musically. Are you? Then put your talent to
work. Don't lose it! USE it! Some are gifted communicators -
writers, speakers, teachers. Is that your talent? Don't lose
it. USE it! Perhaps you can't carry a tune in a bucket and
would faint dead away if you ever had to get up in front of a
class or congregation, but you are good at handling details and
could put your talent to work volunteering in the church office.
Is that your talent? Don't lose it. USE it! Maybe you are good
with tools and enjoy building things. Wonderful. Put your
talent to work around this campus on a work day or on a mission
trip - there is lots to be done. Make your talent available.
Don't lose it. USE it! Do you like people and enjoy making new
friends? The Lord can use you to greet folks at worship, call on
newcomers, visit shut-ins. Is that your talent? Don't lose it.
USE it! The list could go on and on and on.
Edward Everett Hale once said, "I am only one, but I am one.
I cannot do everything, but I can do something. I will not let
what I cannot do interfere with what I can do."
A church is placed in a particular community, not to
preserve the Christian heritage and defend it against all
aggressors; but to invest itself in the life of that community -
if need be, to die for that community. When God calls a
congregation to account for its existence, God does not want to
hear that we have been holding our own, keeping up the mortgage
payments on the buildings, protecting the Bible from
misinterpretation so that we can now hand back all that was given
to us in the same mint condition as it was when we first received
it. No, God wants to know that we have used the gospel by the
giving it away with ourselves. Don't lose it. USE it!
One word of caution. Someplace or other there once was a
pastor who, following a message on this subject, heard a
parishioner say, "I have one gift, the gift of criticism. I can
spot problems a mile away." O, GOODY! Is that your gift? The
gift of criticism? Don't USE it! LOSE it!
I once encountered a tee shirt that depicted a dog in a
pulpit preaching to a congregation of fellow pooches, shaking his
paw at them and screaming, "Bad doggie, Bad doggie." Underneath
the artwork was the caption, "Hellfire and Dalmation." Well,
"Hellfire and Dalmation" is not my purpose here this morning.
Rather, for your own sake, with every ounce of my strength, I
want you to "be all that you can be" in the name of Jesus Christ
so that one day, when your journey is over and you can lay your
burden down, you will hear, "Well done...enter into the joy of
your master."
Amen!
1. The Interpreter's Bible, vol. 7, (Nashville, TN : Abingdon Press, 1954), p. 558
2. Richard Hoefler, The Divine Trap, (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing, 1980), pp.137-138
3. Richard Love, Sermon, "Blowing Your Horn," eSermons.com
4. William Barkley, Matthew, Volume 2, Daily Study Bible Series, (Philadelphia : Westminster,
1975), p. 324
5. Hoefler, pp. 140-141
6. Lewis Smedes, A Pretty Good Person, (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), p. 174
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