Sermon - November 13, 2011

Matthew 25:14-30

No Instructions - Just Gifts
Jesus is talking about the “Kingdom of heaven.” It isn’t immediately apparent that this is the context for today’s Gospel reading. The 25th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel is all about the Kingdom. The previous parable was introduced with the words, “The kingdom of heaven will be like….” When he finishes that first parable, he moves on to a second. Like the first, it is about the kingdom. Like other places in the Gospel, where Jesus is speaking of the kingdom, he again uses grandiose images and outrageous comparisons.

The kingdom of heaven is as if a man, going on a journey, were to summon his slaves and entrust them with his property. The end of the story answers a question one would surely ask before taking such action – “Are these slaves meritorious enough to be entrusted with the man’s possessions?” Two will prove to be; one will not. At the beginning of the story, we don’t know this. All know is that the master entrusts them with his possessions. And the amounts with which he entrusts them would suggest that he has great hopes for them.

We might miss this point in the story, unless we are familiar enough with units of measure in the times of Jesus’ life. Can anyone convert 5 talents, or 3 talents, or 1 talent into modern-day sums of money? You need to be able to convert the amount in order to realize that in this parable we are talking about a master who entrusts to his servants with a tremendous treasurer. In order for the parable to speak to us, the modern-day servants who oversee the kingdom, we need to be able to understand the worth of that which God has entrusted to us.

I have been stalling. Giving you time. Has any one come up with the conversion? I have done this math with you before, in other sermons. Start with a denarii. A denarii is the amount of money a laborer would earn in the course of a day. A talent was equal to about 6,000 denarii. A talent would represent the amount of money a laborer (a slave or servant) could earn in about 20 years.

To turn this into an actual number, let’s use $7.50 as an hourly wage. In 8 hours they would earn about $60. If we set $60 as the value of a denarii, then a talent would be worth approximately $360,000. The kingdom is as if a man going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave $1.8 million, another $720,000, to another $360,000.

Now, we are an affluent congregation. It might be the case that some of our children work minimum wage jobs, while they are in school, but most of us are far removed from jobs than pay $7.50 an hour. As a result, these numbers might not be as impressive to us as they were for Jesus’ immediate hearers, or as they would be to the households meeting at some of the country churches around Pickens County. So work the math using your own ideas of annual income. 20 years of wages is the amount Jesus is talking about. This is the amount (times five in one instance, times two in another) that he gives to the servants – without so much as a suggestion of what they are to do with it.

How can this be like the kingdom?

The kingdom of which Jesus speaks is known for its grandiose nature and its outlandish gifts. The kingdom of which Jesus speaks is that place where God comes to us and invites us in as sons and daughters. In this kingdom, our sins are forgiven, we are assured of salvation, and promised that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God. That which is entrusted to us, placed in our hands as the waters of baptism are poured over our heads, is a treasure of unimaginable worth. Our master has only “gone away” in the sense that the physical Jesus has been transformed into the resurrected Jesus. As this transformation was taking place he said to you, “Go and teach all persons… baptize them,” and welcome them into the kingdom.

Understanding the value of the talents the master leaves with the servants in the parable helps us to understand the value of that which God has entrusted to us.

These gifts, this treasure, is ours on two levels. It encourages us to think of what God has given us as individuals and what God has given us as a community. In either instance, the point remains the same – our master has given us much, so much, an insane amount of much, and then steps back to see what we will do with it.

What will we do? What have you done? With that which God has entrusted to you?

In the parable, two of the three do as their master had hoped – they make good use of that which they had been given. They double the initial gift. In acknowledging their accomplishments, the master tells them that since they have been trustworthy in a few things, he will put them in charge of many things. They are to enter into the joy of their master.

Given the grandiose nature of the initial gifts – 100 years of wages for the first, 60 years of wages for the second – it is difficult to imagine what more the master might have to give. Perhaps it is a reference to the treasures which are not measureable in coin or hours but rather in things eternal. These two servants are acknowledged for taking what they had been given and putting it to good work. They are good and faithful servants. They are the kind of persons Jesus hopes will be found at every turn in the kingdom.

But what of the other servant. It isn’t that he did anything wrong, does he? He protects that which belongs to the master and is capable, upon the master’s return, of giving back to him all that he given. But this is not what the master had hoped he would do with it.

Any time there is mention of weeping and gnashing of teeth, we can be pretty sure this is not where we want to be. We do not want to find ourselves in the position of the one who fails to make use of that which God has given us. We can be sure that this is not the end toward which we ought to be moving. It is best to avoid the disappointment of the one who has given us that which is nothing short of an absolutely amazing gift.

I started out trying to help you understand a modern day conversion for a “talent.” The other direction that conversation could have gone is to explain how the popularity of this story contributed to the middle ages adaptation of this word as a reference to one’s God-given abilities. It isn’t always money which is left in our care – it is also our ability to tell a story, to communicate the things which are of value, or to be the one who provides love and compassion. These “talents,” as well as our ability to solve a math problem, or build a turbine engine, or keep the accounts of a number of share-holders, are the things which God has given us, to see how we will use them – to discover how these talents might increase the goodness of God’s creation.

Each and every one of us, sitting here today, has been handed at least one talent. Each and every one of us has been entrusted, by our master, with an unimaginable treasure. Each and every one of us struggles to know what to do with our talents. God is the one who gave them to us; but in most cases God has not handed us an instruction manual. I don’t believe that God is “testing” us, so much as God wants to give us the freedom to choose how we will make use of the things he has provided. And his reaction to the third servant may have arisen out of disappointment, or been a reaction to the uncharitable opinion that third servant had of his master. He is pretty harsh in his description of a man who had handed him 20 years of wages. God has handed you and I these talents, and God is watching what we will do.

What will you do?

Amen.