Using what has been entrusted to you- Matt 25

 

Judges 4:1-7; Psalm 123; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30


We have very interesting readings today. First, we have our judges reading, where we see an example of the cycle of apostacy. The Israelites are in the Promised Land. God has brought them there by rescuing them from slavery in Egypt. Through Moses God did dramatic miracles to rescue them. Then Joshua took over from Moses to lead the people into the land. The Jordan river is parted, just as the sea was parted. God miraculously destroyed the strong walls of Jerico. They eventually settle in the land. … And then, instead of living holy lives dedicated to the Lord, who did all these amazing things for them, they turn from God and do evil. … This results in them being attacked and oppressed by another group of people. … The people cry out to God for help. … and then God gives them someone to help them. … This is a cycle we see over and over in the book of Judges, but we find it elsewhere in the Bible too. It seems to be a spiritual pattern in human life. People turn away from God. Bad things happen. People turn back to God for help. God sends them help. Things get better. But then, after a while, people turn from God again.

In our reading from Judges today, we meet Deborah, who is a prophet. We don’t know a lot about her, but it’s fascinating that here we have a woman who is speaking for God, and giving orders to an Israelite general. She ends up in the thick of a military campaign to free their people. No one seems to question her, or have an issue with the fact she is a woman. It is exactly the opposite. They want her present with them, and her words are treated with the utmost respect. … It is a fascinating glimpse of a female giving leadership before the kingdom of Israel even exists.

Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians continues the theme of preparation for the coming of Christ. We are nearing the end of the church year, which concludes with the feast of Christ the King. It is when we acknowledge the day when every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord. … But we don’t know when he will come. Paul says here that he “will come like a thief in the night” (5:2). So, Paul urges us to be spiritually awake, and he uses imagery of day and night to make his point. Night is associated with sleep, which is symbolic of a lack of awareness. The darkness of night is associated with a lack of sight. Night is when people sneak around doing things they shouldn’t, like getting drunk. … Instead, Paul urges us to be children of the day. To be in the light, it to be able to see clearly. This means to be awake- to be spiritually aware- to be sober- to be ready. … We don’t know when Christ will come, so we should be ready at all times.

I think we can see this in relation to our Judges reading. The danger to the Israelites comes when things seemed to be going well. They were able to rest. They came into the promised land, and they started just living their lives. They were farming and having families. It is in the midst of that ordinary rhythm of life that they turned away from God. They were living in a time of peace. They had resolved their outward necessities. They were no longer wandering in the wilderness with no place to call home. They had finally found a place to call home- food, shelter, family, and the rhythm of ordinary life. The physical dangers had been dealt with. This is where their spiritual danger snuck up on them. Outward comfort can easily lead to spiritual danger if we don’t take our spiritual lives seriously. … And this seems to be what Paul is warning about.

The Parable that Jesus tells fits this theme as well. What should we do with our lives? This is especially important for us. We live in safety and comfort that our ancestors couldn’t even imagine. So what should we do with our lives? …

The parable is about a man who goes on a journey and entrusts his substantial wealth to three of his servants. He doesn’t distribute the wealth equally, one receives 5 talents, the next 2, and the third gets 1 talent. The master probably had a sense of what his servants could handle, and he distributes his wealth for them to manage while he is away.

Just to give you a sense of how much money Jesus is talking about, a talent was worth 15-20 years wages for a day laborer. In modern money one talent would be almost a million dollars. So, they are entrusted with a lot of money. Even the servant who was only given 1 talent was still given a lot of money.

Our modern description of an ability as a “talent” probably comes from this parable. And that is the appropriate way to look at this parable. Jesus isn’t just talking about money. The money is symbolic of all that God has given us, which includes our material blessings, but it goes beyond this as well. Any use of our skills, time, or resources might be represented by our talent. … The early Church Father St. Chrysostom says these talents could be as simple as our senses, or our ability to speak, our hands and feet, the strength of our body, the understanding of our mind, or our listening ears.

We all have different abilities, and we all deal with different life circumstances, and perhaps that tells us something about the 5 talents, the 2 talents and the one talent. Some people are given impressive abilities. Some are given more humble abilities. But the different distribution of the talents doesn’t matter in the end. In the end, the one that was given 5 talents and the one that was given 2 talents receive the same reward. What matters is what they do with what was given to them, and even the smaller amount that was given is still a fortune. We might not be blessed with a genius level IQ. Maybe our body is weak, so we can’t pull people out of burning buildings. Maybe our physicality leads us to help people primarily through prayer, well that is still a fortune. (And maybe our ability to pray is actually the 5 talents.) …

We might not have the 5 talents. We might have 2. Two is still absolutely significant and valuable. Even one is significant and valuable. The significance of the talents is to say that we have been entrusted with great wealth- our own lives, material wealth, and spiritual wealth. We have The Gospel, instruction in the ways of the kingdom of God, The Gifts of the Spirit. We have been entrusted with talents and they are to be used for God’s purposes in the world.

The master leaves to go on a trip, which is Jesus going to be at the right hand of the Father at the Ascension. The servants are given complete freedom regarding how to deal with their master’s wealth. Eventually the master returns and he calls his servants before him, which is the Second Coming- When Jesus comes again.

The one who has 5 talents invested it and turned it into 10. And the servant who has 2 talents also doubles his master’s money. The master replies to both in the same way, 

“Well done, good and trustworthy servant; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”

 They receive the affirmation of their master. More power and responsibility are offered to the first two servants, and they are invited into the “joy” of their master. Even though they were given different amounts, the master rewards them both the same way. What matters isn’t so much how much you are given, but how faithful you are in using what you are given for God’s purposes.

The master comes to the third servant who was given one talent, and it is revealed that the servant didn’t make the talent fruitful at all. He actually buried it, which was considered a good way to keep valuables safe at the time. Not only did he not make the talent fruitful, but he also attacks his master’s character saying, 

“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.”

 The servant didn’t lose the money. He didn’t waste the money selfishly. … He was safe. He was careful. … What he wasted was the opportunity. He was driven by fear, and so he was not willing to take a risk. His sin is the sin of omission. In the confession we say, “we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” The sin of the third servant is in what was left undone.

The sin of omission could also be called the sin of sloth. Sloth isn’t just laziness. Sloth is not using what God has entrusted into your care. It is to not use your abilities, or resources, or time for God’s purposes. It is refusing to use what God has given you. It is putting your lamp under a bushel basket (Matt 5:15). … The third servant was punished for his inactivity, not because he did something wrong, but because he didn’t really do anything.

What this parable teaches us is that there is no such thing as sitting on the sidelines. We are all in the game. There are consequences to our actions, even if our action is doing nothing. … To follow Jesus comes with certain risk. …. But choosing to not play has risk as well. We might think that we don’t have a lot to offer. …. But, we all have been given some grace- a talent- our lives. And every talent is like a million dollars. Every one of us has been given something valuable. God isn’t looking for quantity. God is looking for what you have done with what you have given. … We have been given a tremendous opportunity. We are invited to put what God has given us to work in the world, and by doing so we are invited to cooperate with the kingdom of God, and hopefully, in the end, to hear the words of our Master- “Well done good and faithful servant”. AMEN