Read Matthew 25:14-30
You wicked, lazy servant!
I do not want to be at the end of a sentence that begins with “Woe unto” and I do not want to be the addressee of the statement, “You wicked, lazy servant!”
For the most part, I focus on what we are to do as trusted servants when examining this parable. We know that we are saved from sin and death. We know that the blood of Jesus has rescued us from condemnation.
There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Those are some powerful words. But we need to consider the negative examples when they come our way in our Bible study. The third servant gives us those negative examples.
He was governed by fear. We have discussed fear many times and know that God wants us to be courageous and not afraid. But for this brief examination, I want to look at the master’s disposition in dealing with the third servant.
“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
“‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
The third servant knew right away that when the master began by labeling him wicked and lazy, things were not going to work out as he thought. The master doesn’t just reprimand the servant, he examines his thinking.
You knew that I gleaned a return even where I had not invested. You knew that about me but you chose a course of action that produced no return.
You knew what I expected and you did the opposite. How could this turn out for the good? Really? Did you see any good outcome in your choice?
So, you were afraid. Is that it? Have I ever valued fear in our relationship? Have I taught you fear? If you had fear of me, don’t you think that would have motivated you to please me?
You get better results with courage but if you were afraid of me then you should have considered that I would not accept anything short of some return on investment.
How could you accomplish this with so little courage? You could have marched yourself right down the bank and put my money in a Certificate of Deposit. At least I could have received some interest.
How hard would that be? You didn’t have the backbone to invest like the other two servants, but you had everything that you needed to go to the bank and deposit my money in an interest-bearing account.
We are usually in tune with what’s happening up to this point, but now the master says, “Take the money way from this servant and give it to the one who has the ten talents.”
Ouch! Isn’t that being a little harsh?
Let’s remember that the money was a trust. It really never belonged to the servants. Remember the joy of the first two servants. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’
See what I gained for you. Here is what I did for you! My joy is in pleasing you!
The third servant knew that the money belonged to his master, but he never moved beyond fear to realize that he was also a trusted servant.
One talent equaled the daily wage for a worker for 20 years. That’s big-time money even when you are only trusted with one talent. Today, what does the typical worker make? If it’s on the low end, maybe $30,000 per year. On the high end, perhaps $50,000 per year. I’m not talking supervisors and executives, but workers.
So, one talent in today’s equivalent is between half a million and a million dollars. That’s no chump change.
OK, so we get this is a big trust even for the third servant, but why take what little he has?
Think to Proverbs 13:22.
A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children,
but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.
You may have heard the second part of that as the wealth of the wicked is laid up for the just or the righteous.
What else could the master do if he subscribed to biblical wisdom? The wicked and lazy don’t get to keep what they have, if they have anything at all.
Throughout the psalms, the people cry out, “How long are you going to let people get away with defying you and living it up, Lord?”
The answer is that in the end, they do not get away with it. Wealth won’t get you anything on the day of wrath, but righteousness is what saves you.
Part of the problem is that we have our own connotations of wicked. Hollywood paints villains as ugly, and menacing, and heartless doers of evil. But we should look at wickedness as everything that is not good—everything that is not done or given or lived in God’s way.
There is no sitting on the fence in this dichotomy. It’s God’s way and everything else. If you are on the wrong side of the fence, you have earned the titles wicked or lazy or slothful. Don’t get caught up in the Hollywood picture of a villain and think that’s what wickedness looks like.
The wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous, so the decision to take the talent from the third servant was not nearly as harsh as that servant's decision to defy his master.
Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents, well, that’s a message for another time.
Amen.
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