‘Tis Christmas come early, for me any
way. This is the second of three
homilies on the Parable of the Talents. Last time
we focused on the first two servants and used the acronym TURN, standing for:
Trusted—each of the three servants was
trusted by his master. They were
entrusted with money in accordance with their ability.
Urgency—the first two servants acted
at once and put their master’s money to work.
We noted that they were the master in their relationship with this
money. They put it to work and it did
not get a day off.
Return on Investment (ROI)—the first
two knew that their master was demanding and expected a return. They were wise and demanding with their
investments and produced a fantastic return for him.
No Fear—while fear is real and risk is
real, the servants were not immobilized by fear. Wisdom, not fear governed what they did with
their master’s money.
Now we come to the third servant. We need to realize that this servant was also
trusted by his master. This was not a
set up. He was not doomed to fail from
the start. His master trusted him with a
whole bag of gold. You don’t do that
with someone that you don’t trust.
He was trusted. Perhaps his abilities were not the same as
the others, but he was a trusted servant and entrusted with his master’s money
in accordance with his abilities.
And, it appears that he too acted with
urgency—at least there is nothing that would indicate any delay. How can I say this? The text does not say that this servant
weighed his choices and then decided to go bury his talent in the ground. The text simply says that he went off, dug a
hole in the ground, and hid his master’s money.
He didn’t stop off for investment
advice. He didn’t consult with the other
two servants. He did not swing by the
bank and put the money on deposit and later change his mind. He went off and dug a hole in the ground. It didn’t even say that he swung by the house
to pick up a shovel.
It is at this point that we see fear
creeping into this servant’s decision model.
It would seem that the third servant already knew that if his master
gave him anything at all, he would go bury it in the ground.
Here is a really crazy part. He expends more effort to hide this money
that it would take to deposit it in the bank.
How much effort is it to take the money to the bank, say here’s my
money, where is my receipt?
Here’s the thing when you hide the
money in the ground—somebody else could find it. Do you remember the parable of the hidden treasure?
Hiding money in the ground was something that people did in that
day. It may not have been wise but it
was not unusual.
I remember watching investment
commercials several years ago. One of
them showed a couple stressing a little bit over their investments because the
market was just downright ugly. One of
them remarked, “What are we going to do?
Put it under our mattress?”
While I don’t have a lot of money to
invest, I was putting some in a Roth IRA a few years ago and when I would look
at my statements I sometimes wondered if I wouldn’t have been better off putting
my money under my mattress.
So we should not look at this third
servant as doing something unusual. In
certain circumstances, having some money or gold or silver in a safe place
makes sense. In the context of this
parable, we are not told that the country is in financial turmoil or that the
banks might close or that there is any extraordinary risk at play.
Fear is what drives this servant to
hide his money in the ground. Think
about this. Does his hiding his money in
the ground reduce his fear?
On the contrary, now he must worry
that someone will find his hiding spot.
He will have to come up with some way of checking on his buried money
without giving away where it is buried.
He will spend more time or worry now than if he just put the money in the
bank and worried that all the banks collapsed.
Some suggest that because many had
dirt floors in those days that this servant buried the money within the
confines of his own house. That’s a
possibility, but think about the worry factor he would have had every time he
left the house. He would suddenly be a prisoner in his own household. There’s a cruel form of house arrest.
But why was he afraid?
He was afraid of his master because he
saw his master as a hard man. This man
harvested where he had not even planted.
He reaped dividends where he had not even invested.
Understand that the other two servants
knew the same facts about their master; yet they pursued vastly different
courses of action. So was the fear truly
derived from the qualities of the master?
How do two servants see this same
master and go and do great things and this one servant becomes immobilized by
fear? It’s not that the third servant
didn’t do anything at all, he just did not do anything productive.
We get most of our answer from the
master’s description of this third servant.
You wicked, lazy servant—those are the words: wicked and lazy. Some translations use slothful for lazy. What a label to have put upon you!
Is the master being overly harsh? He did get his money back. It’s not like the servant went out and
squandered it like the prodigal son.
It’s like a bottle deposit. It’s
a zero-sum gain. This guy is surely not
going to business school, but is he really wicked?
Consider the proverbs. I will give you the Tom’s tweet version. There
is God’s way and there is everything else.
I’ll go a little beyond the
tweet. There is God’s way. We might call it the right way. We might call it righteousness. We might call it holy—set apart, completely
different from the ways of the world.
It’s God’s way.
And then there is everything else,
which we might call:
· Foolishness—the Proverbs are rich in poverty
of the fool.
· Laziness—consider the sluggard
described in the proverbs who is too lazy to bring his hand from the bowl to
his mouth.
· Wickedness—being totally opposed to everything
that God has made holy.
· Rebelliousness—a first cousin of wickedness
for sure.
· Contentiousness—often manifesting itself as a
firebrand of discontent
Sometimes we think that to be wicked,
someone has to look the part. Sometimes
we think that to be lazy, a person must do nothing at all.
But anything opposed to God and God’s
ways is wicked. Those who expend energy
on making excuses instead of producing something of value are lazy.
Let’s take the second part of a
proverb that you know very well: Fools
despise wisdom and instruction or discipline.
Why?
Their starting point and their life
direction is skewed. Unlike the wise who
come out of the starting blocks with a wholesome fear of the Lord, the foolish
despise such discipline. The heart of a
fool says that there
is no God.
Fools defy obedience. They defy discipline and surely will never
know the fruit of self-discipline. Fools
live in fear of the world, and that leads to terrible decision making.
Fear cannot produce a good return on
investment. The fear of what mom or dad
might do to a child sometimes will keep them out of trouble, but it won’t get
them to a college degree or make them a good leader or help them produce a good
return.
Consider the football team that has
led the whole game. They have a
two-touchdown lead with two minutes left in the game and they start playing not
to make a mistake—not to lose.
Consider their opponents who have been
struggling the entire game. They have
been afraid to throw the long ball or run the reverse because they were sure it
wouldn’t work.
Now with only two minutes
left, they think to themselves that what they thought would work isn’t working,
so why not try something else. They
throw the deep strike and connect. They
make a stop, get the ball back, run the reverse and move quickly to another
score.
Now the game is tied with one time
playing totally fearless football and the other team playing not to lose.
About 20 years ago, football coaches
at all levels became aware of this dynamic and started coaching with a model
that said, what would we do if fear were not a factor. Sometimes you must lose a game that you led
for most of the way to remember this.
Fear does not produce good returns.
There is risk in life and fear is
still alive and well in the world, but for those who choose wisdom, fear is not
welcome in our decision—making cycle. We
look at possible consequences and sequels to our decisions, but we do not
decide out of fear. We are people who
are aware of what is going on in our life and in the world, but fear does not
govern us.
The master of these three servants was
a demanding man. Two of the servants
recognized this and did their best to meet or exceed his expectations. One buried the very thing that he was trusted
with in the ground because he was afraid.
This third servant tried to transfer
the blame for his ineptness to the master—I
knew you were a hard man; but by his own admission he was afraid. The fact that his master was a hard man was
not the problem. Consider the coaches
that you have known in your life or that you know of. Think about these two: Vince Lombardi and John Wooden. They were demanding. They set the bar very high and expected you
to reach or exceed the goals set for you.
Really, who would want to play for a
coach that showed up for practice, looked at how you were at the beginning of
the season and just said, “whatever.” The
fact that his master was a hard man was not the problem.
The problem was that the third servant was
afraid. Fear was the governing force in
his life.
Let’s finish the parable. Not only was the master displeased, but he
gave instructions to take the one talent or one bag of gold from this worthless
servant and give it to the one who now had ten talents.
He said not only have you disappointed
me, but you are no longer worthy of my trust.
Let’s go back to the beginning.
The third servant received one bag of gold because the master knew that
he could manage one bag of gold. Had he
only put it in the bank, he would have at least had something to show for this
trust.
But he had nothing to show for his
master’s investment. For those listening
to this parable as Jesus told it, they could relate to taking the one talent
from the wicked and lazy servant and giving it to the servant who now had ten
talents.
The wealth of the wicked is stored up
for the righteous.
Many of your translations say the
wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous or for the godly. I would suspect that those listening to this
parable probably cheered at this point.
They knew the proverb and wanted to hear a story where the world of the
wicked ended upside down and the righteous were standing tall at the end of the
day.
Today, some would say, “Oh how mean to
take away from those who have so little.”
Here is the thing, the third servant didn’t have as much as the other
two, but he still was trusted with a bag of gold.
I want us to ponder this point. When
our Master trusts us with a little, it’s still a lot. It is something with which we can produce a
return. We can produce a return. It’s not like he says here’s five bucks now make me
rich. God gives us enough to produce
a return.
Unless we are governed by fear. So many times we read God telling his people,
“Do not be afraid.” “Fear not” are words
that are not only for shepherds watching their flocks at night.
God commanded Joshua not to be afraid
and not to be discouraged.
Fear is real. Danger is real. Risk is real.
Life has risk and sometimes danger but fear must not govern how we
navigate this life.
Fear robs us of producing returns for
our Master and for the Body of Christ.
Fear robs us of joy and peace.
Fear has to do with punishment and we do not fear the punishment of our
Master.
Here’s the thing with the third
servant fearing his master. People do
not give bags of gold to people that they have just punished. The third servant may have received
instruction and discipline in the past, but he had not been punished.
If you receive instruction and
discipline then you are still in the good graces of your master. He knows that instruction and discipline are
his investments in you. If you have
received punishment in the past, he is not going to trust you with a bag of
gold.
The third servant was not being set up
to fail. He should have realized that
his master trusted him. He was a trusted
servant.
The master trusted all three of these
servants and gave them what they could handle within their abilities. Somewhere along the way fear entered the
equation for the third servant.
Let’s go back to Tom’s tweet. We will use the corporate version.
What
did we do with what God gave us?
Now let’s ask a follow up question.
Is
fear decreasing my return on God’s investment?
We don’t do fear. We don’t deny that fear exists, but we do not
give it safe harbor in our lives. It is
not welcomed into our decision making.
Wisdom not fear governs.
Our Master trusts us. We take what he says at face value and just
do it. We produce a good return when we
are obedient to him, and fear is not a part of who we are.
We don’t have to have specific
instructions; in fact, it is more likely that we will be given a trust—some
sort of talent or gift or opportunity—and our call is to be obedient to God by
putting that trust to work.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and
courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will
be with you wherever you go.
The third servant would have been wise
to memorize this verse. We are wise
because we have memorized it. We are
blessed when we live by these words.
We don’t do fear!
That’s a great place to end for now,
except that I have gone through this entire message and not mentioned love once. I talked about wisdom and fear, urgency and
laziness, being demanding, wickedness, but not a single mention of love.
Let me take one moment to clarify that
we are trusted servants because God already loves us. The servants received rewards or lack of them
because of what they did with what their master gave them, but in our
relationship with our Master, we know that love precedes everything.
We are not trusted servants to earn
love. We are trusted because we are
loved. We are trusted to work out our
salvation as the most important thing that we can do, but love has preceded
this relationship. Salvation is already
assured.
Our Master has claimed us for all
eternity and we do not fear his punishment.
To understand this parable completely and apply it to our lives as
disciples, we—as I think the first two servants realized—know that our Master
will never stop loving us.
We are more than servants to be used
for our Master’s purpose. We are more
than someone to be used. We do our
Master’s will and put our talents to use and are obedient to our Master, but
realize that we are more than someone to be used. Our Master has also called us friend.
We are free to live without fear. We are free to produce fantastic returns on
God’s investment in us. We are free of
fear being a governing factor in our lives.
Amen.
