25th Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 25:14-30
“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to their ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s money. After a long time, the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ The master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And, the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ The master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh person, 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.’ But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return, I would have received what was my own, with interest. So, take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
The Kingdom of God is like Game Night
This parable is a lot. It’s distasteful to our modern sensibilities; the characters in this story are three slaves and their master, who apparently is also a thief. The central illustration seems to be about how to use money to make more money, and the slave who buried the talent in the ground and then gave the money back to the master, without any interest, is punished.
We know that the Kingdom of God is not about enslavement, or using money to make money, or punishment, so why did Jesus tell a parable like this? This parable follows a well-known story structure of that time. The trope of a powerful person entrusting their underlings to do things on their behalf was one that the disciples would be familiar with. In these stories, these tasks given by the master were a test of character, and the disciples would have understood that the slave master did not really represent Jesus, even though the foreshadowing of Jesus’ return can be seen in the return of the master.
The parable ends with “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” That doesn’t sound like the Kingdom of God to me. Compare that line to the Sermon on the Mount earlier in Matthew’s gospel, in chapter 5, when Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” The beatitudes are about justice and balance, not giving more to those who have, and taking away from those who have not.
Throughout the gospels, we often see Jesus chiding his disciples for not understanding what he’s telling them. And, here we are, 2,000 years later, looking at the same parables, trying to understand what Jesus was saying, in a totally different time and place, outside of the culture and norms from which this parable was told.
This parable, like all parables, is a metaphor, and like all metaphors, they always fall short in some way. We have to be careful when we read them, and we need to compare what is being said in the parable to what else Jesus said during his ministry.
Instead of thinking that Jesus was a thief and a harsh master, and that their ultimate goal was to grow their wealth, the disciples would have understood this parable as a warning that there would be consequences if they didn’t live up to the expectations that Jesus had for them, consequences not necessarily for themselves, but for the people who needed them. For the people who needed mercy the most.
I want to retell this parable using a current-day real-life example, that doesn’t have all of the triggering imagery that the parable of the talents has for us today.
The Kingdom of God is like game night. I love game night. I love getting together with a group of friends and playing board games, and card games, and party games. Some of you might know that I design games. Instead of writing an ordination paper, I designed a card game to teach people about the history, theology, and polity of the United Church of Christ.
One day, my siblings and I were hanging out with one of our friends, we’ll call her Lucy, and we somehow started talking about Scrabble. We decided we wanted to have a Scrabble night. Lucy said she had this fancy limited edition of Scrabble; it was made with nice wood, and had a rotating base, and a leather bag for the tiles. So, we set a date, and Lucy said she would bring the game. I was a little nervous, because Lucy had a tendency to be late, but I thought, even if she was as much as an hour late, it wouldn’t be a big deal. We could just hang out and have food and wine, until she arrived with the game.
On game night, we all got together at the time we had planned. Everyone, except for Lucy. None of us were surprised; we all expected her to be late. So, we chatted and made food, just passing the time, and an hour later, Lucy still hadn’t shown up. But, it was Lucy, being an hour late was par for the course. So, we kept waiting. Another hour went by. We decided at that point that we should probably give her a call. She said she was on her way, so we thought, great! If she was on her way, then she should get there in a half an hour or so, and we could start game night.
When Lucy finally arrived, she was four hours late! I have no idea how a person can even be four hours late to something; it’s not like she had to fly in from another state! She also forgot the game.
We had entrusted her with one of the most important aspects of game night, and she didn’t deliver, so we didn’t play a game that night. There are consequences when we don’t fulfill our responsibilities.
The parable of the talents is about the great work that Jesus commissioned the disciples to do. They were charged with bringing the Good News of God’s love to the world. They were supposed to carry on Jesus’ ministry after he was gone. This parable represents the trust, responsibility, and privilege that Jesus bestowed on them, and what would happen if they didn’t live up to his expectations. They were not supposed to bury their talents in the ground.
Of course, in this parable, a talent is a large sum of money, not an ability that someone has. But, in a lucky turn of linguistic events, I think that’s actually the point of the parable. We’re not supposed to hide our talents. We’re supposed to use them. In that same Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.”
As I think about what’s happening right now in the Middle East, I’m reminded of the talents of people like our friend Valerie Hellerman, who goes to war-torn places to bring medical aid to the injured. I think about the talents of people like diplomats, and translators, and world leaders who have the ability to work together to bring an end to these conflicts.
We have each been given a talent, and it doesn’t matter if society thinks that talent is big or small, our responsibility is to use our talents to show God’s grace to the world. We need the talents of firefighters and nurses, dog walkers and gardeners. We need the talents of the farmers who grow our food, and the truck drivers and ship workers who transport goods all over the world. We need poets and artists, actors and musicians. Postal workers, ranchers, roofers, biologists. We need the baristas who give coffee and that first pleasant interaction in the morning to our police officers and receptionists, our teachers and mechanics.
We cannot bury our gifts in the dirt, where no one can see them, where they won’t be used. This great work has been entrusted to us. We are all connected in this grand web of humanity, as one person interacts with another, who interacts with another, and on, and on, and on. We need to bring our gifts, and we need to bring our best, to everything that we do. That is the Holy Spirit is working in the world.
Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
