The Parable of the Talents
Matthew 25:14-30
“The Parable of the Talents”
David Shirey
Broadway Christian Church
Scripture never ceases to amaze me. You can read a passage a hundred times and on the 101st reading it’s still capable of sparking a new insight. This is my umpteenth time listening to the Parable of the Talents and it happened again-- something new caught my attention. The New Testament’s Letter to the Hebrews is right when it says, “the word of God is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12). Scripture is always able to speak a new word to a new day if we but have ears to hear. This parable is a case in point.
There was a time when I read this passage and what I heard is God has given us talents, we’re to use them in ways that glorify God and bless others, and we’re accountable for using them to that end. To the Corinthians, Paul said, “To each one [a gift of the Spirit] is given for the common good” (1 Cor 12:7). America’s Got Talent is a television show. Everybody’s Got Talent is a biblical promise. Everybody’s a 10 somewhere. Since no one has all of the talents and no one has none of the them, we must pool our gifts, complementing one another. Only then can we do everything God calls and gifts us to do. One year we asked the youth in our Pastor's Class, “Why do you want to be baptized and give your life to following Jesus?” One girl wrote, “I feel it’s time for the piece that is my life to be fit into God's puzzle.” Amen to that! So, in terms of your God-given talent, the divinely-crafted puzzle piece you are: Discover it. Name it. Claim it. Use it. Because when you’re doing what you’re gifted to do, you’ll do it with competence and enthusiastic confidence and contribute to God’s purposes for this world.
I still like that interpretation of this parable. But several years ago as I was studying this parable something else struck me, namely, the notion of someone burying their talent. That led me to ponder why some people would bury their God-given gifts.
In the parable, the donor of the talents attributed it to laziness. He barked, “You wicked and lazy slave!” (verse 26). We’ll come back to that. I came up with reasons I’ve observed in my 41 years of ministry as to why some people bury their talents that evoke not judgment but understanding and sympathy.
For instance, I’ve known people who buried their talent because someone criticized them for their use of it. They determined to bury it and never use it so as not to be vulnerable to hurtful criticism again.
Others have buried their talent because they were never allowed a season of rest from using their gift and over time burned out. It doesn’t matter if your gift is teaching, serving on a committee, preparing coffee or preparing communion, some people offer their gifts only to feel after long years in the same role they received a life sentence. So, when given half a chance, they duck out, bury their gift, and never offer it again.
Some bury their gift because they were never thanked for using it. “Since no one seemed to appreciate my gift when I offered it, they probably won’t notice it when it’s buried ten feet under and I’m not using it anymore.”
Still others compare their gift with others, dismiss their talent as inferior, and bury it. We always seem to compare ourselves to those we think have more than we do or do things better than we do, thereby digging for ourselves a hole of envy and shame. And God sighs, because talents are given not for comparing and competing, but for cooperation and community.
And some people I’ve known didn’t bury their talent as much as the church forced them to keep their talent buried, unwelcome and unwanted:
I’m speaking of women in explicitly patriarchal churches who hear there is no place for your talent if you were born without a Y chromosome.
I’m speaking of youth who hear, “You’re the church of tomorrow, but not today.”
With Pridefest in the offing, I’m thinking of some of my dearest friends, brothers and sisters in Christ – Steve, Dwayne, Connie, Liz, Will, Dee, Bev, Jen, Keith, Jeanette, Don, Terry, Heather, Gwen, John, Paul. Their names are legion. They were told “You can come to church, but you can’t be a teacher or an elder or a leader or … or … or …” And what they heard was, You can’t be you, so they buried their precious gifts and their precious selves. So it is I give thanks we’re members of a congregation of Broad Hearts, Broad Minds and Broad Reach that welcomes all people to offer their gifts, including long-buried gifts offered anew.
I still like that interpretation of this parable, understanding why people bury their gift and striving to be a church that makes sure no one does. But six years ago, I was reading this passage and as I was traipsing through, saying, “I know this one,” I got tripped up, slowed down and brought to a standstill. I got hung up on the way the man handing out the talents is characterized. The reason the one talent recipient gave for burying his talent was that he was afraid of the Master. “Master,” he says, “I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” The Master doesn’t dispute that characterization, saying, “You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow?” Then he shows his true (awful!) colors by lambasting the trembling servant, saying “You lazy slave!” and ordering the “worthless” man to be “thrown into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” That bothered me because I mentioned last week that many of us were taught to read parables by trying to figure out who the various characters represent. When we do that, we usually suspect the authority figure in the parable is God. But is this Master the God we know in Jesus Christ? A hard, thieving, ruthless, angry, vindictive bully?
I mention this because if you live life afraid of God you’ll serve God out of fear to avoid punishment and live life with an ulcerous knot in your stomach fed by the nagging sense you’ve not doing enough well enough enough of the time to earn God’s approval. Which is a terrible way to live life that’s born of a terrible way to think of God. No life can flourish if it’s planted in the soil of fear.
The so-called Master in this parable can’t be the God we know in Jesus. In John’s incomparable words, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). God, sings the classic hymn, is Love divine, all loves excelling. Pure, unbounded love thou art.” God isn’t a fearful bully. God is a loving Savior. God isn’t wrathful. God is redeeming. In the words of God’s own introduction to Moses, God is “Merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Exodus 34:6). That’s our God, not the nasty Master in the parable.
You see, theology matters! What we believe about God will become in us. The word belief is derived from the words by life. Beliefs are manifest by lives. Belief in a fearful God begets fear. Judgment begets judgment. But belief in a loving God becomes love. Love evokes love. Generosity evokes generosity. Giving evokes giving. Accepting that you are beloved of God becomes an embrace of all as God’s beloved. When we live in fear of God, we live life cramped and coiled, trembling. But when we know God loves us unconditionally, blesses us immeasurably, and meets all our efforts, including our failings, with mercy and grace, far be it from us to bury our gifts. Instead, we’ll be free to live and give with joyous abandon. As the great hymn puts it surveying the wondrous cross, the sign of God’s boundless self-giving love where Jesus died with his arms outstretched as if to embrace the whole world, Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. “Perfect love casts out all fear” (1 John 4:18).
So, what do we do with this parable? It yields so many interpretations. One is that God has given us talents, we’re to use them in ways that glorify God and bless others, and we’re accountable for using them to that end. A second is that people can be hurt and bury their talents but churches offering encouragement, gratitude, and welcome can heal hurts and evoke long-buried gifts to be shared once again. A third interpretation is that God’s not a hard, mean-spirited Master to cower from, but rather our Loving Creator and Redeemer whose grace and goodness frees us to open our hands and share our talents generously and joyfully with others.
This week it happened again. A new insight. I was studying this parable and came upon a teaching of it online by a pastor named Josh Scott, Lead Pastor at GracePointe Church in Nashville. One of our Sunday School Classes is studying Josh’s book Bible Stories For Adults right now and Darren Day is going to be leading a class on it later this fall. Pastor Josh offers an interpretation that I find to be absolutely brilliant that suggests the man who buried his talent is none other than Jesus.[1] It has to do with Jesus’ non-violent defiance of the Roman Empire, his saying to nasty Masters Herod and Caesar, “Here’s your talent back. I’m not doing your bidding anymore. I’m not cooperating with your exploitative, bullying ways. And that defiance got Jesus what? In the parable, the nasty Master says, “Thrown this worthless slave into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Well, Jesus got led out to a place of “wailing and gnashing of teeth” called Golgotha where he paid the price for his civil disobedience. Matthew tells us when he was crucified “darkness came over the whole land” (Matthew 27:45). There’s an interpretation for you! And the fact that Jesus tells this parable (chapter 25) right before Holy Week begins (chapter 26) adds credence to it.
I tell you: Jesus had a talent for telling stories! I think we could listen to him our whole lives long and never fully plumb the glorious depths of everything he teaches us. He’s that big. That brilliant. That wise. That wonderful.
How about if we continue listening to his parables … next week.
Let all God’s talented servants say AMEN.
[1] Pastor Scott’s teaching may be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNmBKwyd4kY
