Fearful Choices

This morning is the second of three sermons from the amazing 25th chapter of Matthew and today we look specifically at what has come to be called the Parable of the Talents. Because it mentions money, this text has often been used as a pretext to talk about stewardship. But when he told this parable Jesus didn’t have in mind giving to church budgets. Giving to the church is one dimension of stewardship but that was not the context in which this parable was told.

Jesus told this parable near the end of his earthly ministry to describe again what God’s kingdom will be like. Forty or fifty years after Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, Matthew uses the parable along with the others in chapter 25 to help his readers know how to live while waiting for Christ to come again. “There is no need to speculate,” Matthew would have insisted, “because our Lord was very clear. We must decide and be ready for the kingdom (that was last week’s message), choose to risk our lives for the sake of the gospel (that is today’s message), and be faithful to the way of Christ in the world because he is our judge (Sid will talk about that in next week’s sermon).” So let’s read the text for today in Matthew 25.

“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 his 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 his 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.’ His 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.’ His 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 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.’ But his 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.’”

We only have time this morning to deal with a couple of insights from this parable and to get at them I want to ask two questions. First, what went wrong with the third slave?

The first two slaves were entrusted with their master’s property and while their master was gone they took that trust seriously. They used what had been given them to gain more for their master. So when the master returned, the first two slaves were rewarded. Were they rewarded by getting something for themselves? No. They were rewarded by being given more responsibility: “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things.” They had acted responsibly so they were given even more responsibility.

But what about the third slave? What went wrong with him? In trying to understand him, interpreters have often turned the third slave into an immoral, reckless no-good. In fact, a version of this story appears in an apocryphal gospel called the Gospel of the Nazoreans — obviously a book not in the Bible — and it depicts the third slave as a wild renegade who wasted his master’s gift on purpose. But such moralizing goes way beyond what Jesus actually said. When we stick just with the text, there is no hint at all that the third slave was dishonest or out to cheat his master. There is no indication of fraud, deceit, or scandal. He had no plans to embezzle the funds or to swindle his master. Nor is there any sign that he was a philanderer or a prodigal out for a fling.[1] No, he was cautious and careful and prudent and concerned to not lose anything that the master had given him.

So what went wrong? Are not caution and prudence good things? I mean, after all, we are Presbyterians and prudence is our middle name. The third slave seems like one of us. What’s wrong with that?

What’s wrong is that he wasn’t given a talent by the master with which to be cautious, prudent, or careful. He was blessed by the master in order to risk it for the master, to make a fearful choice. He correctly judged his master to be a hard man and thought it better to preserve his own safety and security than risk losing the gift and angering his master. In other words, the third slave’s prudence and caution had turned into fear and self-protection.[2] The master didn’t seem to care about the return he received. But he cared a great deal that what he gave his slaves be put to good use. The third slave didn’t understand his master. So in fear he tried to protect himself. That’s what went wrong.

Which leads us to a second question this morning and that is, who is the master? Now the obvious answer is God and that’s true. Or we might say that the master represents Christ after his ascension and before his return. But that amounts to saying the same thing. The point is the master represents the divine viewpoint in this parable.

So I ask about the identity of the master to get at a more fundamental issue and that is what does the master’s character teach us about God? If the master represents God, what does that reveal about God?

It reveals how incredibly gracious God really is. But the grace in this story may surprise us because it comes in a way we don’t expect. We are use to thinking about grace as the way God forgives and saves us — “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” But the grace in this parable isn’t about salvation. It’s about responsibility and it shows up right in the first verse: “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them.” Even though the text mentions bankers, in those days there were no banks as we think of them, no certificates of deposit, no deposit insurance, no savings accounts, no stock or bond portfolios. One’s wealth was one’s property. So when the master went away, he entrusted everything he had to his slaves. Everything! In other words, the master took an incredible risk. He chose to put everything he had into the hands of others. That’s grace. Grace is more than being saved. It is being given everything — responsibility — by God.

Maybe we can better understand, then, why the master was so upset with the third slave. He wasn’t so concerned about receiving a return. He would not have been concerned about losing what he gave. He was passionately concerned that the third slave had taken no risks. The master risked everything. That’s the nature of grace. The slave risked nothing. So the grace given him became judgment upon him.

The first two slaves received the grace of responsibility. Like their master, they took some risks. They made fearful choices and were rewarded with more responsibility: “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things.” They were also rewarded with something else: “Enter into the joy of your master.” They were rewarded with the master’s presence. But the third slave received neither. He received responsibility but did not act responsibly. So his responsibility was taken away and he was denied the presence of the master.

Friends, God is a God who takes risks with us and places with us incredible responsibility. This church is our responsibility and all that happens here! Not just my responsibility but all of ours. It is a fearful choice to belong to a church because if any of us fails our responsibility, we fail the God who has risked so much on us. No church just continues automatically and if we fail, finally even what we have from God will be taken away. This church can be taken away. So will the Master’s presence with us. We either become like Christ — that’s what it means to be a Christian — or Christ’s presence cannot be in us.

Many years ago D. T. Niles[3] (1908-1970) told this story at the sesquicentennial celebration of Princeton University. Sometime after World War II during the reconstruction of Europe, the World Council of Churches wanted to see how its money was being spent in some remote parts of the Balkan peninsula. Accordingly it dispatched John Mackie, who was then the president of the Church of Scotland, and two other clergy from another severe and pietistic denomination, to take a jeep and travel to some of the villages where the funds were being disbursed.

One afternoon Dr. Mackie and the other two clergymen went to call on the Orthodox priest in a small Greek village. The priest was overjoyed to see them and eager to pay his respects. Immediately, he produced a box of Havana cigars, a great treasure in those days (I guess they still are if you like cigars), and offered one to each of his guests. Dr. Mackie took one, bit the end off, lit it, puffed a few puffs, and said how good it was. The other gentlemen looked horrified and said, “No, thank you, we don’t smoke.”

Thinking he had somehow offended the two who refused, the priest was anxious to make amends. So he excused himself and reappeared in a few minutes with a flagon of his choicest wine. Dr. Mackie took a glassful, sniffed it like a connoisseur, sipped it, and praised its quality. Soon he asked for another glass. His companions, however, drew themselves back even more noticeably than before and said, “No, thank you, we don’t drink!”

Later, when the three men were in the jeep again, making their way up the rough road out of the village, the two pious clergymen turned upon Dr. Mackie with a vengeance. “Dr. Mackie,” they insisted, “do you mean to tell us that you are the president of the Church of Scotland and an officer of the World Council of Churches and you smoke and drink?”

Dr. Mackie had had all he could take, and his Scottish temper got the better of him. “No, dammit, I don’t,” he said, “but somebody had to risk being a Christian!”[4]

Friends, somebody has to risk being a Christian around this part of the world too. Maybe that somebody ought to be you and me. God risks everything for us. Let’s make some fearful choices and take some risks for God.

[1] Walter Brueggemann, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, James D. Newsome, Texts For Preaching, Year A (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1995) 569-570.

[2] Brueggemann, 570.

[3] Niles was a Sri Lankan minister and missionary and general secretary of the Christian Conference of Asia. He originated many sayings that have entered the general lexicon of Christians today, such as “The church exists for mission as fire exists for burning” and “Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found food.”

[4] The original quote was “No, dammit, I don’t, but somebody had to be a Christian!” I changed it to better fit this sermon’s context. Quoted in John Killinger, Pulpit Digest, July/August 1992, 12-13.