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Sermon for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost – Nov. 15, 2020
Matthew 25:14-30
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Last week we heard Jesus tell a parable about the future, a parable about what the kingdom of heaven will be like. In the parable of the ten bridesmaids, Jesus teaches us the importance of keeping our lamps lit as we await the coming of this kingdom, watching with faith and waiting in joyful anticipation.
Jesus continues right where we left off last week with another parable. This parable tells us that during this time of watching and waiting we don’t just sit around twiddling our thumbs! God has work for us to do! God makes investments in us that are meant to be shared with the world for the benefit of the kingdom. God entrusts us with gifts that are meant to be put to use as we await his coming.
In this parable a master summons his servants and entrusts his property to them. This property is not divvyed up equally – some have greater abilities, and are thus entrusted with more of the property. However, each of these three servants is entrusted with enormous resources! One is entrusted with five talents, another with two talents, and another with one talent – but don’t feel too sorry for the one talent guy. It is estimated that a single talent was worthy twenty years worth of wages. So while he isn’t a multimillionaire like the one with five talents, that would still represent hundreds of thousands of dollars!
The servant with five talents and the servant with two talents each trade with the gifts they’ve been given. They invest with them. They share them. They put those resources to work in such a way that they expand and grow and multiply and bless. So far, so good.
However, the servant who was given one talent – still worth hundreds of thousands of dollars! – hid his money in the ground so that it yielded nothing, not even interest.
It is easy to interpret this parable as being about stewardship. I’ve probably preached on it that way in the past a few times. (To be honest, after looking at our financial report for October, I’m tempted to preach it that way today!) And that wouldn’t be entirely wrong. This parable is, in part, about what we do with all that God has entrusted to us – including our money.
But this parable is about more than that. What made that servant with the one talent hide his money in the ground? Fear. He was afraid of his master. He thought his master was a harsh man. He was afraid of what would happen if he failed, if he lost the money. He didn’t believe there would be any grace for him if that happened. The problem with the servant who buried his master’s talents isn’t just that he didn’t get a return, it was that he had no faith in the goodness and mercy of his master.
This parable is no doubt an encouragement to us to use all that God has entrusted to us – our time, our skills, our resources – for the sake of the kingdom. It is an exhortation to invest all that God has given us, using it all to serve our neighbors and give glory to God. And what a beautiful thing it is when this happens!
One of our church members retired this week after many, many years of serving families and individuals in crisis. I’d say she is one of the five talent people out there. She has a calm, caring demeanor. She is so very wise, so knowledgeable in her field. She has the ability to be the consummate professional she most certainly is, while also making you feel like she’s your mom. She was perfect for the line of work she was in. She used all those rich blessings to help and serve others – including us here at church, including me personally. I sent her a card on the occasion of her retirement, and in that card I reminded her that God wasn’t done with her yet, even though she was retiring. Even as she is entitled to spend more time with the people and activities she loves, Jesus will have new ways for her to serve! I also wrote some words from this very parable: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
This parable encourages all of us to strive to serve God with all God has entrusted to us as we await the coming of the kingdom. We aren’t all gifted in the same ways, but we all have tremendous gifts to put to work for God’s glory and the good of our neighbors.
But this parable is about something deeper as well. This is a parable about who we believe God to be. In the catechism, where Martin Luther explains the first commandment, he argues that the God you believe in is the god you get. This parable isn’t just about two servants who successfully used their gifts and one who didn’t. This is about two servants who had faith in their master, and one who did not. It is about two servants who knew their master to be good and generous and merciful, and so it was OK to take some risks, to step out in faith, and one who was afraid because he believed his master was a harsh man. That fear caused him to bury his gifts, to turn inward, to retreat, to try to cover his own rear. This wasn’t merely a failure to use one’s gifts, it was a failure of faith itself, a failure to trust in the master’s goodness. It wasn’t that there was no grace available for him, it was that he had already ruled out that possibility – and as you believe, so shall it be done to you.
But that isn’t you. You know that you have a gracious and merciful God. You have a master who has richly blessed you with gifts to share – in your family, in our church, in our community, in our world. You know that you have work to do for God’s glory and the good of others. You know that you have nothing to fear, for God in Christ has forgiven you your sins – the things you have done, and the things you have left undone. And in the riches of Christ’s forgiveness you are raised up to a new life where things are not left undone anymore.
If you don’t believe this, why not start believing it now? If you have forgotten this, it is time to remember. For when we remember who our master really is, when we have faith in the true God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, we gladly go to work for him until the day we too hear the words: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church