Loving God, you have blessed us with many gifts and call us to use them wisely. Teach us to act not out of fear but out of love, trusting in the power of your Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I have to confess that the parable of the talents has always bothered me. It just seems so patently unfair that the one who has so little should have it taken away and given to the one who has so much already. Is the master really a harsh and greedy man, just as this third slave has thought? Is Jesus endorsing a system where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? This certainly doesn't match the Jesus who is revealed in the rest of the gospels! What is this parable trying to teach, anyway?

At one point along the way, it seemed to me that it made the most sense to understand the talents as faith. The more we live according to our faith, and trusting in God to lead, the stronger our faith grows. However, if we bury our faith and never use it, it will never get any stronger and will eventually disappear. Now, although there is this "use it or lose it" aspect with our faith, there are other details that don't quite fit. For one thing, these slaves are entrusted with huge amounts of money. One talent was equal to almost 20 years' worth of wages for a labourer. On the other hand, the gospel teaches that all we need in order to move mountains is faith the size of a mustard seed (Mt. 17:20). So, perhaps Jesus wasn't talking about faith.

But what was he talking about, and what was he trying to teach? A little bit of research into the Middle Eastern culture of the first century soon reveals that the people listening to Jesus would have been asking the same thing! You see, the people listening would have assumed that the third slave was the faithful and the good slave. The other two slaves, along with their master, would have been considered thieves and extortioners. The common attitude around the Mediterranean at the time was that people only get rich by taking away what belongs to others. If the first two slaves had acquired more talents, it could only have been through unjust gain.

At the same time, the rabbis taught that burying something in the ground was a perfectly acceptable way to keep it safe. The people listening to Jesus would have assumed that the third slave had done the right thing [Stoffregen - http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt25x14.htm ]. If we keep this in mind, then the parable has a lot more to say about the character of the master than it does about the actions of the slaves. It would seem that the master is indeed harsh and greedy, just as the third slave thought.

Yet, this is not our master. It is similar in some ways to the parable of the unjust judge (Lk. 18) where Jesus teaches that even an unjust judge will eventually give in and give justice to the person who persists. So how much more will God listen to our pleas and give us justice! Likewise in the parable of the talents, even a harsh and greedy master will reward the slaves who do what he wants. How much more will God - who loves us - reward those who are faithful.

When it comes right down to it, the parable as it is presented in Matthew is asking us to think about one basic question: What are we doing with what God has given to us while we wait for Jesus to come again? Although it might be easy to allow this parable to become a guilt trip where we "should" be using our talents properly, I very much doubt that this is what Jesus has in mind. Rather, we are being asked to consider what God is like and what our response to God's action toward us in Jesus Christ is going to be.

The thing is that the slaves in the parable had two totally different views of the same master. The first two slaves seem to be aware of how much their master has entrusted to them. They also seem to have the opinion that their master is worth pleasing. This leads them to go out "at once" and work at increasing what their master has given to them. However, the third slave views the master as a harsh man who takes what doesn't belong to him. He is afraid of his master and, paralyzed by fear, puts the talent where he knows it will be safe. Afraid of doing the wrong thing, he does nothing at all - which turns out to be the wrong thing!

In the same way, we are quite likely to respond to God based on our understanding of what God is like. If we are afraid of God, or we believe God to be unjust, or if we are angry with God for taking away what we believe belongs to us or to others, then we are likely to bury the treasure that has been given to us and live in fear of what might happen to us next.

On the other hand, if we are aware of how great a treasure God has entrusted to us and of what great value God has placed upon us, won't we live in joyous response? Wouldn't we want to please the one who loves us so much and has given us such generous gifts? It would seem that our response is very much tied to how we understand God in the first place.

And so then the question becomes, what is our response going to be to the God who is revealed to us through Jesus Christ? What is our response going to be to the God who loves us so much that he would give his only Son for our salvation? How will we respond to the God who has every right to condemn us for our sinfulness, but saves us through Jesus' righteousness instead? How will we respond to the God who has created and entrusted to us this earth and all that is in it?

There are a number of different ways to think about the "talents" that God has entrusted to us. We certainly can think in terms of what we would call talents or abilities, for there are many such skills that increase as we practice them and use them, but disappear if we neglect them or bury them. We can also think in terms of the time that God has given us, which is always of an unknown quantity. We can use it towards the increase of God's kingdom, or we can whittle it away until it's all gone - passed on to somebody else who's going to make better use of it!

At the same time, perhaps we can think about the talents as the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have been entrusted with the good news that God is for us and has acted to save us through Jesus Christ. We can do as much as possible in order to share that good news with others, or we can bury it - hoping to keep it safe for ourselves. Yet, there are echoes in this parable of that other parable about the vineyard, where the vineyard will be taken away and given to others who will "produce the fruits of the kingdom" (Mt. 21:43).

We, too, are called to take what we have been given and produce the fruits of the kingdom. We do not work for a harsh and unjust master, but for the King of the Universe, who has lived not as a king but as a servant in order to win our salvation. And yes - at some point we will be asked to give an accounting of what we have been doing with what we have been given.

However, God's approach is not to say, "Here's what I'm giving to you. Now you'd better do what is right." Instead, God gives to us all that is needed and offers to work through us by the power of the Holy Spirit, empowering us both to will and to work that which is good. For our part, we need only to open ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit, placing our trust in Jesus Christ, who has claimed us as his own.

For "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Gal. 5:22-23). These are the fruits of the kingdom. May they be made known more and more among us. Amen.

Proper 28 (A) Matthew 25:14-30
November 13, 2005
St. Luke's Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison Moore
? 2005 Lynne Hutchison Moore All Rights Reserved