Living in Fear?

20081116Matt25Talenta

When we read or hear the parable of the talents, it is easy for our minds to make the leap from a unit of money to talking about what we know of as talents, our giftedness, the things we are good at. And so it is easy for us to make the step to application of this parable in our lives. It means that God wants us to use what we have wisely, to be the most effective. In certain ways, that’s true. But there is a sneaky human element that creeps into that interpretation. One that twists the text ever so slightly and instead of proclaiming and living into the gospel, the good news, we find ourselves on the endless treadmill of searching for better performance and measurable results.

We need to take a look at the wider scope of Scripture to let the whole voice of the Bible speak, not just lift out a couple of sentences and then say that we are finished. Looking at the context of the parable of the talents, Matthew 25:14-30, we see that it immediately follows the parable of the ten bridesmaids and is just before Jesus’ description of the separation of the ‘sheep’ and the ‘goats’ on the day of Judgment, the parousia in Greek. There is an urgency to Jesus’ words here for this is one of the last things he teaches before Gethsemane, Calvary and the empty tomb. Again and again, Jesus had told the disciples he had to go away and one of the last parables he tells is about a master who does go away and stays away longer than expected. Here again, we have to realize that hindsight is 20/20. It’s so easy for us think: “why didn’t they get it? He was standing right there telling them what was going to happen?” And yet, why don’t we get it? For he told us then that all of this would happen and we still are stumbling around in the dark. Making it all harder and more complicated than it has to be, tying millstones around the necks of our children and ourselves.

What are we missing? Look at the text again, considering these things. One, the talenta was one of the largest measurements of money in the ancient world. It was worth 15 years of a normal man’s income. Jesus wasn’t pointing to a specific amount of money here because this was more than most of his hearers could even conceive of. The first thing we have to see is that Jesus was talking about the generosity of the Master. Trusted servants were often left in charge of their master’s household accounts for years at a time and they were expected to support themselves, other servants and take care of business for the master in ways that were honorable and profitable. Entrusting this much money to another means the master knows he will be gone for a long time. And yet, he doesn’t settle all the talenta on one servant.

That’s the second point, the servants. Each of the three of them were given different amounts and Jesus doesn’t tell us what any of them think about anything until the end of the parable. We don’t know why the master divided things as he did and we don’t know how the servants felt about the division of the materials. We don’t really hear from the servants at all until the one given the single talent speaks up at the end. “Master, I knew you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you had not scattered seed, so I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” Almost literally, the servant is saying ‘I buried your money and sat on it.’ You have to admit this man has some guts to even say that to his boss, to name what he thinks the trouble is. “Look, I am basically afraid of you and afraid of what you would do to me if I didn’t measure up. If I didn’t make you a profit or do something amazing and fantastic, I knew that I’d be in trouble anyway, so I didn’t do anything at all.”

And in our human opinion, the master then lives up to that slave’s assessment of him. He takes the talenta away, gives it to the servant who had the most to begin with and throws the man out into that most frightening of biblical images, into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Where is the gospel in this? Where is the good news? The good news is hard to hear because of how we have twisted this story. We concentrate on the judgment. We zero in on the fruit of the labor of the servants. Why? Because the human element hooks us. We get hung up on what, for us, is the hinge of the story. “I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” The fear speaks to us, we can relate to it, we know what it means to be afraid of not measuring up, of not performing well, we can see the disappointment in the eyes of our parents and teachers, our spouses and our children when we don’t measure up, we don’t fulfill their expectations. And so, to protect ourselves and to keep from failing anyone, we work harder and harder and we make more and more rules, so we all know how the game is played, what it takes to succeed and what you have to do to get in. Even up to what it is you have to do to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. And even then, we aren’t so sure that the outer darkness isn’t waiting for us after all.

And we hear the servant’s characterization of the master as a condemnation instead of an accurate assessment. The servant meant it as a condemnation, he called the master ‘a harsh man’. Yet, look at the image he uses, one of the sower and the seed, sowing and reaping without regard for rules and regulations, sowing and reaping abundantly and fearlessly.

I was talking to a fellow clergyperson one day who was describing a funeral that he had attended with some of the leaders of the congregation where he was serving. After the funeral, they were all sitting down at a meal when one of the women commented on how difficult it was not knowing if you would really make it to heaven or not until you got there. That you just had to work and hope. And he turned to her and asked “Do you believe that Jesus was the Son of God and died for your sins?” Taken aback, she replied “Of course.” “Then what are you worried about?”

That’s where the disconnect is. We don’t think that having faith and living in grace and gratitude is enough. We are afraid there must be something more and we end up living into a works-righteousness mindset that says: “If I just work hard enough I can get there on my own.” That my work can equal God’s righteousness and works-righteousness is the wheel in the hamster cage where the hamster runs faster and faster, harder and harder but never gets anywhere, never gets out of the cage.

Brothers and sisters hear the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ: You can’t get there on your own. You can never work hard enough, be holy enough, you can’t fulfill the Law of Moses any more than you can be just like Jesus. Salvation is not a wage you earn but a gift that’s free. This parable isn’t about our behavior.

It’s about God.

It’s about a Master who gives freely. This is Jesus again telling them and us that he is going away and he may be gone a long time, longer than we expect. But he is giving us what we need to take care of ourselves and each other in his absence. What if the talenta isn’t about money or our personalities? What if the talenta he bestows is the presence of the Holy Spirit and that is what we an either live into and multiply or we can bury deep in our hearts because we are afraid?

There are two things that people seem to be most afraid of: death and meaninglessness. Being afraid of dying physically and being afraid of living life with no purpose, no meaning. Our loving God has delivered us from both.

Our lives in our time seem to be characterized by rules and regulations. Life in Christ is about living deeply into the presence of God, so deeply that his love and grace spill over into the lives of those around us. Life is about living abundantly and fearlessly in the kingdom of God in the world. We can know we are saved. John Wesley wrote about his heart being strangely warmed that night at Aldersgate. He wrote: “And I knew that God loved me, even me.” We as United Methodist Christians claim that we can know by real human experience that we are saved from our sins and we live lives of grace and gratitude, not works-righteousness and trying to make it. I am not talking about cheap grace here. This is not about well, I’ve been baptized so my ticket is punched and I am waiting at the station. Not at all. I am talking about knowing we have been given the gift of salvation and living out our lives in gratitude.

We celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism as the outward sign of the inward grace of being adopted into God’s family. And you can’t be un-adopted, emancipated from God unless you work really hard at it and you are the one doing the emancipating. We enter into the Sacrament of Holy Communion as the outward sign of the inward grace of belonging at God’s family table, that Thanksgiving Table when we all will be gathered together not on this side of Gethsemane and Calvary but full yon the other side.

How are you living today? Are you living fearlessly, abundantly, sowing and reaping, walking with God through the salvation of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit? Or have you buried your talenta so it is muffled and powerless, so you don’t have to think about it or deal with it? The choice is yours today, while it is still day, to dig down deeply, let the light of Christ shine into your life and the lives around you, to face your fear head on and know that the victory has been claimed, the battle is over and that grace is abundant and free.