This is the message from the WOW (Worship on Wednesday) service in Gettysburg August 15, 2012. The Scripture is Matthew 25:14-30.
Have you
ever thought this story of Jesus’ is kind of unfair? It seems that way to me sometimes. Especially that line toward the end. “For those who have will be given even more, and they will have
an abundance. As for those who do not
have, even what they have will be taken from them.” That does not seem right, does it?
When we look at this, we need to
remember the point of what Jesus was doing.
Jesus was not trying to teach us about economics. Jesus was trying to teach us about
faith. This is not a lesson about
money. It’s a lesson about trust in
God.
The translation we used tonight is
Today’s New International Version.
That’s the version of the Bible that’s in our pews, and it’s a perfectly
good translation. What some of you may
have noticed, though, is that you’ve heard this story differently in other
translations. What this version refers
to as “bags of gold” in other translations is referred to as “talents”.
Now a “talent” was a Greek term for
money. It was a lot of money: one talent was roughly equal to twenty years
of an average laborer’s wage. Even so,
I think that thinking of what these people were given as “talents” gives us a
better handle on what Jesus was really trying to say.
God gives each of us some kind of
talent. In fact, God usually gives each
of us several talents. God does not
give us the same talents, and God does not give each of us the same amount of
talents, but we all have some. God
expects us to use the talents we’ve been given to benefit God.
Now, I don’t doubt that each of us
here does that to a certain extent. My
point is not to criticize or point fingers at anybody. There’s something I think we need to notice
about this story, though.
The person who got five talents
went and put all five of them to work.
He did not just put two of them to work and hide the other three. The person who got two talents went and put
both of them to work. He did not just
put one of them to work and hide the other one. They both took every talent they had been given and put it to
work for the master.
That’s what God wants us to
do. God wants us to take all the
talents God has given us and use them to serve God. God does not want us to just use a couple of them and hide the
rest. God wants us to use them all.
That includes talents that we might
not think we can use for God. It even
includes talents that we might not even think of as talents. Let me give you an example of what I mean.
You probably all know that I’m a
big sports fan. When I first felt
called into ministry, I wondered if that was something I should give up, or at
least cut back on. After all, I spend a
lot of time following sports. I thought
maybe that was time I could use for God better if I used it in other ways.
After I thought about it, though, I
decided that was not right. I’ve been a
sports fan ever since I can remember. A
love of sports is something that God put into me. It’s a part of me. To
stop paying attention to sports would be for me to try to be someone I’m
not. That’s not what God wants us to
do.
God wants us to be who we are. But God wants us to be the best we can be,
and God wants us to use who we are in God’s service. God wants me to use being a sports fan to serve God.
Now, maybe you think, “How can
being a sports fan serve God?” But it
can. Because what it does is give me a
connection to other sports fans. Going
to the local ball games gives people a chance to get to know me, and it gives
me a chance to get to know them. It
especially helps me connect with younger people, because it gives us something
in common to talk about. And sometimes,
once that connection is established, it can lead into other, deeper
conversations that help bring people closer to God.
Whenever God gives us a passion for
something, it’s for a reason. God wants
us to use that passion in God’s service.
In fact, sometimes I think that what we call passion is really just
shorthand for saying “something the Holy Spirit has put in our heart.”
Anything we are passionate about
can be used for God. Anything. Fishing.
Quilting. Business sense. Music.
Anything. If we’re passionate
about it, it’s because the Holy Spirit put that passion into our heart. It’s up to us to use that passion in God’s service.
What keeps us from doing that? Well, think about the person in Jesus’ story
who only got the one talent, the one bag of gold. What kept him from using what he’d been given the way the others
did?
Fear. That’s the only reason.
He was not trying to do anything wrong.
He wanted to do right by his master.
But he was scared. He thought,
“What if something goes wrong? What if
I try to use this money for my master, and it does not work out? What if I lose it all? The master will be mad at me. Who knows what might happen then? I’d like to use this money for the master,
but it’s just too risky. It’s just a
chance I cannot afford to take. I’d
better just keep this talent hidden, where it’ll be safe.”
That’s one of the main things that
keeps us from using our talents to serve God.
Fear. We’re not trying to do
anything wrong. We want to do right by
God. But we get scared. We think, “What if something goes wrong? What I try to use my talent for God, and it
does not work out? What if people make
fun of me? What if people laugh at
me? What if, instead of using this
talent to bring people to God, I end up accidentally pushing them farther away? I’ll be humiliated. Even God might be mad at me. Who knows what might happen then? I’d like to use this talent for God, but
it’s just too risky. It’s just a chance
I cannot afford to take. I’d better
just lay low and keep my talent hidden, so it’s safe.”
What this story is telling us is
that God wants us to take risks in God’s service. We cannot make money without taking risks. We cannot use our talents without taking
risks. And we cannot serve God without
taking risks.
Now, when we take a risk, there’s
always a chance we might fail. If we
were guaranteed success, there would be no risk, right? But you know what? That’s okay. You know, I
was thinking about this, and it occurred to me that I cannot think of a time in
the Bible where someone took a risk for God and God got mad at them for doing
it. I did not go through the whole
Bible to check, but if there’s an example of something like that I cannot think
of it. In all the examples I can think
of, when someone took a chance for God, God honored them for it. They may not have succeeded, at least not in
the way they would have defined success, but God still honored them for it.
That brings us back to the line we
started with. “For those who have will
be given more, and they will have an abundance. As for those who do not have, even what they will have will be
taken from them.”
This is not some arbitrary policy
by an unfair God. It’s a statement to
encourage us, to encourage us to take risks for God. When we take chances and use the talents God has given us to
honor God, God will reward us for that.
When we don’t, when instead we keep our talents hidden out of fear, we
lose them. Not because God is mean and
takes them away from us, but because one of the rules of life is “use it or
lose it.” You’ve experienced that in
your own lives. Whenever we don’t use
the talents we have, we eventually lose them.
God has given you talents. God has given you passions. God’s Holy Spirit has put certain things
into your heart. God did those things for
a reason. God wants and expects you to
use those things to serve God, just like God expects me to use the talents and
passions and things God has put into my heart to serve God.
If we don’t do that, there’s a
price to be paid. But if we do it,
there’s an incredible payoff. Is it
risky? Yes, it is. But God will honor our efforts. When we use the talents and passions and
desires God has given us to serve God, we get rewarded in abundance.
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