How could a show like New Zealand’s Got talent have anything
to do with the parable of the Gold Bags that we had read out to us today?
Well this parable is
where we get our English word ‘talent’ from. The NIV talks about bags of Gold
but in actual fact the servants are each given multiples of a specific weight of money … that weight is called a talent… the story is also known as the parable
of the talents.
The parable of the Gold Bags is part of a wider section of
Jesus teaching in Matthew’s Gospel, a section we call the Olivet Discourse. A
section of Jesus teaching, at the end of
his ministry, in response to the disciples asking about his comment on the
destruction of the temple, when he would be coming as king and when would the
age come to an end.
Why are working our way through the Olivet Discourse? ...
Well there is a lot of speculation about the end of the world at the
moment...like the Mayan calendar supposedly predicting that the world will end on December 21st2012 . Maybe we are still so interested because we are still
living in the hangover of the turn of a new millennium, maybe it’s the fact
that we are living with the reality that we humans for the first time in history just
might be able to destroy ourselves, be it with atomic weapons or our impact on the
environment. Maybe it’s that the world
as we know it is changing so rapidlyall the time that its a natural reaction. Maybe it’s all of those things.
And in the face of that it’s important to look at what Jesus has to say.
Because Jesus says that in the end being ready for his coming is not a matter
of being able to interpret certain signs and deduce a time, in fact Jesus saysno one knows the hour or the day, rather it how we live, that we should liveready and be watchful: Faithfully
following Jesus all our lives and on…until the end of the world.
We saw with the parable of the wise and foolish servant that
this meant we carried on doing what Jesus had told us to do, that we love one
another. In the parable of the wise and foolish virgins we saw it meant
continuing to stock up on the things that kept our faith ablaze: that
relationship with Jesus that comes from continually being filled with the Holy
Spirit. Today in the parable of the Gold Bags we see it means continually
investing in the Kingdom of God.
The parable tells the story of a man who goes on a long
journey; he gives large amounts of wealth to three servants. He knows their
abilities and personality so well that he entrusts different amounts to each of
them. Now you may think that he is being stingy with the third servant who only
gets one bag. The truth is that the master is amazingly generous, a talent was
the biggest measure used of money, we are familiar from other parts of the
gospel with the denarius, which was the equivalent to an average days wages. A
talent was equivalent to about ten thousand denarius, so even the servant who
gets one talent is being entrusted with
a great amount of wealth.
The man goes away, two of the servants set to work using the money
that they have been entrusted with and they see it doubled. Just in case we think they were just lucky
enough to find a get rich quick scheme that worked, Jesus says that the man was
away for a long time so there is time for careful long term investment.
The servant, who was given one talent, buries it, which was
a very effective way of keeping things safe in Jesus day, if you managed mark
the place very well. Jesus parable of the kingdom of god being like a treasure
buried in a field is testament to the fact that it was common practise.
When the master returns he calls the servants in to settle accounts.
The servant with five talents presents him with not only the five he had been
entrusted with but the five he had earned as well. The master is very pleased
with him, he says well done good and faithful servant and invites him to come
and dine with him and makes him responsible over many things. Likewise the
second servant had faithfully doubled what he had been given and receives the
same reward.
The servant, who had been given the one talent, has a
different attitude to the master. He sees his master as a hard task master, a
tough hearted business man and was afraid that if he lost the money we’ll there
would be hell to pay. So he tells the master he buried it. He is able to simply
give him back the money but no gain. Now the Master seems to respond to the
servants misunderstanding of his character and says that the servant hadn’t
even acted in a way that misunderstanding of the master. If he had then he
could have easily put it in the bank and got interest. So the master gives what
little he had to the servant who had ten talents and excludes him from his
household, to a place of darkness and regret.
Well what is there for us from this challenging parable?
What does it tell us about living ready in our time and place, to be watchful
for the master’s return?
Firstly, is what it tell us about the master. The master is
a generous person who is willing to entrust his wealth into the hands of his
servants. These are significant amounts
of money we are talking about. It speaks of a generous and gracious God who is
willing to entrust us with so much. It’s interesting that this parable comes at
the end of Jesus ministry almost in the shadow of the cross and there is the
reality that Jesus had invested three years into the group around him on the
Mount of Olives and after his death and resurrection he is going to entrust
them with the task of going to the nations and making disciples teaching them
to obey all that I have commanded you.’.
Note that the master also knows his servants and their abilities. He
sees who they are and entrusts amounts in them accordingly. It’s not a fluke
that it is the servant intrusted with the one talent who lets him down. It was
the risk the generous and gracious master was willing to take. God knows us and our abilities and our
capacity and gives us what he knows we can handle. God gives his people
resources, gifts and tasks according to what he knows we are able to do. But
you know God knows us and our abilities a better than we do. Mother Teresa once
said ‘I know God won’t give me more than I can handle. I just wish he didn’t
trust me so much.’
In Luke’s account of this parable, the Master tells the servants what
to do before going on a journey, in this parable he simply leaves in fact there
is a lot of debate whether they went at once in verse w6 refers to the master
leaving rather than the servants actions.
But when you read the parable there is a sense that each of the servants
acts out of their understanding of what the master is like. The first two
servants have a sense of gratitude that the master has entrusted them with such
a precious gift, so they set about using it and making sure that the master
gets a return for his investment. At
the heart of our faithful use of what God has given us is the understanding of
who God is. We willingly invest and use what we have been given not for
personal gain but for God because of the graciousness of the one who has given
us life, resources, talents and spiritual gifts. Again it isn’t about earning reward or
avoiding punishment it is about relationship.
The focus of the parable really is the servant who received one
talent. Now early understandings of this parable were that this was a
condemnation of the religious leaders of Jesus day, in particular the
Pharisees. It comes after Jesus long
condemnation of the Pharisees at the temple in Matthew 23. They had been entrusted
with God’s self-revelation in the law and to keep it safe had built a hedge of
rules and regulation round it, and by doing that had moved that revelation of
God away from the common people, they had turned the gracious gift of God into
a burden too heavy to carry. Even the little they had, the temple and Jerusalem
were going to be taken away from them.
It’s challenging for us because it’s easy for us to find
ourselves in the same danger; To see ourselves as the religious people of our
day. We are called by Jesus to be salt and light and given what we need to do
and be that, but the danger is that we may very well simply hide that light
under a bushel, bury the treasure we’ve got to try and keep it safe.
Using a different analogy, Leonard sweet says we can try and
hunker in the bunker waiting for the rescue as we face the storm and cultural
tsunami round us or we can unfurl our sails and let the wind of the spirit lead
us out on the wild water.
The parable does have some practical application for us.
It calls us to see all we have as gift from God, and in
response to what we have received from God to live in a way where all we have
been graciously and generously given is used for the glory of God. We finished
a series looking at the Sermon on the Mount and there Jesus had told his first
disciples that they were to put first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and let God take care of the rest. This parable seems to capture that way of
living in light of the return of Christ or at the end of our lives.
Secondly, all of us are known so well by God and he has
entrusted us all with resources, talents and spiritual gifts that God hopes we
will invest in the kingdom. In Corinthians Paul will say you are the body of
Christ each of us has a god given role to play and gifts so that the body will
function properly and, if I may extend that metaphor to where I think the
spirit intends it to go, embody Christ in the world. Can I say it is easy to
bury what God has given us to use. Under a inferiority complex, under a feeling
of low self-worth, under the valuing of only certain gift and abilities, or
resources. This parable invites us to see what we have as graciously give to us
by God and therefore of great value, and may I say given to each of us because
God knows who we are and we are called to invest them and see them grow and
bring a return. Compassion, mercy, what
great gifts to give to people, generosity and service, administration, encouragement, stewardship, I could go on. Think of all the wealth of
resources we have been given as well. Because we can’t lose sight of the fact
that talent here is a weight of money.
Can I also say that one of the best ways of seeing thing
doubled and multiplied is investing those things into other people, Long term investment. The thing that keeps me
going often as I face hardship in my life and ministry are the people I’ve invested time and energy into
whose faith has blossomed and grown and who themselves are taking up leadership
and ministry round the country and the world. Is there one person today maybe
that God is lying on your heart to invest who you are what God has given you to
see that multiplied?
I believe there is a
challenge for us as a church from this parable. To be faithful with God has given
us and through the power and presence of God’s Spirit to use it to see the
kingdom of God grow. I just want to
share with you in closing some of the thinking that the parish council has been
doing along those lines. At our meeting
this month we did a bit of a visioning process. We are looking at things we
want to invest in doing next year. There are so many good things we could do
and be doing… but what are the things that will bring the best return for the
resources, energy and people we have here? At the end of the day we could just
end up running ourselves ragged. We could do heaps of things and still go
nowhere, at least we need to know where we are going you’ve worked through a
mission statement last year that at St Peter’s we worship God, support each
other and reach out in love, wonderful, so we asked ourselves the question where
are we wanting that to lead us. We’ve come up with this vision for our church,
I just want to share it with you, it’s a bit long and sorry it’s not pithy but
we hope it is catchy…
We have a vision to
be an authentic, vibrant sustainable community, that is growing as followers of
Jesus and inspiring others to join us on that journey’.
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