Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
During his 1960 presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy often closed his speeches with the story of Colonel Davenport, Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives. On May 19th, 1780, the sky over Hartford darkened in a way that people had never seen before. It was ominous, and some of the representatives, glancing out the window of the house chamber, feared that the end was near. They’d never seen anything like this at all. Amid the clamor for immediate adjournment, Davenport stood and addressed the assembly: “The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there’s no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish that candles may be brought.”
Davenport was really articulating what the attitude and understanding of a Christian is to be, and it’s also to apply to our own death, our calling to go to our heavenly home. That is, whether we live, we live to the Lord; whether we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or whether we die, we simply do our duty.
That’s the text this morning, by the way. Our text is Matthew 25:14-30, the parable of the talents. And as I said last week, chapters 24 and 25 of the book of Matthew are really one unit. It started when the disciples, on Wednesday of Holy Week, and Jesus were leaving the temple complex. And as they got further away from the complex, the disciples turned and they looked and they marveled at the size of the temple. They marveled at the size of the stones used to build the temple, and they marveled at the engineering and beauty of the whole situation.
Jesus left the temple area (Matthew 24:1) and was going on His way, and the disciples came to Him and pointed out the temple buildings. The disciples marveled, but Jesus didn’t want them to glory in temporary things. So Jesus used the occasion to rain on their parade, their pride that the Jewish people, the Israelites, had built such a grand thing, kind of like a revisiting the Tower of Babel. So Jesus said to them, “You see all these things, do you not? I say to you, there will not be left one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
After they reached their destination, the Mount of Olives, which has a ledge that overlooks the city of Jerusalem and in particular the temple, the disciples followed up with another question: “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the close of the age?” Clearly this is a “when” question. Tell us when this is going to happen, so we can know and be prepared and do things different in advance of the Lord’s coming and the end of the world.
But Jesus replied, “Concerning that day or the hour, no one knows, not even the angels, not even the Son, but only the Father.” At that time, Jesus didn’t even know in His state of humiliation. It had not been revealed to Him the day in which He would come back to collect all of His saints and to usher in a new heaven and new earth, while disposing of all things sinful.
As to the question of what, what are the signs that precede the second coming of Christ, Jesus answers in a two-fold sense. One, in terms of world politics: “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, and nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.” Jesus offers a very general state of the world as a sign that He is coming back. When it comes to specificity, we’re not given very much to go on, just the rumors of wars and wars themselves and famines and earthquakes and other kinds of calamities, which have been going on since the fall of mankind in Genesis 3.
As they reached their destination, looking over, being told of the signs that would come, Jesus also addresses religious matters: “Many false christs and false prophets will appear, and many will be led astray.” And those who are led astray will be subject to great tribulation and hatred and even death. And these are the signs, the signals, the beginning of the birth pains, that is, the coming of the new earth. In other words, the closer we get in time, the more persecuted the church and individual Christians will become, not just in America or the West, but all over the planet.
The disciples’ initial question and Jesus’ initial answer speaks to the then, that is, to the future, the Last Day. And the initial question, “Tell us when these things will be,” addresses the now. But what about in the meantime? What about during that period from the ascension of Jesus to the return of Jesus? What are we supposed to do then? How is the Christian and the Christian church to live?
Well, that’s really what the parable of the talents addresses. It addresses that in-between time, the time that people don’t talk about. They get excited about the ascension, they get excited about the second coming, but they don’t talk about what it will be like and how Christians in the church should act and live and think and do in the in-between time. And Jesus gives us that answer.
Jesus is obviously the master in the journey. Before He leaves, He entrusts three slaves, or servants, with talents, each according to their aptitude, whether they’re competent, real competent, or very, very competent in their jobs. They are to put these talents to use and increase the master’s wealth.
So first, what’s a talent? A talent, by the way, isn’t a sum of money, that’s the easy translation, that’s how we make sense in the 20th, 21st century of what they’re talking about. A talent is a weight, it’s like a pound, okay? And so depending on what you’re weighing, which in the Roman government was either silver or gold, depending on what you’re weighing, the value goes up or the value goes down. So the standard currency was silver in the Roman Empire, and a silver talent was worth 7,300 denarii. What’s a denarius? It’s a day’s wage. So one talent of silver equals 7,300 days of work. So you can imagine it’s quite a sum of money. Now if that talent is gold, then it’s worth 30 times as much as that. You’d have to work a whole year without any days off, including Sunday, to even come close in 20 years to make what a talent was worth. So even being entrusted with one talent was an enormous amount of investment and money.
The parable of the talents is a practical parable. It’s a parable that concerns itself with the church’s life and the Christian life in every generation, from the moment of ascension and the Day of Pentecost to the second coming of Christ and the new heaven and the new earth. We are fundamentally not supposed to be living a passive Christian life. The church isn’t supposed to be a sleepy, quiet little place. It’s supposed to be busy and active and serving neighbor and one another and God.
The master has given each of us individually, and the church itself, gifts to use in His name for His purposes. That’s what we’re really supposed to be about. So when we go to work, it’s not simply to go to work for the purpose of putting bread on our own table, but it’s also for the purpose of putting bread on the church’s table. It’s for putting bread on my neighbor’s table. It’s for being of service in the kingdom of heaven, for Christ’s purpose.
So we go about our business, serving our family, our friends, our neighbors, as the neighbors are defined in the two catechisms, right? Who is our neighbor? Well, the short answer is anyone who is in need, anybody who needs our help. We are to help, if in fact possible. And here’s a little qualifier: if your help doesn’t enable them to continue to do more bad things, then you ought not to help them, if that’s the likely outcome of the event.
In the parable, the master entrusts his servants with his own property, just as our Lord and Master Christ has given each of us abilities and opportunities and entrusted us with His possessions. So to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to a third, one, and then he went on his journey. Just as He has given you abilities and talents.
This also, by the way, indicates that the parable isn’t necessarily exclusively talking about the Word and Sacrament ministry of the church. It’s not talking about the gift of salvation and the gift of faith. After all, that’s your gift and your faith, your salvation, and we all have been given the same faith, the same understanding in the doctrines of Holy Scripture. We’ve been given the same understanding and faith and trust in our own heart. Baptism does not give out different things, it gives out the one same thing to all who are baptized: the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
The parable is about gifts, abilities, and opportunities God gives to us while He is, quote, away from us. But here is the shocker: the gifts vary from person to person. In our modern world, there’s no equity in it. We have different abilities and different talents and different opportunities, and we are to make the most of all of those abilities and opportunities as they come our way. We have been endowed, naturally speaking, with different opportunities and abilities. Not everybody’s a St. Paul or St. Peter or St. Augustine or Dr. Martin Luther. Not all people have enormous talent and undaunted courage and intellectual brilliance and historic opportunity. For every once-in-a-million saint that comes along, there are thousands and thousands of unknown and ordinary people of faith, saints. Nonetheless, we are all called to faithfulness in the measure given to us, in our opportunities and in our means.
We want to avoid two extremes that become common. One, we should never overestimate the gifts God has given to us. I am not indispensable in the life of the church, neither are you. We pray in this petition, if you remember, that God’s will be done among us: “Thy will be done.” God’s will will certainly be done with or without your help, but we pray in this petition that it be done among us. If we don’t do it, someone else will. Unfortunately, a great many of them have a pretty poor understanding these days of what the Christian faith is all about. Every one of us, rich or poor, young or old, can contribute to the life of the church, to the life of your neighbor, to the life of your family, to the life of your friends, and to the life of your government.
Now the first two servants do what they’re supposed to do with the talent that they have. Immediately, the one who had received five talents went and traded with them and gained five more talents. In the same manner, the one who had received two talents gained two talents more. But the third one, he’s paralyzed by fear. He didn’t get any good out of the talent, he buried it. And when he buried it, he not only buried goodness for his master, he also injured those who would benefit from the transactions of the master.
Because the servant saw his master in the worst possible light. He looked upon his master, and what he saw when he thought and saw the master is a ruler who rules with an iron fist, who judges and punishes failure, who abides by the strictest laws of profit. And this paralyzed the third man, because he doesn’t live by faith. His view of the master prevented him from seeing the master’s true nature. In other words, his preconceived ideas of how the system worked got in the way. His view of the master, why, it’s one of balancing scales.
The third one looked at his master and he saw a hard man. Now the one who had received the one talent came up and said, “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter seed. And I was afraid, so I went away and hid the talent in the ground. See, you still have what is yours.”
The belief that the master was in fact a hard man who ruled by law and punishment alone paralyzed him. There was no living faith in him, because faith produces automatically good works, fruits. But he insulted even more and assailed the very character of his master. He was revealing his unbelief by slandering the one who owned him. His only concern was not to lose. As a result, he got what he feared the most: he lost everything.
The first two servants didn’t see their master in this light. They understood the true nature of the master. They believed in him, trusted him, loved him, and acted accordingly. Thus they received praise, not judgment: “Well done, good and faithful slave.”
Now here’s the theological point. When most people think of God, in even a generic sense, they think of God as a scorekeeper, one who deals in good deeds and bad deeds, good intentions, bad intentions, and who punishes accordingly. That’s why they practice a religion of works righteousness. That’s why they seek a righteousness of their own, so they have something to present, a talent, so to speak, to God, which of course is no talent at all.
What did they do with this false understanding? It brought judgment on them. God said of that final servant, “You wicked slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed.” The master isn’t confessing that that’s the kind of person he is. The master is confessing that this is the man’s notion of what he is, his preconceived ideas that shaped how he handled the talent. “You ought to have put the money in the bank. On my arrival, I would have received my money with interest. Even if you did nothing, you’d be better off if it were in the bank. Just put it there, I would have got a little.” Not in today’s banking system, but back then, yeah.
All who live and work outside the true Christian faith in Christ will stand before the Judge. They’ll get the God that they conceived in their mind when they were alive here on earth. They’re going to get the thing that they wished for, the God who balances the scales. The difference is the blind can’t see, therefore they don’t know what a good work really is and what it looks like. What they count good, God counts as rubbish.
Isaiah wrote of that: “For everyone who has more shall be given, and he who has abundance. But from those who do not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.” And throw the worthless slave into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
This is about faith and love in doing for the church and for the neighbor and for your family, for your community, that which they need in Christ Jesus. God the Father is revealed as our heavenly Father, the gracious, forgiving, generous, and gift-giving God, who doesn’t love us with gold or silver, but instead with His Son’s holy, precious, innocent blood, suffering, and death, poured out on the cross, to turn all of our so-called good deeds into real good deeds in the eyes of God the heavenly Father.
Christ is the master who entrusts His faithful servants, you, by the way. You hear slave and servant, it’s doulos, it’s the same one. It’s just more tolerable apparently these days to refer to Christians as servants, even though Scripture translates that from time to time. But really, doulos, we’re slaves. We’re not free to just go do some things that we want to do. We serve the kingdom, we serve the King. That’s what we’re to do.
Christ, though, never forget, He’s also the talent of infinite value, who was buried on Good Friday and rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, the firstborn of all unto everlasting life. That’s the epistle lesson: “You, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, so the day would not overtake you like a thief. For you’re all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness. So then let us not sleep as others do, but let’s be alert and sober.” That is, you’re not supposed to be living a life of leisure, tending to yourselves. That’s not how it is. “Since we are of the day, let us be sober and alert, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
We look upon a Lord who is gracious to us, His children, by faith in Christ, brought there by the Word and Sacrament ministry. Why? Because there on the cross, God the Father treated His Son like the despicable and wicked, lazy servant in the parable, so that we could live boldly and confident in the kingdom of heaven, called the Church. “Enter into the joy of your master” are the words of our Lord, and those are going to be the words that you’ll be greeted with when you walk into the heavenly gate. Enter into the joy, for you’ve been good stewards of that which is given to you, namely the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.