Matthew 25:14-30 | From Fear to Fruition | Septuagesima Sunday – January 28 2024
By Pastor Clifford Reinhardt
Part A: Warm-up
1. Do you ever watch the various talent shows — America’s Got Talent, Britain’s Got Talent, Canada’s Got Talent?
2. What is the premise of these shows? What are they about?
3. Just what is talent?
Part B: Pulpit
Jesus tells a story about a wealthy man who entrusts large amounts of money to each of three slaves. The unit of money is the talent. A talent was an extraordinary amount of money — about 20 years’ wages for a peasant. In today’s terms, using BC’s minimum wage as our base-point, the total amount of money that the man entrusted to his slaves was about $5.4 million.
The first two slaves were resourceful with the total of seven talents that had been entrusted to them. They either invested the money or traded it in the ancient equivalent of a stock market … and they doubled the principal.
As we might expect in a story involving three examples, the third one did something completely different. He had taken the money that his master had given him and had hid it in the ground.
Hid the money in the ground?! That sounds absurd to us, but in the ancient world burying money was considered the safest way of preserving it. It was the best way to protect it against thieves or marauding armies. Moreover, a man who buried money that had been entrusted to him could not be held liable if the money were dug up by another party.
So you see, when the third slave buried the one talent, he was actually handling it cautiously and safely. At the same time, of course, he was absolving himself of the responsibility that his master had entrusted to him.
When the master returned from his journey and asked for an accounting, the first two slaves each returned the original sum entrusted to them, plus that profit equal to the principal. They had exercised their ingenuity and produced the fruit that their master desired. The master received his principal and his profit with pleasure, and rewarded those slaves for their initiative and ingenuity.
It’s the third man who draws our attention. He reported, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.”
His speech prompts some questions: Is it true? Is the master really a harsh and arbitrary man? Were the third slave’s fears justified?
So far in the story there has been no indication of harshness. In fact, the master has only been generous – generous in the trust that he has invested in each of his slaves, and generous in the praise and reward that he bestowed upon them.
Listen to what the master says in response to the third slave: “You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.”
What an irony! Precisely because he feared wrath that he imagined, and then acted upon those fears by playing it safe, the third slave brought his master’s wrath upon himself.
Now, if I were to leap straight to an application of what Jesus is teaching through this story, then at this point I suppose I should challenge you by asking you what you’re doing with your money, your property, your possessions … in short, your things.
But I think that would be premature. I say this because of the evolution in the meaning of the word talent. What did the word mean originally, and what was the process by which its meaning changed from a unit of money to personal abilities?
First of all, our English word is a direct loan from ancient Greek. In Jesus’ story, the man going on a journey entrusted a total of eight talanta (τάλαντα) to his slaves. Like I just said, it’s pretty obvious from the story that the talent is money, but when you start digging into the word, you find out that originally it was used as a verb, an action word; it had to do with weighing a thing on a scale.
Now, in ancient times weigh-scales were used much more commonly than they are today. That’s because instead of carrying money, people bartered their goods in the marketplace. Many of those kinds of transactions required weigh-scales — hence the common usage of the word.
The meaning of the word continued to evolve because its usage changed. The verb (or action word) became a noun; its meaning transferred onto to the pan used on a weigh-scale. Instead of an action, it became a thing; hence the noun, talanton (τάλαντον).
The process did not stop there. Eventually the word shifted to refer not to the pan on the scale but to the weight of the thing resting on the pan — a unit of measurement, like our modern pound or kilogram. We’re not done yet: the usage shifted once again so that this unit of weight was applied almost exclusively to the weight of precious metals.
From there, yet one more change: talent came to refer to a denomination – a unit of money in the form of a block of silver. That’s the usage that we find in today’s gospel lesson. In Jesus’ story, the man who owned property and slaves and who was setting out on a journey entrusted to his slaves units of money — talents. The word in Greek is talanta (τάλαντα); the man entrusted a total of eight talanta (τάλαντα) to his slaves.
There’s one more step we must take in the evolution in the usage and meaning of the word talent … and this one is most important of all. So far we have explored that process in cultural terms, because it was in the everyday culture of those ancient times and places that the process took place. There’s one final phase in the etymology of the word talent, and it comes solely through the Christian teaching and preaching of the parable in our gospel lesson for today.
For the Greek word τάλαντα appears only in this story of Jesus. Nowhere else in the Bible will we find it. And by my count it shows up 17 times in this brief tale.
Through Christian preaching and teaching over many generations, on the basis of this parable of Jesus, talent has come to mean personal gifts or abilities. What a peculiar and fascinating development in word-usage and meaning! And what new windows and doors are opened as a consequence! Praise God for the Holy Spirit!
What Jesus is talking about isn’t just our money and our possessions. Jesus is talking about our whole lives.
God invests richly in us, giving us our lives and opportunities. If God were a harsh and arbitrary taskmaster, we would indeed fear to take up what God has entrusted to us. Maybe we would bury opportunity in the ground in an effort to absolve ourselves of responsibility. Of course, then we would not bear the fruit that God desires. Well, what then?!
Is God truly a harsh taskmaster? Or are we victims of our own fear? How can you fight fear? Fear is not a matter of human will. How can you free yourself from something so primal, so powerful, so paralyzing? How do you get God to smile benignly instead of scowling angrily?
Our only hope is that God would overcome our fear. Our only hope is Jesus, the only beloved son of God, whom God sends into our life … and into our death. God does this in order to show that, far from being the harsh and arbitrary taskmaster of our fearful imaginations, God is the One who loves us beyond measure. God wants to free us to take up the life that God gives!
In the cross of the Heavenly Father’s dear Son, God contains terrible divine wrath. In Jesus, God wraps up all the fickleness of the universe and sends it to the tomb. Then God calls forth new life – indeed, a whole new creation! – so that you and I might take up life confident of God’s abiding love. Rather than constraining us through fear, God frees us by lavishing unmerited grace.
If anything is buried now, it’s our past. It’s buried together with the crucified Saviour. By his resurrection, you and I are recreated for good works. No longer are we paralyzed by fear. Now we are propelled by the fire of God’s love. Our eyes and our hearts are open, so that we might discern the needs of God’s world, starting with our neighbour.
Because of Jesus, you and I are free to bear fruit – the fruit that God has always wanted from us. In Christ, there is nothing to fear. In Christ, God has already rewarded us beyond compare by investing all of heaven in us.
Dear people of God: Bear the fruit for which God created us. Take up life confidently. Try something risky! Live boldly!
Peace be with you all.