Sermon

Sunday, February 3

Parable of the Talents

This morning’s Gospel lesson, the parable of the talents is my favorite Gospel passage in the entirety of the Bible. Three servants are given talents by their master. A talent, in the time in of Christ in Palestine, referred to a large amount of money. One is given five talents, another two talents and another one talent—they are supposed to safeguard this money for the master who is going away on a journey. It is not their money to do whatever they wish with it—rather they are caretakers of their master’s wealth while he is gone. He expects it back when he returns. The one with five talents goes and trades with his money and ends up with ten talents, five more than he started with. The one with the two talents goes and trades with his money and ends up with four talents, double what he started with. The one with the one talent takes the money, digs a hole and buries it in the ground. After a period of time, the master of the servants returns and begins the reckoning with each, to see what became of his money. The servant with the five talents tells his master, “You gave me five talents and I have made five talents more.” The master says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much. Enter in the joy of your lord.” The servant with the two talents tells his master, “You gave me two talents and I have made two talents more.” The master says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much. Enter in to the joy of your lord.” The servant who received the one talent said to his master, “I know that you are a hard man, gathering where you did not reap or scatter seed. I was afraid, and so I went and buried the talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.” The master became angry and said, “You wicked and lazy servant. You know that I am a hard man who gathers where I did not reap or scatter seed. But you should have put my money into the bank that at least I should have it with interest. Therefore take the money from him and give it to the one with the ten talents, for to him who uses what he has will more be given and he will have abundance. But to him who does not use what he has, even the little he has will be taken away. And cast that servant into the outer darkness.”

As I said at the beginning, this is my favorite passage from the entirety of the Bible. It was this passage that guided me to the priesthood. For many years, I felt God’s call to the priesthood, that that was my talent. And for many years I ran away from that talent, afraid of what consequences might be for answering that call. Ironically, my greatest fear about being a priest was not being able to live in California, and as you can see, my greatest fear came true—I haven’t lived there since I went to Seminary. There are a lot of things to be learned from this passage—the thing I learned is that fear is not an excuse. I couldn’t imagine going to God at the end of my life, like these servants going to their master, and saying, “You gave me a talent to be a priest, but I was afraid so I buried it in the ground. But for a little fear, what I could have been.” As I have mentioned many times, perfect love casts out fear, and events of the past week re-emphasize in my mind, why it is that God has me in Tampa, Florida, and not California at this time in my ministry.

There is a lot more meaning to this passage. The master, obviously, is God. The servants are us. And the talents are the abilities and skills and gifts with which God blesses his servants. Everyone has a talent, and God gives different talents to each person. No one in the story had no talent, just like there is no one in this church who has no talents or gifts to offer the world. Everyone has some gift, some talent, to offer the world.

With gifts, however, come responsibilities. Everyone has a responsibility, an obligation even, to use their gifts for some good. Everyone who uses their gifts and talents is of infinite value in the eyes of God. Everyone’s gift is different, and that’s a good thing. We need all kinds of gifts and talents to make the world work right—we need doctors to heal us, but we also need nutritionists to tell us the right food so we don’t have to go to the doctor as often, and we need trash collectors to take away our garbage so that it doesn’t make us sick. We need people who create things and people who fix things, we need people who teach and people who listen. We need all kinds of people and all kinds of gifts to make the world work right.

You notice that person who started with two talents and ended up with four was rewarded equally with the person who had five talents and ended up with ten. Because they made the most of what they had. While I will watch the Superbowl with interest tonight, I’m not lamenting that I’m not playing in it—that’s not my gift. So if you feel you only have two talents, rather than five, you shouldn’t be angry or jealous. Focus on making four talents from your two, because that’s what God expects from you.

In the American way of counting, this is the scenario that most often plays out—someone starts with five talents and someone else with two. The one with five makes one more and ends up with six, while the one with two works hard and ends up with four. In the eyes of society, the one who ends with six is better than the one who ends up with four, specifically because six is more than four. In the eyes of God, however, the one with six is a failure, because he started out with five, he should have done much better. So in the eyes of God, it’s not the one who starts with more or who ends with more that is good, but the one who makes the most of what he has.

Lots of us hate our jobs or hate our situations in life. Let me use a personal example. Sometimes I celebrate a weekday service and there are only a handful of people here. And I used to think, “Why should I put my all into this for such few people? I’ll put my all into it when the church is full.” That is not correct thinking and I no longer think that way. I put my all into every service, whether there are 3 people or three hundred. One life motto I use for myself is “The best I can with what I have on a given day.” I can’t do my best with what you have, or with what I don’t have, only with what I have. So on a given day, if I see 10 people at a morning liturgy, and three people for confession, I’ve interacted with 13 people. At the end of the day, I have to ask myself, did I give my all to those 13 people?

Some people have glamour jobs and other jobs seem kind of mundane and unimportant. Not so—every job does some work that benefits someone, or by definition, it wouldn’t be a job. I remember a conversation I had with my brother several years ago—He called me to say how proud he was that he had won a multi-million dollar judgment for a major company, he is an attorney. And of course, I was proud of him. After several minutes of his verbal triumph, he asked me, well, what did you do today? And feeling somewhat inadequate, I said, “I sat and held someone’s hand who was dying all day.” And I felt bad, for myself. Now, many years later, I reflect on days like that and say to myself, if God placed one person in front of me, did I do the best with that person? For those who teach school, let’s say you come home completely discouraged from your day in the classroom because most of your students don’t really want to learn. The answer to that is, “Were able to get through to the two or three that really wanted to? Or were you too busy lamenting about the ones who didn’t care? In my ministry, as a priest, and the ultimate judgment before God at the end of my life, I’m realizing that it is more important, not how many people come to liturgy or Bible study, but how many liturgies and Bible studies I offer. I can’t control who comes, but I can control how many opportunities I give people to come. And I’m realizing, that my role is to preach the word of God and give people the best possible opportunity to grow in their faith. Just the job of the teacher is not to teach—you can’t teach those who don’t want to learn—but to give students the best possible opportunity to learn by sharing knowledge with them. And you can transfer this idea over to any number of other jobs. The point is, we each need to be doing the best we can with what we have on a given day, and if in your heart, you know you’ve done that, then you need to carry yourself spiritually with confidence. But if you know you can do better, even if others think you are doing good, then you need to improve, because that’s what God expects from us, the greatest possible return on the gifts and talents with which he has blessed us.

Some people think that they have no gift and no talent—if you are one of those people, you are wrong. Everyone has a talent of some kind, perhaps we should talk about what your talent might be—it may be that you have a talent that either you haven’t developed or just aren’t using. And some people lament that they only have one talent or two talents and not five. Again, God expects you to develop what you have. If you were born into a family of millionaires, God will be very disappointed if you end up poor. But if you were born poor and make something of your life, God will richly reward that.

There is no one who has no talent. Everyone has a talent and a responsibility to develop that talent and use it for the good of humanity. God rewards those who use their talents, however many they have. He rewarded the one with four equal to the way he rewarded the one with ten. And God punishes those who are lazy, who don’t use their talents.

When I was trying to figure out the direction God wanted me to go in my life, I used to read this parable every day. When I’m wondering about how I am using my talents, I read this parable. So much of the Bible offers us great prescriptions for how to live our lives. To me, this parable is the greatest prescription of all—We’ve all got some talent, all talents are needed and God rewards equally those who do the best they can with what they have.

I’m planning on watching the Superbowl later—I’ll be rooting for the Patriots. And you’ll see that each team will try to make the most that they can on each and every single play. And that’s how we’re supposed to live—we’re supposed to make the most out of every single day, and we’re supposed to do it for the benefit of our fellow man, and for the glory of God.