When Talent Turns Latent: 9/4-5/2010
Charlie led us through a difficult parable this weekend. The Parable of the Talents is found in Matthew 25.14.30. But more importantly, according to Matthew’s account, Jesus tells this story towards the end of his public ministry, towards the end of his public life. Shortly after telling this story, Jesus knows he will be arrested, scorned, betrayed, whipped, crucified and buried.
Jesus needs them to know. He needs them to know what’s at stake. He needs them to know that they have to be the ones who tell his story. They have to invest his wealth. They have to plant the stories. They have to multiply the kingdom. They have to get over their fears. They have to be faithful with what they have been given. The whole world depends on it.
He has to tell the story because they have to live it.
Frederick Buechner wrote about this parable once and said that we should take the word “talents” and replace it with “sorrows.” Try that. Read it again. Think about yourself as one of the servants. Think about not only your gifts and your wealth, but your sorrows, your stories. The call to the people who were following Jesus then, and those of us following Jesus now, is to invest both gifts and sorrows. To share them. To say them out loud. To trust the Master to use both our triumphs and our failures for greater purposes.
They are not ours to keep. They are ours to spend.
How are you spending your gifts? How are you spending your pains?
What are you afraid of? A part of the message of this parable is that even your fears should be planted. They should be invested. If you say your fears out loud, if you tell them to your friends, or your family, or your church, there’s no telling what the Master might be able to do with them.
As Bill W., the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, put it: “In God’s economy, nothing is wasted.” In God’s economy, even our fears and failures can become gold. But only if we share them. Invest them. Make them a part of our conversation and the stories we tell.
Put your life into Play this week:
Say your fears out loud to a friend this week. Talk to someone about your talents too. Talk to someone about their talents. Maybe you need to pass the message along to someone who didn’t hear it. We all need to be regularly reminded that we have something to do in the kingdom of God.
Is there some small thing that God may be asking you to do? Some small thing that may actually be enormous?
Read the rest of Matthew 25. There is an urgency to these stories from Jesus. And if they were urgent way back then, just imagine how urgent they are now.
Listen to the weekend message
Read a manuscript of the weekend message
