He wastes no time after the cold metal first touches his hand. The icy sting prompts a different reaction in him than it does in the hands of the other two servants.
The third servant runs. . . not to do something with the talent but to hide it. He goes to the farthest outskirts of the town, to a remote place. It’s evening, and so he can conduct his business under the cover of darkness; all the better for his purpose. Before taking another step, he looks around first to see if anyone is watching. He’s embarrassed and afraid at the same time. He doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s hiding the talent, and he certainly doesn’t want anyone to know where he’s hiding it.
Of course, the talent is not really his money anyway; it’s his master’s. It’s not as if he can hold onto it forever. He really has no skin in this game. But this servant is cunning enough to know that if anyone sees him hide the talent, they might come after it when he is not looking. And then there would be nothing left to return to his master. The master would be furious that his servant had failed to safeguard the talent. If he’s not brave, risky, or motivated enough to invest it, he can at least protect it.
On the other hand, if this servant decides to invest the talent, well, there would be the potential to earn more money on it. But there’s still a possibility that the bankers might take advantage of his lack of financial acumen; he doesn’t trust those bankers. Sure, the talent might produce some interest, but ultimately, the final result could be a scam.
And then, there’s also the fact that it’s just one talent. It’s not as if it’s five talents, or even two talents. Of course, a talent is a lot of money, but would one talent really earn that much interest?
After all this speculation, the third servant feels much better about his reasoning and justified in his decision. It’s safer, at the end of the day, to hide that one talent and not risk a shoddy investment or a failure to earn the right amount of interest. It’s wiser to play it safe.
But when the master does return to claim what he entrusted to the servant’s care, it turns out that this servant got it all wrong. The master wasn’t interested in playing it safe. The master didn’t care that this servant was at least willing to protect the one talent. Why would the master have offered up one talent with the hopes of getting only the same amount of money back? And besides, he had trusted his servants to do something with those talents. It’s true that he gave to each according to his estimation of their potential to make some kind of profit, but he believed that even the servant with one talent could do something with it. And it turns out that he was sorely mistaken.
What the master doesn’t know is that the servant’s behavior when he first received the talent would have been a good indicator of the end result. After he fled, he could have been seen hunched over a patch of dirt, looking suspiciously around. Then he put the cold piece of metal into the cold earth. He gave it a burial. He put a time capsule in the ground; nothing more, nothing less. There was no future for this talent.
The servant’s posture echoed his point of view. Closed in on his fear, he saw what he wanted to see. He imagined a master who was a hard man, capable of provoking fear. But we have no reason to think the master was such a man. Scripture certainly doesn’t confirm this. The master, in fact, had faith that his servants could do something with his money. That doesn’t sound very hard.
But cowering over one talent, the third servant was frankly overwhelmed by his responsibility for that talent and by his lack of confidence in his ability to make any money off it. In possession of a cold piece of metal, the servant could only see the talent as a lifeless object, better preserved than invested, better safeguarded than risked. It was a time capsule to be buried and later unearthed, to remind a future year of a time long past and dead.
How are we like that careful servant? Whether it’s our money, our gifts, or our imagination, do we prefer to play it safe for fear of getting hurt? Do we deem it better to play the piece of music at a slower tempo and sacrifice some of the excitement than play it too fast with passion and drop a few notes? Is it better to forego a pointed word of truth than to risk offending the big donor? Is it better to avoid a leap of faith because if too much risk is assumed, you might never recover?
When the stock market is an unpredictable roller coaster ride, it’s of course safer to hang on for dear life than throw your hands up in the air. It’s more reassuring to hang on to the stash than to part with it in the hopes of some exciting gain.
But the crux of this parable is also a direct challenge to the Church. On the surface, this parable seems to be an unsavory justification of usury and secular business practices. But this parable is actually a charge for us Christians to live a bit on the wild side for the sake of the Gospel.
The Gospel is not meant to be safeguarded and buried in a hole in the ground so it can be protected and defended and preserved in amber. It’s meant to light us on fire so it can be boldly and dangerously proclaimed for the flourishing of the whole world.
And yet many would rather see this Good News as that third servant saw the cold talent: as a lifeless piece of metal to be guarded for dear life and unearthed in a century for someone to gaze reverently upon. We would rather treat the “faith once delivered to the saints”[1] as a special artifact or historical time capsule to be preserved and mechanically passed on from one generation to the next rather than a sword that can pierce souls and divide joint from marrow and baptize us with fire.
We can be so careful because like that third servant, we live in fear. We are afraid of so many things. We are afraid that God will disapprove or smite us because we misunderstand some theological concept. We are afraid that if we don’t determine the right interpretation of Scripture, we will get it all wrong. We are afraid to imagine a God whose very being is creative, because it might mean we are changed in the end. We are fearful that if we color outside of the lines, our picture will be rejected at the art competition.
Or, on the other hand, we are scared that others will think we have lost our minds for some silly religion. Our passion will risk being labeled fanaticism or intoxication from the opiate of the masses. And so we produce neat and uninteresting works of art because it’s safer. Christians are increasingly delivering a sanitized, hermetically sealed Christianity that has no danger or risk, and therefore very little meaning. And that’s how the world sees it, and they are running from it in droves.
But we can learn a great deal from those first two servants, and what not to do from the third. The lesson is not so much how to be a wise investor. The lesson is in how we are to see the talents. The first two servants, unlike the third, didn’t see the talents as material objects to be protected. They reacted differently when the cold metal of the talents hit their hands. That icy sting propelled them off to do something with the talents.
To the minds of these servants, each talent had a latent potential, a teleological thrust that could go somewhere and move toward something fruitful. Each talent was a potential seed that could grow into the largest shrub possible.
This is how we are to receive the Gospel from Christ’s hands. Like the hot coal touching Isaiah’s lips[2], we are hit with a dynamic Word that is meant to set the future aflame with love of God and neighbor, for the sake of the world.
Each material gift or thing that Christ hands to us has the dynamic potential to revolutionize the world. The empty piece of property saddled with deferred maintenance is logically safer to ignore rather than invest money in so it can be a catalyst for ministry. But the Gospel compels our eyes to see such a gift as nothing short of something to be used for God’s mission.
A meager fund can be regarded as potential seed for lifechanging ministry rather than something to be lamented. One talent doesn’t seem like enough to make a difference, so it’s better to hide it. But we know that one talent does make a difference.
The vision for seeing change in the world seems like a pipedream or cliché because the budget simply won’t sustain it. But a little coloring outside the lines and a courageous risk-taking might end in a revelation of God’s unexpected grace.
And I can tell you here today that as I look around this place, I see vast potential, full of barely-contained energy, ready to erupt with passion for the sake of the Gospel and for the flourishing of the world.
The biggest obstacle to taking a risk for the sake of Christ is fear. And Scripture tells us that fear is the enemy of everything rooted in love.
Christ calls us today and moving forward to do one thing: to stop our digging and to look up. Now, let Christ himself place that talent in your hand. Feel the cold sting of the piece of metal. Now, run away from the hole in the ground; run away for dear life. Imagine what this seemingly lifeless piece of metal can do. The potential is all there. Now, run. Run like your life depends on it, and run into those wide open arms and enter into the joy of our Master.
Preached by Father Kyle Babin
The Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
November 15, 2020
[1] Jude 1:3
[2] Isaiah 6:7