The Rev. Canon Rosemarie Logan Duncan: Responding to God: Faith or Fear

Let us pray:

Holy God, open our eyes to your presence. Open our ears to your call. Open our hearts to your love. Amen. 

Here we are in the middle of November. The days are growing shorter, the trees are growing bare. We’re coming toward the end of the church year before Advent comes and we begin anew. The last things, judgment day, the second coming of Christ, and what to do while we’re waiting for Christ’s return. These are the themes we get for these last three Sundays before the beginning of Advent. Our parable today is the familiar one from Matthew’s Gospel, the Parable of the Talents. Jesus continues to explain what the kingdom of heaven will be like to his disciples and those gathered. This week’s parable, the second of three in a series in the 25th chapter of Matthew’s gospel, is as challenging as last week’s story about the 10 bridesmaids who weren’t prepared for the bridegrooms delay of arrival, and that of next week’s parable of the sheep and the goats. Like the parable of the 10 bridesmaids before it, today’s parable of the talents portrays the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is not simply likened to a man on a journey, but to the story that follows, a story that illustrates how the disciples are to wait until the Lord’s return.

Now to give context. The parable is set as Jesus nears his death. He’s preparing to leave his disciples, knowing that there will be a long meantime until he returns. Here, Jesus prepares the crowds as he’s about to go to the cross. And in our gospel reading Jesus tells the story of a man going on a journey who entrusts his property to three trusted slaves, giving one five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his ability. It is important to note that a talent spoken of here, from the Greek, is a unit of weight of silver or gold. In our modern English, this fact is obscured because the word talent has become something to refer to mainly aptitudes and skills and abilities that we have.

This leads to a different hearing of this parable. Now, if you’re spending time with Jesus and you heard the beginning of this story, you’d have known right away that this was not an ordinary story about an ordinary person. You see, a talent in Jesus’ day was equal to about 15 to 20 years of labor and wages for the average worker. And if you think about it, the life expectancy of the time for common laborers was such that making it to 40 was never a sure thing, even though many lived longer. 15 to 20 years wages was more than half of what you might expect to make in a lifetime. Maybe all you hope to make. Each talent in this parable is that kind of wealth. It’s an enormous sum. So each of the three was entrusted with great responsibility.

Not only does the man trust them with his wealth, but he does over a long period of time. Our culture, which places so much value on things happening immediately, even instantaneously, has become unaccustomed to waiting. Yet here another gift is the gift of time, a long time, allowing the three to live faithfully. In this super abundance, God does not endow people with identical or necessarily equal gifts, and God does not expect identical or necessarily equal results from everyone’s work. The text relays that after a long time the master returned to settle the accounts and when he did, he found that the first two have doubled their share. They both saw and understood the graciousness and the abundant trust poured upon them. The master’s response to these two is the same. He commends them for being good and trustful and faithful and trusts them with even more authority and invites them to enter into his joy.

But the third, afraid to lose the master’s money and being fearful of his harsh master, buried the talent in the ground. No small feat. He had been given much, but he responded with fear rather than faith. And when the third slave returns the one talent he had been given, his master is not pleased, having expected more. Admittedly, the judgment he receives as being wicked and lazy and a directive to have him thrown into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth feels particularly harsh, not something we expect from a loving compassionate God. But I have to wonder if this third slave is not so much condemned by the master, as he has already condemned himself to a place, a life that knew no joy, no trust, that knew only fear, darkness, and isolation.

Jesus provides no explanation of this parable. Yet the emphasis on faithful service is clear. Talents come in all shapes and sizes. God blesses everyone with some talent, just and unjust. And one thing that is also clear is that we are expected to form to our capacity, our full ability, and there is consequence when we don’t. As we hear, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest this parable, one thing we have to remember is that parables are stories with layers, many dimensions of meaning, stories that can be heard in different ways in different settings. They invite us, even require us, to puzzle over and ponder their potential meanings. Now, it could be easy to get stuck thinking that the parable is only about money, but it’s not so much a parable about how we use talents or wealth, but on some level it is about how we understand God. And as it is always the case in Jesus’ hand, the issue of how we picture God takes on new meaning and unexplored depths. Because for Jesus, not only is there the awareness of the human propensity to create God in our own image, but there is also an awareness that our image of God may have profound consequences for how we live, how we understand ourselves, our relationships to others, and the way we face the world around us.

One thing that strikes me is how deeply affected the third man is by his perception of the master. We should note that there is no clue ahead of time about the character of this man. The first we hear about it is from the lips of the third slave. “Master. I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed”. Neither the first nor the second slave voice this concern or affirm the sentiment, and the man himself neither confirms or caused this assessment into question either. The master’s response might be a case of a self-fulfilling prophecy as he decides to act in just the way the third slave has characterized him. It has been noted that the third man only gets the master his tiny and warped vision of what he can see. I have to wonder how often this happens in our relationship with God. Jesus is telling us that if we understand God as boundless and exuberant in grace and mercy, we will probably see our own lives in a similar manner. But if we understand God to be harsh and miserly, we will probably see life in these terms as well.

And the parable of the talents, Jesus is setting before us a choice. Do you see God as grace upon grace, mercy upon mercy, and unlimited and boundless in generosity? Or do you see the nature of God as harsh and miserly and punitive? If we see God as arbitrary, that is what we experience, a fickle and unsympathetic God who meets our expectation. On the other hand, when we view God primarily in terms of grace, we are surprised and uplifted by the many gifts and moments of grace we experience all around us. And when we imagine God to be a God of love, we find it far easier to experience God’s love in our own lives and to share it with others. Choosing one or the other will have profound consequences for the shape and quality of our lives. The other thing that Jesus raises for us is how we respond to God’s invitation. At the heart of this parable is really faith and trust, the understanding that when we step out in faith, God will not leave us alone.

Just think about the apostle Peter asking if he can walk onto the water with Jesus, Jesus calls him out of the boat and Peter is stepping out in faith. But once the waves hit him with his whole life at risk, Peter is paralyzed by fear and begins to sink. You see, fear comes in all shapes and sizes. It can look like despair or doubt or anxiety. Fear can look like a lot of things, but its greatest damage to our lives is its ability to alter our decision making. Every decision we make based on fear will not be in accordance with God’s will. Fear keeps hope locked in a room of doubt. Fear will squash vision. If we are so afraid and fearful, we can’t see the opportunities before us. And our greatest desire is to use every opportunity to share the great gift of the gospel and to glorify God.

We have to choose whether we are going to live a life of fear or life of faith. What’s the difference between fear and faith? Fear paralyzes, but faith mobilizes. It is good for us to remember the words from second Timothy. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind”. Beloved siblings, there is much to do in a world so in need of healing and peace. May we not be afraid in the midst of these uncertain times. The world is desperate for us to live out our calling with humility and gentleness, boldness, and a servant’s heart. We are going to make mistakes. Yes, we will not always get it right. We may be in positions that are way over our heads that we feel, but we’re not doing things alone. Jesus told this parable to his disciples to illustrate how they were to demonstrate their faithfulness as they anticipated the return of the Lord.

What does faithfulness look like in a time of waiting? Faithfulness is emulating the ministry of Jesus. Jesus has announced the arrival of God’s kingdom by feeding the hungry, curing the sick, blessing the meek, feeding the hungry, and serving the least. This is the message for us today. Today we have received the invitation to a full-hearted response to God’s lavish gifts of faith and purpose. And that purpose is building the kingdom of God. God has trusted us and God will empower us. How will we use God’s gift so generously bestowed? Will we multiply or will we bury? The choice is ours and now is the time to decide. Amen.