Joshua 1:9 (NASB)

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

In Jesus’ day, a “talent” was a fairly large amount of money.  Of course, like all of Jesus’ parables, this one is symbolic, and it doesn’t take much imagination to guess that the “talents” in the story represent the resources God has given us – not only our talents, but our time, spiritual gifts, material possessions, and all the resources we have at our disposal.  You might say that the moral of the story is “use it or lose it.”  We’re supposed to use our gifts for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

So, for starters, you might ask yourself, “Am I using my gifts for God?”

And immediately, some of us come back with the response, “What gifts?”

Maybe you’re one of those who feel like you have nothing substantial to offer – few if any material possessions, no real talents to speak of, nothing unique to contribute.  Interestingly, this passage doesn’t try to claim that all of us are equal in that regard.  Some people do have more “talents” to offer than others.  But that’s not really the point, is it?  Even the servant with only one talent is held accountable for his actions.  His master doesn’t expect him to earn the same amount as the guy with five talents, but he does expect something.  Maybe you don’t have the resources that the person sitting next to you has, but you do have something, and that’s what you have to use – whatever you’ve got.

Now here’s where the passage gets a bit tricky.  Because I’ve heard some people say that this parable is teaching us to be “good stewards” of what we have; in other words, don’t waste what God has given you.

But if Jesus had wanted to make this parable about not wasting your resources, it would have been very easy to do so.  The guy with the one talent could have wasted it, squandering the wealth like the prodigal son.  But he didn’t.  Notice, even the “wicked, lazy servant” didn’t waste his talent; he saved it, protecting his master’s money by burying it in the ground until his return.  And yet the master was angry with him, because he wanted his servant to do something with the talent and earn more.

The point isn’t just “don’t waste your talents.”  If you’re living your life just trying to avoid sin, you’ve only gotten half of the message.  Are you expecting a reward just because you didn’t spend your talent on something for yourself?  Don’t count on it.  God demands more!  God wants you to use what He’s given you and invest it in the Kingdom.

In a sense, when you invest your talents in this world, you’re burying them in the ground.  From an eternal perspective, that kind of investment counts for nothing, and earns no spiritual wealth.  There’s nothing wrong with using your talent of persuasion, for instance, to make a living in advertising, but if that’s all you’ve done with it, you’re burying it.  That same talent could be used to help share the gospel or make a difference in the church.  Do you have financial gifts?  You could spend them to buy a more impressive car and a bigger DVD collection, or you could put them to use in your church or find other ways to make them work for the Kingdom.

The band Sixpence None the Richer took their name from a quote by C.S. Lewis:

Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given to you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to his father and saying, ‘Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.’ Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.

Jesus’ parable makes the same point.  The talents in the question do not belong to the servants; they are the master’s, given to them for their use for a short while.

Our talents and resources are God’s.  But unlike the child in Lewis’ story, we take our sixpence and divide it up – spending some of it on ourselves, wasting some of it on sin, leaving some of it lying around unused.  After we’ve almost used it up, we find some little bit left over and we use that to buy God’s birthday present, proudly presenting Him with five minutes out of our day or a few dollars in the collection plate.  The rest of it is wasted, or at best, buried in the ground somewhere.  Even then, I think, God blesses our efforts, but that says a lot more about God’s grace than it does about our own goodness.

So what are you doing with what God has given you?  Even if it’s only sixpence, God has given you something to invest, and He’s expecting a return on that investment.  How are you using your time, your money, and your gifts?  Are you wasting them?  Are you investing them in this world?  Or are you putting them to work for the Kingdom, gaining more for God so that upon His return, you’ll hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”?

That’s why Jesus’ words in this week’s Bible passage are so meaningful for us.  Although his comments were addressed directly to his followers and refer to their dealings with the Jewish community of their day, in many ways they apply to us in our dealings with both the Christian community and the secular world.

John 15:18-21; 16:1-4 (NASB)“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, butI chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘ A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.“These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me.  But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. These things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.

When you feel lonely in your struggle, come back to this passage and remember the One who endured that hate and persecution first.  God is with you, even now.

Matthew 23:13-28 (NASB)” But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘ Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.’ You fools and blind men!Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar,that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.’ You blind men, which is more important, the offering, or the altar that sanctifies the offering? Therefore, whoever swears by the altar, swears both by the altar and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple, swears both by the temple and by Him who dwells within it. And whoever swears by heaven,swears both by the throne of God and by Him who sits upon it.” Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.” Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.