“The Parable of the Three Investors”
A sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood PC, Birmingham, AL
Pledge Sunday, November 16, 2008
Text: Matthew 25:14-30
What extraordinary timing! We are in the midst of what appears to be the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and here comes the Gospel of Matthew with the parable of three investors!
For weeks now I’m been mulling the implications for us--in our time and place-- of this ancient story. How would Jesus tell this story today, with the stock market in the tank, with General Motors on the robes, with unemployment rising fast, and everyone’s retirement savings falling faster? With the benefit of hindsight in today’s financial markets, the worker who buried his one talent-- or, in our context, bought lowly CD’s instead of high flying stocks . . . . This humble worker is looking much, much smarter than ever before. Perhaps now, with the tables are turned, the little guy--the timid, reluctant investor with just one talent--will get the praise, the affirmation long denied him!
Imagine the first investor having loaded the master’s trust fund with mortgage-backed securities. Don’t you know that’s where all smart money was going! Imagine the second worker having invested his shares in bank stocks--more conservative, but still paying nice dividends. Now there they stand before the master, holding their latest financial reports, with those tell-tale graphs point down, down, down. But here’s the little fellow. Didn’t have much to start with. Just one talent. But he’s still got it all. Every last nickel of it. See him swelling with pride when at last, after all of these centuries--- at last hearing the words, the blessing: “‘Well done, good and trustworthy (servant).’”
Of course, truth be told, this parable is not about the U.S.
economy. Not about any secular financial system. The parable of the
talents is about the divine economy,
“ where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not
break in and steal” (Matthew 6.20). The divine economy is always
stable--the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. The divine economy,
where the standards are God’s mercy and grace. “The LORD, the LORD,
a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in
steadfast love and faithfulness . . ., forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin . . .”(Exodus 34.6,7).
Shares in this economy are what Jesus is passing out in awesome quantities. No two--or three--workers receive the same gifts, the same capacities, the same talents. “4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord” (1st Corinthians 12). To keep it interesting, God issues our allotment of shares-- shares in the divine economy--in endless variety.
As Jesus tells the story in his time and place, the one-talent guy hordes his gift because of what he believes about God. In this worker’s view, God is out to get ‘im. One false step and God will strike him dead. Just one little old mistake and an angry God will smite him by the heat of day, and freeze him by the cold of night. By contrast, Jesus wants us to see God as extraordinarily generous, and eminently trusting. A God who rewards risk-taking, and discourages playing-it-safe.
Why? Why would God want us to go-for-broke with the resources God has put at our disposal? Think about this. Think about the investment God has made in us. Listen to St. Paul: "… you are not your own, you were bought with a price" (1 Cor. 6:19-20) The first letter of Peter puts it this way, "…you know that you were ransomed . . ., not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ…" (1 Peter 1:18, 19).
The blood of Christ--God’s investment in our spiritual
well-being . . . .
God’s investment in the redemption of all humankind.
Comes now the question, Where do we learn about this divine investment? Where does anyone learn of God’s incomparable gift of God’s own Son? Where does anyone learn that Christ Jesus is the sacred bridge connecting all of humankind to God the loving, forgiving Father? Or, as St. Paul puts it in Romans 10:
14 But how are they to call on one in whom they have not
believed?
And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?
And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?
15 And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?
In other words, without the Church, how is word of the divine economy, of God’s astonishing investment, to be made know to all the world?
That brings us to the subject at hand. To the critical issue facing this congregation. Just as “man does not live by bread alone,” so the church cannot operate simply on the best wishes of its members. When it comes to Christian stewardship . . . . When it comes to returning to God a portion of what God has given to us . . . . . When it comes to being faithful to the tithe, most of us want to send the committee to see the five talent people. Let the five talent people meet the budget, pay the salaries, provide the benefits. Let the two talent people pay for upkeep of the buildings, fund the mission work, and keep the youth group going. I’m just a one talent person--don’t ask me to do my share, not even my modest share--when others have such larger shares to give.
Listen to Robert Bohl, former moderator of the Presbyterian Church General Assembly:
The most pervasive tendency of Christians today is to be
reluctant servants.
It is the belief that if God wants something done
hopefully God will call on someone more able than me to do it.
God's biggest problem is not with big, important people.
For one thing there are only a small number of them in the whole
world.
No, God's biggest problem is with all of us "one talent" types
who believe that no matter what we do it won't make much difference.
I like to remind folks that Daddy Warbucks--the bald-headed financial baron of the musical “Annie”--is not a member here at Edgewood Church. It’s just us folks. Us one-talent folks whom God is counting on. Us one-talent folks who are counting on one another to do what needs to be done to keep the lights on, and to keep the faith passing on to that new generation of believer represented to us each Lord’s day by the children who gather here on the chancel steps.
Sitting here as we do under the shadows of five-talent, and two-talent congregations . . . . Churches far better endowed than we shall ever be St. Paul’s description of the first congregation in Corinth could well describe us:
26 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters:
not many of you were wise by human standards,
not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
27 But … God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
28 God chose what is low and despised in the world . . .,
29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
30 God is the source of your life in Christ Jesus . . . .” (1st
Corinthians 1).
This is the investment that God has made in us. Having made so costly an investment--at the cost of God’s own Son--you can rest assured God is not out to get us. Today’s epistle lesson confirms: 9 For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ . . .(1st Thessalonians 5). In the concluding verse of our text from 1st Thessalonians St. Paul delivers to us this divine challenge and this sacred blessing:
11 Therefore encourage one another
and build up each other,
as indeed you are doing.
Now to the One
who by the power at work within us
is able to do far more abundantly
than all we ask or imagine,
to God be the glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus
to all generations, forever and ever. Ephesians 3:20, 21