Matthew 25:14-30
14 "For it is as if a man, going on a journey,
summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; 15 to one he gave five
talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then
he went away. 16 The one who had received the five talents went off at once and
traded with them, and made five more talents. 17 In the same way, the one who
had the two talents made two more talents. 18 But the one who had received the
one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. 19
After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with
them. 20 Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing
five more talents, saying, "Master, you handed over to me five talents;
see, I have made five more talents.' 21 His master said to him, "Well
done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I
will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' 22
And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, "Master, you
handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.' 23 His
master said to him, "Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been
trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter
into the joy of your master.' 24 Then the one who had received the one talent
also came forward, saying, "Master, I knew that you were a harsh man,
reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; 25
so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have
what is yours.' 26 But his master replied, "You wicked and lazy slave! You
knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not
scatter? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on
my return I would have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the
talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. 29 For to all
those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from
those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 30 As for this
worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth.'
I must have been about twelve or
thirteen years old when my buddy John asked if I wanted to go with him and a
group from his church on a little trip over to Dothan one Friday night. I
wasn’t really sure where we were going to go or what we were going to do, but
it was my best friend asking if I wanted to go somewhere and do something, so
of course I figured it was going to be something fun. The old, tan, Dodge
church van, with “Goodman Baptist Church” hand-painted on the side pulled into
our driveway, and I climbed in and over the slick vinyl seats to sit in the
very back with John as we rode the way to Dothan. We parked in the lot of an
old, converted strip mall, which was already dotted with church vans and buses,
and there was a line of people coming out the front door of the center store. I
remember there being masking paper over all the windows, so you could just see
the silhouettes of those who were gathered inside. I had no clue what we were
doing.
Eventually, after waiting our turn,
we made it inside. We were in this large, open room, with various old couches
and chairs strewn about, and there was a console television playing Christian
music videos from a cassette tape in a VCR on top of the TV. We waited as a
group until our church’s name was called, but while we waited we filled out
blue cards that asked for our name, address, telephone number, whether we were
regular church attenders, and where we went to church. When they called our
group, we were instructed to walk in single file, holding hands with the person
in front or behind if we needed to. We were going to be walking through a
series of rooms they told us, and in each room we’d witness something
different.
We weaved our way through the
building as teenagers and adults enacted various scenarios involving drunk
driving, terminal illness, and murder. With each room, with each scene the
message was obvious: “This could happen to you, so what will happen to you when
it does?” The last room, though, really stood out. It was dark—pitch-black—and
hot. There was a sound system in that room with the volume turned all the way up
playing sounds of screams, cries of agony, and maniacal laughter. This room was
hell (or at least a low budget version). The message of this room was clear:
“This is where you will spend eternity if you don’t do what we’re about to tell
you.”
It was a judgment house, a hell
house, a place designed to literally scare the hell out of you. And it did just
that to me: I remember being terrified of that place, of that thought that I
could spend one more second in a place that scary, so when a “counselor” asked
me later in a room for “guests” if I wanted to accept Jesus in to my heart so
I’d stay out of hell, well of course I said yes. However, he could have asked
if I wanted to ask the Barney the Dinosaur into my heart to avoid hell and I
would have said yes.
Fear
is a powerful force. Fear is a powerful motivator. Fear is a powerful
rhetorical tool. But fear is not the gospel.
About
now you may be wondering what in the world a judgment house and fear have to do
with a parable that is obviously about stewardship, a parable that many of us
have been taught our whole lives is about using the talents God has given us to
make more for God (or, if we’re honest about our own desire for the meaning of
the parable, how to make more for ourselves). Well, I have to be honest with
you; I’ve never really liked this parable from Jesus. I didn’t like the notion
that Jesus would belittle someone in a parable who was just trying to do the
right thing, while taking what he had and giving it to someone else. Having
grown up as a poor kid, I always flinched at the words of the parable in verses 28 and 29: “So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten
talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an
abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken
away.” Surely Jesus isn’t condoning this notion that the rich should
get richer while the poor get poorer.
I’ve
always wrestled with this parable and what was really at the heart of Jesus’
words. That is, until I had one of many conversations with a dear friend and
brother recently. When I came back to this parable, something caught my
attention more than ever. It’s right there in verse 25; it stands out like a neon sign, pointing to the purpose,
the truth of this parable. You see, in verses
24 and 25 the third slave says this: “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man,
reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your
talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.” Did you catch it?
The
first two slaves went and took risks, used the talents their master had given
them. I believe even if they had lost some of their investment, their master
would not have scolded them, for they did just what he had entrusted them to
do. But this third slave…he did nothing. He’s the definition of a conservative:
he doesn’t take a chance; he isn’t risky with his investments; he takes the sum
of fifteen years of hard work and buries it in a hole (a practice seen as wise
in the first century and perhaps at this point in the 21st century
when inflation is up and interest rates are down!). He knows the smart thing to
do. He’s done the safe thing, and in the end he hasn’t lost a dime. So why does
Jesus tell us the master scolds this slave? Why does this slave have his wisely
saved talent taken away? Why is he thrown into the outer darkness to gnash his
teeth and weep? Look again at verse 25:
"…I
was afraid…”
Fear
is a powerful force. Fear is a powerful incentive to do nothing. Fear is a
powerful motivation to keep us from the master’s work. But fear is not the
gospel, because fear keeps us from entering into the joy of our Master.
Like
the third slave in Jesus’ parable, too many of us are afraid. We’re afraid to
take a chance, to invest our lives, to enter into the joy of our Master. We’re
afraid that God is an angry, old man in the sky who will punish us forever and
ever if we don’t “do right.” We’re afraid that we’ll be less of a person if we
don’t pray more, read our Bibles more, or come to church more. We’re afraid that Jesus might have meant all
that stuff he said about loving our neighbor (whoever they may be) as we love
ourselves, all that stuff he said about letting the one of us without sin cast
the first stone. We’re afraid Jesus may have meant it when he said that the
meek, the poor, the broken-hearted, and oppressed will be blessed. We’re afraid
that Jesus meant all that stuff about denying ourselves and taking up a cross
to follow him. We’re afraid that the log in our own eye really is bigger than
the speck in our neighbor’s eye. But perhaps most of all, what terrifies us
more than we can confess is this: too many of us are afraid that God doesn’t
love us.
Some
of us are terrified by the thought that God may not love us, that Christ’s
words and witness to the love of God may not be true, that it’s not enough to
simply let God love us, to let God love through us. So we cling to the law, to
commandments that tell us we aren’t good enough, to proof texts that tell us we
are better than other sinners. We do our best to keep a tally of those sins we
aren’t guilty of, hoping that when the Master returns we can say, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh Lord…so
I was afraid, but I followed the commandments, and I held others at a distance
when they didn’t. I did right. I followed the rules, and I know I was better
than a whole bunch of others who broke your commandments and didn’t have nearly
the attendance record for church services I did.”
Some
of us are terrified that God doesn’t actually love us, that it really is up to
us to try to work our way to righteousness, or at least a righteousness better
than those people we don’t like, those people we don’t want in our church,
those people who we secretly hope will be thrown into the outer darkness to
weep and gnash their teeth. Some of us are so afraid that God doesn’t love us
that we won’t let God love us.
Fear
is a powerful force. Fear is a powerful incentive to do right to be right. Fear
is a powerful way to keep ourselves from loving others. Fear is a powerful way
to keep ourselves from letting God love us.
Then
again, there are those of us who are afraid that Jesus meant all those things
he said and that God actually does love us, without condition, without
prerequisites, with all of our sins, our flaws, our weaknesses, and our
shortcomings. We’re afraid that God really does love us, and we’re afraid that
means God loves the people we don’t like, and we’re afraid that God is calling
us to love them too.
Fear
is a powerful force. Fear is a powerful way to keep ourselves from letting God
love us. Fear keeps us from entering into the joy of our Master. But thanks be
to God that fear is not the gospel!
This
is what I know: God is love, and God calls us to be loved, and God calls us to
show love to everyone—without exception, just as Christ has loved us without
exception. I know that “There is no fear in love, but perfect love
casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not
reached perfection in love.”[1]
I know that until we let ourselves be fully loved by God, until we let go of
fear—fear of failure, fear of acceptance, fear of those who are different, fear
of those we don’t like—until we let go of fear we cannot let ourselves be fully
loved by God. Fear is not the gospel: love is the gospel.
So
what are you afraid of? Are you afraid that you cannot do enough to gain God’s
love? Are you afraid that you have to hold to a set of rules and commandments
in order to be loved by God? Are you afraid that God might actually love
everybody else too? Are you afraid that if you don’t “stand up” and call out
the more egregious sins of others that God won’t love you as much? Will you let
go of your fear this day, let go of the fear that keeps you from letting
yourself be loved by God? Will you let go of fear and embrace the love—the
full, endless, unconditional love—of Christ? May you know this truth today:
fear is not the gospel; love is the gospel. Thanks be to God!
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