Father Nissen's message, Nov 16

The text for today is Matthew 25: 14 - 30.

The text tells us of a parable of Jesus. The parable finishes with a hard saying:

"For everyone who has will be given more, till he has enough and to spare; and everyone who has nothing will forfeit even what he has. As for the useless servant, throw him out into the dark, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth!" as it is put in the Revised English Bible. The more contemporary translation or paraphrase called "The Message" puts the end of that same passage this way: "And get rid of this 'play-it-safe' who won't go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness."

This is a hard saying, but perhaps it becomes easier to understand if we look at it more closely. The older translations say that a master gave his three servants 5 or 2 or 1 "talents" of silver or gold. A talent was a measure, and one talent of silver would be about the amount of money a person would be expected to earn in 15 years! It's a lot.

Now the master in the parable--who, it seems, we should understand to be God--was angry with the guy who took his one talent and buried all that money. Why did he do that? Why?

Well, especially when we look at the other parables Jesus has just been telling in Matthew 24 and 25, it looks like this servant thinks maybe the master will die or maybe, since the master entrusted much more money to other servants, he will just forget about the single talent he gave to this servant. If the servant put the money in the bank, then there would be some sort of record of the talent. But if he buries it in the ground, why then maybe the master will just forget about the whole thing. So the servant hoped he could cheat the master. The servant hoped he could dig the money up, live off some, invest the rest, and live "happily" ever after.

So the parable does not seem to be saying that the rich will get richer and the poor poorer. Rather, it is telling us that we cannot cheat the Master. God has given each of us talents (in the way we use the word) and he maybe has given us money or some sort of position. God calls on us to use these for the benefit of God's kingdom, and we cannot expect that God will die or lose interest in us. We can expect that we will keep the blessings we have only if we try to invest them in the growth of God's kingdom.

St. Andrew's Church has a talent for loving. May that love be channeled wisely, channeled so as to help bring others to Jesus.