A homily by Fr.
Gene Tucker, given at Trinity
Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, November 13, 2011, by
Mr. Barney Bruce, Licensed Lay Worship Leader.
“FUND MANAGERS”
(Homily texts: I Thessalonians 5: 1 – 12 and Matthew 25: 14 – 30)
In every age and in every time, managers of money are important people. We trust them to look after the money we’ve put into their hands to manage properly. And every so often, we ask them for an accounting of how well they are doing.
This was true in the first century, and it is true in the twenty first century.
Management
of what has been placed into our hands is the central theme of Jesus’ parable
about the Talents, heard this morning.
But it is also about the reckoning each one of us will have to give to God for our management of what’s been given to us.
Sooner or later, we will be called to account for what we’ve done, and how well we’ve done it. That sense is never very far away from Matthew’s mind as he writes down what Jesus said and did. Page after page in Matthew’s gospel account, the final end of all things pops up, again and again.
In fact, today’s gospel reading allows us to hear the middle of three parables, all of which have to do with the final judgment, when God will call all of us to account.
Our Lord provokes us to consider just how important it is for us to use what God has given us.
We are to use it wisely.
We are to use it by taking risks, according to our individual ability.
We are to go against the conventional wisdom, which would encourage us to “play it safe” with what God has given.
But I am getting a little ahead of myself. We should turn to the text and make a few comments about it. Then, we can make some applications to our own lives.
As we look at the text, it’s important to notice two things about the Master’s actions in placing the talents in the hands of his servants:
1. He gives each servant an amount, “according to their ability”.
2. Notice that Jesus doesn’t tell us what the Master said to each servant. He doesn’t tell us if the Master told each servant that the amount he was being given was in accordance with his ability. We are left to wonder exactly how the transfer took place. I think that’s important for our own reflection.
(Jesus is a wonderful storyteller. The details of each parable are important to notice as we read the text.)
The next thing we ought to notice is the use of the word “talent”. In biblical times, a talent was a large sum of money. In today’s language, we might use the phrase “a million dollars”. But the word “talent” eventually came to mean our abilities and gifts. The change in meaning came about because of the use of the biblical word “talent” in old English translations. The connection between its use in this parable and its current meaning is direct. The dictionary confirms the connection between the two meanings.
Now, we come to the behavior of the servant who got one talent.
That servant followed the conventional wisdom of the first century in burying the money. In biblical times, sources outside the Bible tell us, the most secure way to hold onto something was to bury it. If it was stolen later on, then the individual wasn’t responsible for its loss. (If the person hid the money in a cloth, and it was stolen, then they were responsible.)
Now the method of securing the money by burying it seems strange to us, I suspect. After all, what if someone saw the servant bury the money, or came along shortly afterward and saw signs of digging, and stole the buried treasure?
But remember that this is an age in which there were no bankers (the Revised Standard Version’s translation is less-than-desirable here, for the better translation is “moneychangers”), and no Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Furthermore, locks were unknown, and so securing something meant posting a guard over it, so no one would come along and steal it. At least if the treasure was buried somewhere, and no one else knew the location, it was more secure than it would be any other way, short of guarding it.
Jesus’ point is that the third servant followed the conventional wisdom of the day, and refused to take risks. That much of Jesus’ meaning seems clear.
Let’s apply the lessons from Jesus’ parable to our situation today.
We have been given talents (here the various meanings of the word apply: money, gifts and abilities) to manage. This homily could easily turn into a stewardship sermon, since we are in the midst of our annual campaign to plan for the use of our gifts, abilities and money for the coming year.
Management of those talents is going to involve risk. We are going to need to figure out how to best use what’s been put into our hands. Notice that the Master’s instructions to the servants are virtually non-existent. We made a remark about that a minute ago. That detail in Jesus’ story is important, it seems to me.
In essence, what God is saying to us is this: “Here, take care of this while I’m away.” But then, I think, He expects us to figure out what is best to do. In that sense, we are using our gifts and abilities, our talents, to figure out the best course of action.
And, I think, it’s important to remember that God will give us our talents in direct measure to our ability to handle those talents. Notice that Jesus says that each servant was given an amount “to each according to his ability”. I don’t get the sense that God will hold us accountable for things that are beyond our abilities. But, it will involve risk, that much is sure!
Finally, an accounting is to be made. In everyday life today, we hold our fund managers accountable at regular intervals, reviewing the accounts to see how well they are being managed.
In God’s accounting, we are being held accountable for our use of our gifts, abilities and talents day-by-day.
It would be good for us to ask ourselves, “How well am I doing? Am I a good and faithful servant, who has been faithful in a little?”
For God holds us accountable. His accounting takes place in the here-and-now, and it will take place at the end of time, as well.
AMEN.
