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One Talent is Always Enough

Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them.
To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability.
Then he went on his journey.     Matthew 25:14-15


I suspect that if I did a survey of the congregation today, the majority would say they identified most closely with the one-talent man in the parable. You maybe think your contribution to God's kingdom is on the modest end of things rather than on the five-talent end of the scale. Or maybe some days you think you might make it as a two-talent believer. I have to say that most days I think I am a one-talent guy too.

And so when we read this parable and see what happens to the one-talent man at the end of the story, it probably bothers us a bit. Maybe it seems somewhat unfair. You might think, gosh what hope do I have if this is what happens to this fellow, or that God is a pretty hard taskmaster if this is the outcome. Maybe you sympathize with our poor one-talent fellow and think Jesus is being rather harsh with him. Why treat the poorest of the three by such a harsh standard?

I had thought the man with just the one talent took his one coin and put it in a little mustard jar and buried it in the back yard under the geraniums. Why he would bury such a paltry amount, I did not understand, but it was clear he did not want to lose it under any circumstance. I guess he didn't have many coins of his own, and was terrified at losing even one.

Well I have news for you. Having one talent is always enough to make a difference.
The word "talent" is unfortunate because it makes it sound like ability, but a talet in a measure of weight 75 pounds or of money.


In the ancient world, a talent was the largest monetary measure.
My best commentary says it was ten thousand denarii, which is a monetary measure we see in Jesus' teachings.
A denarius was a single silver coin and was a fair days wages for a working man.
Judas betrayed Jesus for a month's wages.

So the servant who received one talent was given the equivalent of a lifetime of wages to invest.  Not bad.
For the sake of comparison lets say that amounts to a sum between a million and a million and a half dollars for us today.
If you walked into any investment broker's office and handed over a check for a million plus dollars, you would get the royal treatment for sure. This is not a story of miserliness.

In his story, that is what Jesus says the land owner did.
He called three servants together. One he gave over five million dollars, another over two million and to the last, over one million dollars. Let me make it contemporary.
He said, " I am going to Malawi on an extended mission trip and I want you to look after my money while I am away."

After ten years he comes back and the one broker says, "I invested here and there and have doubled your money. Here is ten million." The second says, "I invested the same way and here is four million back."
The third says, "You sounded like a religious nut to me and I was worried you might sue me if I lost even a dime of it so I never cashed the check. I put it in a safety deposit box. Here is the original million."

Jesus says, "guess what...the man was somewhat unhappy with the third broker and took the check from him and gave it to the one who had ten million dollars." Then he said, "You thought I was a religious nut and that I might sue you? Well you are such an incompetent investment broker, I am going to see to it your licence is revoked. How do you like that?"

OK, the 'religious nut' part I made up, but it is not too far from the original intent.
You see this is not a "poor one-talent man" story. The landowner was not being cheap with anyone.

In fact by all accounts he had been hugely generous with each one of them.
One talent is nothing to sneeze at.

The hinge of this story comes in the words of the man with the one million dollars to invest.
Hear it in the original story:

‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’


A hard man...excuse me!
Would a hard man give you a million dollars to look after?
If anything he was an incredibly trusting man to give this guy that much money.
The person who does not really know God, but only knows God is all powerful if apt to think of God as a tyrant.
Reaping where you did not sow...what kind of financial manager is this anyway? Doesn't he know even the simplest financial principles? Apparently not.

But it is his assault on the man's character that must have made the land owner furious.
I know you are a hard man. How does he know this?
Go back to my version. You come back from your ten years in Malawi and your broker says, "you sounded like a religious fundamentalist and we all know what a mean bunch of so and so's they are, so I took no chances."
You would not be pleased either, both at your broker's incompetence and the incredible insult to your character.

According to rabbinical law, hiding money was considered the safest course.
But Jesus is saying, hiding is never the proper course.
It is instructive that neither of the two lost any money--they both gained a profit. How realistic is this in the real world?
Look at the present crisis. Any of us would have been happy if our brokers had hidden our money the past three months.
But this is not a story about the stock market.
Of course there is risk.
There is always risk in life and that is precisely the point.

Trying to live a totally risk free life is like placing your lamp under a basket.
Jesus is saying to us that investing yourself enthusiastically in the welfare of others, of living a bold life with the gifts Jesus has given you will never result in a loss.

What makes the difference for us is  knowing that God is not a hard-hearted meanie.
It is knowing that in God we are rich, not poor.  One talent is a LOT of money.
We do not need to be afraid of acting boldly in faith.

But that may not be something we can all do individually in every case.
Which is why working together allows us to be bold and do greater things than we can by ourselves.
And working together we combine our prayers and our faith.

We collectively have been given a wonderful gift in this church and the open door before us. It is an amazingly generous gift—far beyond anything we could have done for ourselves. And you can be a part of it—as your gift to God.

 And God has been at work looking after us.
We moved forward into our planning and acting with a prayer:

We will go for it as you open doors that are of your will and purpose.
The minute something is not your plan, please close the door or redirect our path.
But as long as the door remains open, we will move forward.

God has looked after us!  Just like we asked.
So in faith here is what it means for us to move forward.

 1. I am asking everyone here to covenant with me that you will pray for the leadership to receive God’s guidance and you will
     pray for God to empower us according to His will.

 2. I am asking you to covenant with me to move forward as the doors remain open.
     That means to assist us in our tasks and to contribute to the ongoing work of the
      church.

 3. I am promising to you that I will give you my full attention and effort to keeping us on
     track and to keep the vision alive before you.

 4. That we will reach out in friendship to all we encounter and invite them to be a part of
      this marvelous challenge and vision.

 Together if we fulfill these tasks, I believe we can stand before God and our neighbors and say with joy, “here is what God has done through us.”

I want to conclude with two stories of people using what God has given them in bold and unselfish ways.
You decide who is the five talent person and who is the one talent person. They are not equal in their abilities. But you tell me if the impact of their deeds is any less impactful.

Dr. Scott Kurtzman, chief of surgery at Waterbury Hospital, was on his way to deliver an 8 a.m. lecture when he witnessed one of the worst crashes in Connecticut history. A dump truck, whose driver had lost control, flipped on its side and skidded into oncoming traffic. The resulting accident involved 20 vehicles; four people died.

Thanks to years of emergency-room experience, Doctor Kurtzman immediately shifted into trauma mode. He worked his way through the mangled mess of people and metal, calling out, "Who needs help?"

After about 90 minutes, when all 16 victims had been triaged and taken to area hospitals, Dr. Kurtzman climbed back into his car, drove to the medical school, and gave his lecture—two hours late.

This was not the first time Dr. Kurtzman has assisted those in need. Over the years, he's stopped at a half-dozen crashes and assisted at three. "A person with my skills simply can't drive by someone who's injured," says Kurtzman. "I refuse to live my life that way." 1

What do you think? Five talent or one talent?

By the time Jackson Rogers turned ten years old, he had already built a house—not with hammer and nails, but by raising $43,000 for Habitat for Humanity. The young entrepreneur for the homeless said he undertook the project in February when he accepted $100 and a challenge from his pastor, the Reverend Rich Kannwischer at First Presbyterian Church.

"My pastor gave me $100 and told me to do something good to help someone," said Jackson, one of several congregants who accepted their pastor's challenge. The congregants were told to use the money for good, then report on what they did.

At first, David Rogers was hesitant for his son to take up such a daunting task, but Jackson was determined. "I was discouraging him to volunteer because I didn't know what the pastor intended. But he pulled away from me and ran down there," David Rogers said.

Jackson said he knew exactly what he wanted to do: "Help a homeless family." But he wasn't sure how to go about it. "I talked to my dad. It took two or three months to get the idea," he said. What they came up with was a letter-writing campaign seeking donations and explaining that it cost $50,000 to build a house through Habitat for Humanity. Jackson then wrote a letter in his own handwriting on notebook paper. "I used the $100 to buy stamps and paper," he said. "I sent out 200 letters," mostly to friends and family.

Jackson's efforts got an unexpected boost. A woman was so touched by his letter that she passed it on to several of her friends and colleagues. Soon, people from Tennessee, Virginia, and Idaho were sending in checks. The 170 people who responded made the effort worth while, contributing $43,000. When the congregation at First Presbyterian learned the little miracle worker was $7,000 short of his goal, it chipped in the rest.

Everyone who hears about Jackson's achievement is amazed. As his mom, Deborah, said: "A little person can do something really good. You don't have to wait to be an adult." Even more impressed is Stephanie Ramirez, whose family will get the house that Jackson built. When the Rogers family came out on the first day of construction, Ramirez was amazed when she learned that her benefactor was only ten years old.

"My kids are so happy that a little guy out of the goodness of his heart could do this," she said. 2

What do you think? Is this a five or a one talent person?
Of course the answer most of us would offer is "who cares?" 
Both are wonderful accounts of a life lived to the full. And both are amazingly impactful.  Neither of them for a second would have doubted that their life would make a difference.
Neither should we. Invest it, don't bury it.
This is how the kingdom of God will be.

Preached  November 16, 2008
Dr. Harold McNabb
West Shore Presbyterian Church
Victoria, British Columbia

Notes
1. Hal Carp, Readers Digest (August 2006);
2. Ron Wilson, "10-year-old raises $43,000 for Habitat for Humanity," San Antonio Express-News (8-5-06)
Resources Consulted
Myron Augsburger, Matthew, The Communicator's Commentary, Word, 1982
Frederick Dale Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary. The Churchbook, Eerdman's 2004
Dan Otto Via, The Parables, Their Literary and Existential Dimension, Fortress, 1967

Online Resources Consulted
http://www.preachingtoday.com/

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