How Much Does Your Talent Weigh?
Show Clip of Paul Potts’ Audition from Britian’s Got Talent from U-Tube
We all love it when somebody finds out about a hidden talent that they have and then use it. The clip that you just saw is from a show called Britain’s Got Talent. The idea of the show is that common people from all walks of life come in and audition for a chance to compete to be the most talented. The first few episodes of the show are open to anybody. More often than not the people don’t do very well. But his gentleman, his name is Paul Potts, shocked the audience and the judges. Before this contest Paul was a cell phone sales person. Paul went on to win the competition this past spring and he has a CD that came out this past week.
Just watching that clip gives me shivers up my spine. It was Pastor Victor who initially showed it to all the staff early last week. So why is it that this is something that we enjoy seeing? I believe that it is because we all want to see people succeed. This show had one of the best audience ratings in British history. Paul Potts was the star of the show. Everyone, including the Queen was rooting for him. This is good entertainment. Now of course this is show business and of course the story will be embellished upon by the networks to gain even more viewers, but there is a reason that it tugs at our heart strings. Something small and un-noticed becoming beautiful.
Jesus told a story in Matthew 25 about a master who had three servants. Let’s read this story together this morning.
Read Matt 25:14-30
PARABLE OF THE THREE SERVANTS
14 "Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone.15 He gave five bags of silver* to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last—dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip.
16 "The servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned five more.17 The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more.18 But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s money.
19 "After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money.20 The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, `Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.’
21 "The master was full of praise. `Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!*’
22 "The servant who had received the two bags of silver came forward and said, `Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more.’
23 "The master said, `Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’
24 "Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, `Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate.25 I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’
26 "But the master replied, `You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate,27 why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.’
28 "Then he ordered, `Take the money from this servant, and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver.29 To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away.30 Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
To really understand why Jesus was telling this parable we need to understand who he was talking to. Jesus told this story during the Passion Week, the period of time between Palm Sunday and the crucifixion. The book of Matthew is a collection of sermons that were memorable to Matthew. Too often we read the gospels as we would read a history text book. The gospels are historically accurate accounts about what Jesus did during his earthly ministry but often the author, in this case the disciple Matthew, wrote down important messages that Jesus had to say to the crowds that followed him.
The most commonly known message is found in Matthew 5-8; the Sermon on the Mount. But depending on which commentaries you read there are as many as eight sermons in the book of Matthew.
The parable on the three servants is found squarely in the middle of Christ’s messages about the future Kingdom of God and what that means in particular for his followers. The fancy word for this is called a Strophe. The passage we just read is called a sub-strophe. It is preceded by a story of Christ’s servants being judged for not being prepared for his return and is followed by the parable of separating the sheep from the goats.
Let’s take a closer look at the parable that we are studying again. “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a trip. He called together his servants and gave them money to invest for him while he was gone. He gave five bags of gold to one, two to another and one bag of gold to the last.
Let’s stop here for a minute. In other translations the word bag of gold is replaced with the word talent of gold. A talent is the largest measure of weight in the Jewish scale system. It was the amount that a strong male servant or worker should be able to carry comfortably. To illustrate, it would be the amount that Randy Klassen would expect his workers to be able to carry without struggling under the load.
The weight of a talent was 75 pounds. I am definitely not able to carry 75 pounds comfortably for any length of time now. I have a desk job along with games and swimming with the youth. I will be sore when working with MDS in Mississippi in a few weeks! But one summer a number of years ago I carried shingles up onto roofs for a roofing company. Once I was in shape for it, I could carry two bundles of shingles up a two story ladder for eight hours a day. Two bundles of shingles are very close to 75 pounds. If I tried that now I would most likely fall off the ladder and the have the shingles fall down on me.
Jesus loved to shock his audience. He often used what is called a hook to grab the attention of his audience. I try to do the same thing, my Paul Potts video for instance. Look how much gold Jesus said that the master gave his servants. He gave them 75 pounds of gold in each bag!!! That would have caught his audience’s attention. Matthew was a tax collector before he became a disciple of Jesus and this certainly caught his attention, as Matthew knew the value of a talent gold.
75 pounds of Gold! That is a lot of money. In today’s gold market that is worth ¾ of a million dollars. In Jesus’ day that was also known as a king’s ransom. Over a thousand years later the ransom that was paid for King Richard “the Lion Heart”, the famous king of England during the time of Robin Hood, was ransomed for a talent of gold. At talent of gold could buy you 300 young female slaves or just over 40,000 bushels of wheat. To give you a good approximate size of how much that is, the huge Paterson grain elevator just off the northwest side of the Perimeter highway has eight huge steel bins and each holds just over 20,000 bushels. Look for it as you pass by on the perimeter some time. One talent of gold buys you two of those massive bins full of wheat! That is a lot of bread.
Now Jesus had his audience’s attention. It then goes on to say that the servant who received five bags of gold invested it and soon it doubled in value. The servant with two bags of gold invested it and doubled it as well.
That is some good investing isn’t it! Many commentators assume that the master Jesus was talking about was gone for about a year. One year and 100% return! I want these guys to be in charge of my retirement savings! That seems like a really large return to us in this day and age. If we get 10% on our investments we are very happy today. But investments were not the same back then. Capital, which is money that is available to spend immediately, was very uncommon back in Jesus’ day. The average person could not go down to a bank and get a loan for either big or small items. There just wasn’t the capital to do this with. It was a relatively recent invention in Jesus’ day that people could put their money in a bank in a savings account. This was a Roman invention. If you had capital and you had some education you could easily expect to make a 100% return a year.
It is the same in many undeveloped countries around the world today. This past week I had a really interesting talk with Ernie Dyck. Ernie was recently in the Congo helping set up small credit unions that give disperse “micro loans.” He explained to me how they work. A local farmer has a crop of yams. They are ready to be picked but he has neither the sacks nor the money to transport them to the city. If they do not get brought to market they will spoil.
All it costs him is $10 to buy sacks and pay for transportation but if you have no money the crop is useless. The credit union gives the farmer a loan for $10. He then goes and takes his crop to market and sells it for $50. The farmer then comes back a few days later and pays the credit union $11 for the loan. That is $10 for the loan and $1 for interest. 10% interest on a loan that the farmer had for less than a week! But the farmer is very happy because he just made $39 that he would never have made if he did not have that micro loan. A good credit union in the Congo makes well over 100% on its capital per year, and 300% is not at all unusual.
The same was true in Jesus’ day. It was not unusual for a good investor to make 300% a year in Jesus’ day. The Jews became so good at this type of investing that they soon dominated the banking industry in the Roman Empire and eventually the whole western world for the next 1800 years! They were known to be people of their word, honest and trustworthy and people were willing to borrow from them accordingly.
Now, the third servant did not invest his capital, but rather buried the gold in the ground and left it. At this point Jesus definitely had his audience’s attention.
The master comes home. He congratulates his first two servants for doing a good job. He even concludes his conversation with them by saying, “You have been faithful in handling this small amount – small amount, but that is a large fortune! – So now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!”
We learn much about the master from this exchange with his first two servants. One is that he is very, very rich. He called five talents of gold a small amount. How much is this master worth? The master is also a positive, encouraging, generous master. His first two servants did a good job and he makes sure that they feel praised. Not just a pat on the back but much more than that. They are encouraged to celebrate with their master upon his return from his trip. What’s more they will be given much more responsibility than they previously had. What a great guy.
Now look at the contrast between the first two servants and the third servant. "Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, `Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate.25 I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’
The third servant says, “Here is your money back!” He refuses to acknowledge responsibility, a responsibility that he could have easily fulfilled. Instead he throws the blame back at his master. Having already failed his master’s trust he proceeds to insult the master. This is another attention grabber for the audience listening to this story. This lazy servant, instead of taking responsibility blames the master for being a harsh, stern man. It is this fear that paralyzes the poor servant to inaction, or so he claims.
This servant is like too many Christians are overwhelmed by the magnitude of God’s task set before us that we put off contributing anything. The master rightly responds, “On the assumption that I am indeed hard and merciless, you should have been all the more diligent!”
Where the other two servants are rewarded by the master’s benevolence, this servant, fearing his master’s harshness experiences the very wrath that he feared. This is what Jesus says to those who claim to be his followers but do nothing to invest their lives in the Kingdom of God.
Have you ever heard of the 20/80 rule in church? That is 20% of the people do 80% of the work. Unfortunately this might be too generous to the church of Canada today. It might be the 10/90 rule. So many people are investing so little into building God’s Kingdom but in turn investing it into themselves. We are living in the generation of ME. This generation really began with the Baby Boomers, and my generation, generation X, seems to have perfected it. Unfortunately the youngest generation has not had good role models in this and they too are falling into that trap, although I think they are doing a better job than my generation has done.
Never before have had Christians stopped coming to church as much as they have in the past 30 years. Where have many of the boomers gone? Many have dropped out of church. It is the same thing with Generation X. I know so many Christians who don’t go to church. They go only when they feel like it, and when they do go they are merely spectators. Their family always comes first, with no room for volunteering and fellowship. Then they wonder why it is so hard to share the gospel at work and at home, or feeling very distant from God and other believers.
If you don’t do anything with the treasure that God has given you to build His Kingdom, then he will take it away. Every year, come September there is a crisis for Sunday school teachers. Why is that? Because many people are more willing to invest in themselves than they are in our church community. Going to church does not make you a Christian, nor does being involved and active in leadership make you a Christian. Actions do not bring you to salvation. That comes from faith in what Jesus did on the cross alone. However, you are not investing the gifts that Christ so generously gave you; you are insulting Him instead of glorifying him.
Incidentally it was after the telling of this parable that many of Jesus’ followers left Him. It was too hard to be a follower of Jesus if it meant that it cost them something, that they had to put in some effort. Are we feeling a little uncomfortable too? According to Matthew, Jesus shared this message the Wednesday before he was crucified.
God has given us a treasure of gifts. With just a minimal amount of input you can see amazing rewards. There’s no need to be overwhelmed by the prospect of investing the gifts God has given you. Teaching Sunday school is a perfect example of that. For one hour a week in class and maybe two hours for preparation, think how much God can use you to shape the children of this church and community to learn about our generous and loving God! Two to three hours a week and transformed lives! That is way better than a 100% return on an investment. Don’t insult God by saying that you can’t do anything for him. Don’t tell God that you are too busy, because everyone is busy.
It is a neat coincidence that the Aramaic word that Jesus used to tell how much gold the master gave to his servants is the same word in English today that we use to describe special skills that we have for doing things.
I personally feel like the servant who received two talents of gold. I have a few talents to be a youth pastor, I am outgoing and energetic, and I love to read and learn about the Bible. But I have many other friends who have so much more to offer that I have. They are great musicians and they speak much more eloquently than I do. I can only sing on tune when I stand next to somebody who is a good singer. Forget trying to play the guitar or the drums. I tried the drums. I could not keep a beat if my life depended on it. A youth pastor who doesn’t play the guitar? Well, you’re looking at him!
I have allowed God to use my gifts that He has given me, and I have had the privilege of being part of leading and discipling dozens of young people to a saving relationship in Jesus Christ. I can take none of the credit. All the credit goes to God. All I have done is allowed God to use my talents.
Have you ever felt like Charlie Brown? I sure have. At the beginning of my message I showed you the clip of Paul Potts on Britain’s Got Talent. Paul even looks like Charlie Brown. How the audience and even the judges responded to Paul when he started to use his talent is the same way that God responds. It says in verse 21 that “the master was full of praise.” God is not the great cheer leader in the sky. He is the ultimate parent who heaps praise on us when we use what He has so generously given to build his Kingdom.
Thomas Edison said it like this,
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize
how close they were to success when they gave up.”
So don’t insult God by giving up before you have even started. God is a generous God. He is quick to praise. Give God a reason to give you the praise that He so much wants to give you. Plan to invest the gifts God has given you if you are not already doing so. Be creative. Do it this week. Don’t wait until you forget about it; that is no better than burying your treasure in the ground.
Close in Prayer.
