"Buried Treasure"
Matthew 25:14-30
What is going on in this parable?
"The kingdom of heaven is like a man who is leaving on a trip.
He called his servants and handed his possessions over to them."
This parable sits square in the middle of three parables Jesus told in Matthew Chapter 25.
They all have to do with the fact that Jesus is going away.
He will soon be arrested, beaten, and crucified.
Three days later He will rise from the dead--opening the gates to Paradise.
He will have claimed victory over death, hell and the devil.
In the meantime, He will give His Holy Spirit to His Church--to those Who will believe on His name--to those Who become His disciples through faith in Him.
He will give them, in a sense, the keys to the Kingdom.
He will hand all that is His over to them.
He will entrust them with the message of eternal life--the Gospel of God--the Words of Life.
He will also entrust them with the Scriptures, and with the call of Christ to Love God, Love neighbor, love enemies, cloth the naked, feed the hungry, visit the sick and those in prison.
They will be entrusted with raising the children, teaching the young about the love of God and working to protect them from the snares of evil...
They will be called to "Go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything [Jesus] has commanded..."
And again, "Jesus Himself, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit will be with them every day..." until Christ returns...
...until the Master Who has gone away on a trip returns.
And those, whom He has entrusted with the Great Commission to make disciples...
...well...
When the Master returns, He will call them together to settle accounts.
Could that be what this parable is about?
Could this parable be about US?!!!
Could Jesus be the "man who was leaving on a trip"?
Could WE be "his servants," the ones "He called...and handed his possessions over to..."?
If so, I'm gonna ask us all a very chilling question: which servant are you?
Which servant are you?
In this parable, I think it's fair to say that the "valuable coins" represent the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the very Gospel itself.
And so we are told that the man gave "five valuable coins" to one of the servants.
"to another he gave two, and to another he gave one. He gave to each servant according to that servant's ability. Then he left on his journey."
Now, this man, was very, very generous.
Because each one of these valuable coins was worth more than fifteen years wages.
In today's terms that might average out to somewhere between $750,000 and $800,000 dollars per coin.
That's a lot of money.
That's a lot of responsibility.
That's a lot of trust.
What would you do if someone entrusted you with close to one million dollars?
Would you go on a wild spending spree?
Would you make high-risk investments?
Would you put it in the bank to gain interest?
Or would you dig a hole and put it in the ground?
If you were to ask someone who works as an investment manager or someone who works in what is called the "wealth management industry" what you would have to do, the risks you would have to take to "double your money," he or she would probably tell you about the Rule of 72.
What is the Rule of 72?
Well, if your investment has a guaranteed interest rate of 5 percent, you divide the interest rate into 72, and the answer will be the number of years it will take to double your money.
Five percent into 72 equals fourteen and a half years.
If you were to ask the investment manager how risky this is, he or she would tell you that if you want to double your money quickly the risk goes way up.
I have read that in the world of venture capital, only about 1 out of 4 or 5--some say 1 out of 10 makes it.
The other-times you lose--EVERYTHING!!!
Being entrusted with the Gospel of Jesus Christ sounds like risky business, does it not?
Now, we have to keep in mind that Jesus Christ told this story in the middle of His own personal high-risk venture.
He was giving His life for the salvation of the world.
In the parable, the first servant takes the money to the market, to a wealth management firm, and invests it in high-risk ventures.
The second servant does the same thing, puts the money to work at high risk.
And both of them do very well.
Both of them reap the rewards of the Rule of 72.
When their master returns, he is very happy with them.
"Well done," he says.
Then he promises that they will receive even more responsibility in the future.
The third servant takes a very different approach with his money.
He digs a hole in the ground and puts all the money in the hole for safe keeping.
And when the master returns, he is proud of himself.
"Here it is," he says, "safe and sound."
But, for his efforts he is treated as harshly as anyone in the whole Bible.
I don't know about you, but I can't help but wonder how it would have turned out if the first two servants had put the money in a high-risk venture and lost it all.
I would imagine that the master would have applauded their efforts just the same!!!
The point of this parable is not about doubling your money and accumulating wealth.
It is all about living.
It's about investing.
It's about taking risks.
It's about Jesus Himself and what He has done and what is about to happen to Him.
Mostly, it's about what Jesus hopes and expects of US--You and Me--after Jesus is gone!!!
And that's right now!!!
It's about being a follower of Jesus Christ and what it means to be faithful to Him.
And the greatest risk of all, it turns out, is not to risk anything!!!
The greatest risk of all is not to care deeply and profoundly enough about others to invest deeply, to give your heart away and in the process risk everything.
The third servant reminds me of how Jesus describes the Church of Laodicea in Revelation Chapter 3.
Remember them?
They are the church that made Jesus sick!!!
"I know your works," Jesus said to them, "You are neither cold nor hot.
I wish that you were either cold or hot.
So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth."
A more literal translation would say: "I'm about to vomit you out of my mouth."
Orthodox, conventional theology would say that sin is pride and egotism.
And these things are true.
But there is an entire other lens through which to view the human condition.
And it's called sloth.
It's not a word we use a lot these days.
But what it means is not caring, not loving, not rejoicing, not living up to the full potential of our humanity.
It means playing it safe.
Investing nothing.
It means digging a hole and burying the money in the ground.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that the sin of respectable people is running from responsibility.
Bonhoeffer's sense of responsibility cost him his life.
One scholar has said that burying the money is tantamount to putting one's lamp under a bushel basket!!!
It's about knowing without doing.
We know what following Christ is supposed to look like, but we don't live it.
We bury goodness, time, love, treasure, and talent in the ground.
In other words, we throw it away.
And in doing so we reject God's gracious call on our lives.
In Psalm 19 we are told that God's commands, that God's call on our lives "are more desirable than gold--tons of pure gold!
They are sweeter than honey--even dripping off the honeycomb!"
You know, it's interesting.
We live in what is called "the buckle of the Bible belt."
Do you know that there are more churches per square mile in our area than in any other part of the country?
But there is a lot of crime in Chattanooga and North Georgia.
There are a lot of drugs.
There's a lot of homeless people.
There's a lot of neglected children.
There's a lot of people who don't go to church or don't go often.
I've knocked on every door around this church, and I'd estimate that between 60-70 percent of the folks don't have a church home, or are not presently active in church.
For many of us, religion, our personal faith hasn't been treated like a high risk venture.
In fact, it has seemed to be something like the opposite.
Faith has seemed like a personal comfort zone.
Faith, for many of us, is about personal security here and in the hereafter.
For many, faith is no more risky than believing ideas about God and Jesus, a list of beliefs to which we more or less subscribe to intellectually.
Faith, we may think, is getting our personal theology right and then living a good life by avoiding bad things.
Religion, we may think is pretty timid, a non-risky venture.
Perhaps that is why so many pews are empty.
Maybe that is why a lot of churches are dying.
Maybe that is the reason a lot of folks don't invest a lot in whatever church they go to, if they do go.
Maybe that is the reason that most people are still in bed or at least at home right now.
They don't think it really matters.
After-all, it's only church.
I could catch it next week, maybe.
Some folks, perhaps, might also think that just coming and sitting in the pews once a month is active Christianity.
Or they just don't care enough.
Sloth.
Not loving, not caring, not living up to our full potential.
Every human being who has ever lived can make the kind of impact that 15 years worth of wages can make.
For some of us, it's much more.
Many of us might try to spend much of our lives trying to pretend it isn't true.
We might refuse to think about the true impact of what we are doing.
Or we try to avoid having an impact--trying not to touch or be touched; we resist taking the risk of living and loving and getting involved.
We try to bury the money.
And God says to us in this parable: "Oh no you don't! I gave you all you are and all you have for a reason."
As one theologian says, "What God does first and best and most is to trust people with their moment in history."
My friends, this is our moment in history.
One person is quoted as saying, "Somebody has power. Pretending that they don't so they don't need to use it to help people is my idea of evil."
We all have power.
We all have impact--the kind of impact a million dollars has over our lifetime, and maybe more.
Pretending we don't have that power, pretending we don't have that impact, avoiding our responsibility to use that power to help people, to build God's kingdom, that is evil!!!
Evil is having the means to do something, and choosing not to do it.
Jesus calls us to be His disciples, to live our lives as fully as possible by investing them, by risking.
To be a disciple of Jesus Christ isn't as much about believing ideas about Him as it is following Him--giving our lives to Him and thus to others.
What's this parable about?
This parable is Jesus' call on your life and my life to live the high-risk venture of being a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Again, as we look at this parable...
...as we think about God's call and claim on our lives...
...which servant in this parable are you?
