“Putting Away Our Shovels”
Matthew 25:14-30
A wealthy man who goes away on a long journey.
Before he leaves, he entrusts his riches to his servants.
The first servant takes the money to the market, to a wealth management firm, we might say and invests in high-risk ventures.
The second servant does the same thing, puts the money to work at high risk.
And both these guys do very well.
When their master returns, he is very happy.
“Well done,” he says.
Then he promises them that they will receive more responsibility in the future.
The third servant takes a very different approach with the money entrusted to him.
He digs a hole in the ground and puts all the money in the hole for safe-keeping.
He is a careful and cautious investor.
He is not about to take chances with the money.
It is all there, every penny of it, when the master returns.
He is proud of himself.
“Here it is. All of it, safe and sound.”
And for his efforts he is treated as harshly as anyone in the whole Bible.
What is going on here?
First thing I’d like to say is that although Jesus uses these bags of money to tell the story—this parable, is not about money—except for the fact that we are to give our whole selves—our whole lives to God and that does include money.
Otherwise, the bags of gold are a metaphor for something else.
Just as the seed in the parable of the sower isn’t about seed and the parable of the vine and the branches isn’t about horticulture this parable isn’t about bags of gold.
I can’t help but wonder how this parable would have turned out if the first two servants had put the money entrusted to them into high risk ventures, only to lose all of it.
Jesus doesn’t tell the parable this way, but I can’t help but imagine that the master would not have been harsh toward them, and he might even have applauded them for their efforts.
The point here is not about doubling your money and getting rich.
It’s about investing.
It’s about taking risks.
It’s about Jesus Himself and what is going to happen to Him.
Mostly it’s about what Jesus calls us to do while He’s gone.
It’s about being a follower of Jesus and what it means to be faithful to Him, and so, finally, it is about you and me.
And the greatest risk of all, it turns out, is not to risk anything, not to care deeply and profoundly, not to invest in the lives of others, not to give our heart and thus our entire lives to loving God and loving our neighbors.
John of the Cross wrote that “In the evening of life we will be judged on love alone.”
In Jesus’ parable the third servant says to the master, “I knew that you are a hard man…
…so, I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground.”
How did he know he was a hard man?
Had someone told him this?
Had he just assumed it?
Whatever reason he thought him a hard man--he was wrong.
And so, the master in the story is like: “You knew I was a hard man, huh?”
Obviously, the master in this parable represents God.
And it’s a shame when we think of God as a hard man.
In reality God is merciful, forgiving and loves us beyond all imagining, and He calls us to be the same toward others.
Still, so many of us think of God differently.
One person shares: “My grandma gave me a Bible when I was 10 or 11, and I sat in my room and I read it, because I’m a nerd, from cover to cover.
I wasn’t going to church regularly, I just read the Scriptures.
From reading it, I formed the idea that God was loving and loved me unconditionally, and that He was inviting me into relationship with Him, into the family of God, so to speak.
It wasn’t until much later, that I started hearing how mad God was, and hearing how much God hated sinners.
That was some of the language I heard, and it was perplexing to me.
If the Gospel for people is simply a ‘get out of hell free’ card versus an invitation to the beauty of God’s kingdom, no wonder they have a short-sided view of their responsibility in the Kingdom.”
Could it be that our image of God dictates how much we love and how we decide to live our lives?
What is your image of God?
Is God a horrid task-master just waiting for you to make a mistake?
Is He cruel?
Is He hanging you by the tail with a crazed grin on His face over a precipice.
Or is He Love?
Is He Jesus?
How we answer that question determines how much we love.
How we answer that question determines how we invest in His Kingdom.
How we answer this question helps determine how we will treat others.
Either we will love and share lavishly, or we will hide the Good News where it does no one any good…
…After-all, if the only news we know about God is ‘bad news,’ why share it?
(pause)
Do you know that God loves you?
Not everyone does know this.
Not too long ago a woman came to me crying and asking over and over again: “Do you think God loves me?
Do you think I will go to heaven?”
I said to her, “Of course God loves you.”
“But I’m such a sinner,” she cried.
“God knows that,” I said.
“That is why Jesus came and died for you.
And if you were the only person on earth, Jesus would still have come and died for you.
That is how much He loves you.”
(pause)
Think about it: who did Jesus hang out with while He was on this earth?
Who were His best friends, His closest disciples?
They were sinners.
And not just any old every day sinners.
They were looked at by the establishment as being the worst of the worst sinners.
But they loved Jesus because He loved them—and they knew it.
In 1st John 3 we are encouraged: “let us love one another, for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.”
Could it be that the reason the third servant was afraid of the master, the reason he hid the master’s gift in the ground, the reason he viewed the master as cruel and mean was because he didn’t really know the master?
To know God is to know love.
And the Bible tells us: “God is love.”
And, as we are told, “There is no fear in love.
Perfect love [actually] drives out fear.”
The servants in our parable who invested God’s love wildly, took chances, loved with abandon and furthered the master’s kingdom—because they knew God loved them and would forgive them if they failed.
Also, they couldn’t keep God’s love to themselves.
They had experienced it.
They had to pass it on!
They didn’t feel they were in the hands of an angry God just waiting to catch them messing up.
They knew they had committed their lives to a God Who is filled with mercy, forgiveness and grace.
And because of that, they were filled with mercy, forgiveness and grace themselves.
And people saw that.
People saw and experienced Christ’s love in them and that love introduced them to the One Who died and rose again.
And thus, the more they invested the love of God into the world, the more it grew.
We have been given not only the greatest commandment, to love God and our neighbor, but also the great commission, to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
Not just converts, but disciples who are fully devoted to a life of loving as Jesus loves and serving as Jesus serves.
And so, what if the “bags of gold” that the master leaves don’t represent our talents or God-given abilities or anything like that?
What if this great, immense treasure is something else entirely?
Think, for just a moment, about what we as Christians can claim as our most precious treasure—worth more than we can possibly imagine.
The Good News of God’s love for us shown most fully in Christ’s life, death and Resurrection is the most powerful and amazing treasure we have, is it not?
And so, perhaps this parable is here to remind us that our greatest treasure, as Christians, is the Gospel itself.
And if that is the case, what are we willing to risk to get the best return on God’s investment in us?
(pause)
How did you come to know Jesus?
Most of us come to know Jesus through one or more of His disciples loving us with the other-worldly love of Christ.
And that makes all the difference in the world!
This world is frightened.
People are afraid of losing their jobs, of being taken advantage of.
People are afraid of being vulnerable.
And, I think people are also afraid of giving control of their lives to Jesus.
We are a people who are very adept at digging holes and burying God’s love in the ground.
And when we do this the darkness grows.
The fear multiplies.
And human beings live without a relationship with their Creator, Redeemer and Friend.
And so, in order to make disciples, we have to be disciples.
God has a plan for reaching the world, and that plan is entrusting us with His love and trusting us to invest His love wildly, extravagantly.
It’s by how well we love that people see the need to have Jesus in their lives.
It’s the risks we take that show the depth of our faith.
In our parable, the master trusted his servants.
Two of them trusted him back.
The third one, not so much.
Our commitment to follow Jesus is much more than reciting some words.
It’s a promise to let Christ invade our lives, take over our thinking and our doing, and completely trust in Him.
If you have not made this commitment to trust in Christ…
…If you have not taken this risk.
If you are hiding the love Jesus Christ in the ground—the greatest gift ever entrusted to you…
…will you dig it out, dust it off and start living it?
Let us pray:
Lord God, we ask forgiveness for not trusting You with our whole selves, our entire lives.
May we hold nothing back from You.
We accept Your free gift of salvation through the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We accept the fact that You so love us that You have given us Your One and Only Son.
We choose to believe, Lord help our unbelief.
We choose to trust, Lord enable us to trust.
We choose to live lives of love and service—spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ wildly, boldly and without fear.
Take our lives and let them be consecrated Lord to Thee.
In Jesus’ name and for His sake we pray.
Amen.
