Introduction
Are you a Risk-taker or a safety-seeker?
Responding to the increasing destructiveness of high winds in the Midwest, one developer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, offered an optional tornado-safe room in the new homes he was selling. It cost an additional $2,500 for the room—which can also be used as a closet, bathroom, or vault when not needed for safety.
What would you do if you were building your home there? I know what I would do – I would go for the tornado-safe room in a skinny minute. This New Englander is scared to death of tornadoes!
If you opted for the room, you were like Nine of the first ten buyers.
The tenth couple didn’t get the room. They chose to have a hot tub installed instead. Why do you think they did that? Were they foolish young folks?
Actually, they were 75 years old. I suppose they figured if the Good Lord had gotten them through 75 years without being killed by a tornado, he could get them through as many more as He chose and they’d rather enjoy the Jacuzzi than worry about tornadoes.
[from: Americans Are Facing More Disasters, USA Today (5-23-00)]
How about you? Are you a risk taker, or a safety seeker?
If you are familiar with this parable, you’ll recognize it as “The Parable of the Talents.”
A talent was a measure of weight, and so was often used as a measure for gold, silver or copper. We’re not sure what the actual amount was, but it was a sizable amount of money. The Good News probably does it justice by using 5,000, 2,000 & 1,000 gold coins.
The amount is not terribly significant, what is significant is that:
A very wealthy man goes on a very long journey and leaves 3 servants in charge of his money. What he did was very unusual
Some commentators feel the need to explain that they must have been in a different position than a regular “servant” to be given such an enormous responsibility
The master made these servants his business partners
They had complete control over large amounts of money for what was probably many years.
He determined who got how much on the basis of their abilities. He had a 5-talent guy; a 2-talent guy; and a 1-talent guy
But as I just said, it was an honor and a show of respect that the master gave them such control over any of his money, so don’t think he was slighting the 1-talent guy.
We’re not told of any instructions he gives them
They seem to have been given the right to do whatever they saw fit with the money.
Two of the servants go to work immediately with the money, and manage, over a long period of time, to double it. They’ve done quite well – 100% return on the master’s investment.
Again, we don’t know much about the details. There wasn’t a NY Stock Exchange or a NASDAQ back then
Perhaps they started businesses. We don’t know.
But we can be pretty sure they did two things:
They took risks
They worked hard with what they had
But the third servant decides that he isn’t going to take the risk, because if he loses it, he knows he’ll be in big trouble. So, he finds a safe spot, Digs a hole. and buries it.
He knows he won’t gain anything that way, But he also knows he can’t lose anything that way either.
Do you see the difference in the perspective of the servants?
The first two: Are determined to make a profit
The third:Is determined NOT to take a loss
The first two: are willing to work hard and take risks
The third:doesn’t want to risk or work
wants to hang on to what he’s got
The first two: Received the gift – which was not so much the money, (which remained the master’s), but the trust of and the partnership with the master
The third:Refuses the gift (“Here’s what’s yours”)
The first two: Recognize the partnership the master has offered them
The third:Rejects the partnership
The first two: Desire to advance the master’s domain
The third:Has no interest in or connection to the master’s domain
The first two: View the money/gift as an opportunity
The third:Views the money/gift as a problem
The first two: Allows the master’s gift to change their lives
The third:Refuses to let the master’s gift touch his life
The first two: Were given “real” responsibility
The third:Lost the responsibility his gift had given
The first two: Entered into the joy of the master
The third:Was cast out from the master into a place of darkness & regret
Here’s my question for you: Which of the servants “played it safe”?
The 5-talent guy and the 2-talent guy risked their money. It turned out well for them.
But they didn’t know – in the middle of the story - that they would double their investment. Perhaps there were times when it seemed they would lose everything.
But they took the risk and used the gift
The 1-talent guy told the master he had been afraid
He decided to “play it safe” He hid the money to make sure it wouldn’t be lost. He accomplished exactly what he set out to achieve: nothing
Just like one of my friends used to say, “If you aim at nothing, you hit it every time.”
But there is something about the master that all three of them knew, but only one of them came out and said.
That is: he was a man who reaped where he had not planted and gathered harvests where he had not scattered any seed
Doesn’t that mean he was a man who expected his servants to plant and scatter seed for him?
That he was a man who expected his servants to use what he gave them to get a return?
The first two men don’t say that about their master, but their actions proved they knew it all the same
Although the master hadn’t given them precise instructions about what to do with the money, they knew they had better “plant” & “scatter” it, so their master would have a harvest to reap when he returned.
The third man understood his master’s nature perfectly well.He understood what he expected from his servants.
But he refused to take the risk to do it. He said he was too afraid to take such a risk
But shouldn’t he have been more afraid to fail to fulfill the master’s will and expectation? He wanted to “play it safe” – but did he? If I were to choose who I am most like in this parable, I would definitely pick the 1-talent guy. Not so much because I think God hasn’t given me much, But because for so long, I was afraid to use what God gave me
I’ve always been the kind of person who really didn’t want to get in trouble. I didn’t want to make waves
But this parable has changed my life
In fact, if this parable weren’t in the Bible, I doubt very much I would be standing here this morning. I want to talk about something I rarely talk about, but I am only doing it because I think it illustrates something very important about this parable.
Like most, maybe all, of you, I wasn’t raised thinking that “woman” and “pastor” went together. I knew there were people who believed it was OK, biblically I did a lot of reading to try and understand. I came to the conclusion that there were solid arguments on both sides of the issue.
So how do you decide? And especially how do you decide if you have a sense that God is calling you into pastoral ministry?
I thought, “Well, if the passages specifically referring to women don’t give conclusive answers, maybe I need to look more broadly at other Scriptures to see if I can find principles which would apply.”
And that led me here, to the Parable of the Talents.
I was afraid that if I used my gifts in pastoral ministry, I might be doing something wrong. I didn’t feel that I could be absolutely certain the Scriptures taught that it was acceptable for a woman to be a pastor.
Some people are content to just wave their hands at some of these passages and say, “Oh that was just all 1st century culture.”
I just couldn’t handle the Scriptures that way. So, if I couldn’t be sure, I figured the way to “play it safe” was to not become a pastor. Sound reasonable?
It does sound reasonable. Unless you read the parable of the talents. Because the parable of the talents proves that Playing it Safe is Dangerous
When it comes to using the things God has given us for building up His kingdom: Playing it Safe is Dangerous
Do you see it? The ones who risked losing it all, were saved. The one who was afraid he might mess up was lost. I realized that, come Judgment Day, if I were to say: “Lord, I wasn’t 100% sure I was doing the right thing, but I took what you gave me and I used it for Your glory” I would get in less trouble than if I said, “Lord, I wasn’t 100% sure being a pastor would be the right thing, so I took the gifts you gave me and I buried them, so I would be sure not to use them wrongly”
And since I am highly motivated by a desire NOT to get in trouble, I decided that the BEST way to “Play it safe,” was not to do what seemed the safest thing, but to take a risk and use what God had given me.
Once I saw that Playing it Safe is Dangerous, I had the courage to risk investing what I had been given.
I can’t say that I read this parable once and rose up and started risking,
But God allowed it to work on me and work on me until I was convinced. People who know me well, know that I tend to analyze things, sometimes to death! As God was working this parable into me, I remember having a conversation with Him that went something like this (And you’ll notice that I did most of the talking, which is probably half of my problem!):
“Lord, you realize that you have left out one logical possibility in this parable. You have two people who risked it all and turned a handsome profit and you have one person who risked nothing and lost it all. But there is a third possibility, you know. Why didn’t you include a person who risked it all and lost? You know us squirrelly-types who want to save all our nuts for the winter JUST IN CASE we need them – We’re scared to death that if we gambled those nuts, we’ll lose them. We’re not good investors or entrepreneurs like those first two guys. I’m afraid, Lord. I’m afraid that if I risk, I’ll lose. And this parable doesn’t tell me what happens to the one who risks and loses.”
And I realized that there was a reason for that. Because when we invest our gifts for God’s glory, we don’t lose – at least not forever. It may feel like we’re losing in this life, but when we stand face-to-face with Jesus, we’ll see all that he has gained through the use of our gifts.
For the past few weeks, as we’ve talked about spiritual gifts, I’ve tried to stress that each one who has put their faith in Christ has at least one spiritual gift, that the church is one body and each one has an obligation to the rest of us to fulfill their purpose in the body. That is, that we are responsible to use our gifts and if we don’t recognize and use them, we are shortchanging the rest of the body.
I hope that I’ve communicated something of my deep-seated belief that it is only as we use the gifts God has given us, that our lives are filled with meaning and purpose.
But this week I feel like I’m saying, “OK, no more Mr. Nice Guy! You need to know what happens if you don’t use what God has given you for His glory!”
I don’t believe this parable is limited to the use of spiritual gifts, I think it includes everything God has given us:
Our time,
Our money
Our education, intelligence
Our strength, our health
And, yes, our spiritual gifts.
One commentator said this:
“Jesus is saying that a religion concerned only with not doing anything wrong in order that its practitioner may one day stand vindicated ignores the will of God.”
[Leon Morris, p 631, fn 38, quoting E. Schweizer’s The Good News According to Matthew, p. 473]
In plain English, Playing it Safe is Dangerous –
Only in risking it all for the glory of God are we saved.
The conclusion of this parable is really frightening to me – and I’m not entirely sure I understand it.
We know – I hope you know! – that we are NOT saved on the basis of what we DO in this life
We are saved on the basis of our faith in Jesus Christ.
But this parable doesn’t talk about that. It says the ones who used what the Master gave them were given even more and were invited to share in the Master’s joy
And it says the one who refused to use what the Master gave him was thrown outside into the darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
That vivid phrase: “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is used 7 times in the New Testament. Every time, it is used in the context of the final judgment. Very obviously, it is used to describe those who are cast into hell.
So these two things don’t seem to jive:
On the one hand, we know that salvation is only found through faith in Christ
On the other, here we have the one who failed to use his gifts for the master being tossed into hell
Is there a contradiction? How do we reconcile these two things?
The only solution I can find is this:
If we truly have faith in Christ, we will choose to use what He has given us to build up His Kingdom.
Do you remember what I said about the difference in attitudes of these servants?
The 5-talent and 2-talent servants entered enthusiastically into the partnership offered to them
And they were rewarded.
The 1-talent servant said, “Sorry, but I’m not doing it. Even though I call myself your servant, I’m not going to serve You; I’m not going to accept a partnership with you. I’ll put your gift in a hole and give it back later, but I won’t use it.”
And that’s what got him in trouble
BIG trouble.
The letter of James [ch 2:14-20, NLT – selected portions] says this:
14 Dear brothers and sisters, what’s the use of saying you have faith if you don’t prove it by your actions? That kind of faith can’t save anyone… 17 …Faith that doesn’t show itself by good deeds is no faith at all-- it is dead and useless… 19 Do you still think it’s enough just to believe that there is one God? Well, even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror!
It isn’t fashionable to talk about judgment and hell and that sort of thing anymore. But it is inescapable in this parable. You have been offered – not just salvation and a chance to live your life on your own
You have been offered a partnership with God. You have been given all kinds of gifts to further His Kingdom:
Not only what we would typically call spiritual gifts
But also time, money, some measure of health & strength, a mind, influence on people around you, a home.
What are you doing with those things? If you were to face Jesus TODAY, what would you tell him about how you have used all He gave you?
Conclusion
There’s a story that’s told about an incident in the life of Abraham Lincoln. He had brought one of his aides along with him to a Wednesday night service at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. As they walked back home, the aide asked the president how he liked the sermon.
Lincoln replied, "I thought it was well-thought through, powerfully delivered and very eloquent."
"So, you thought it was a great sermon."
"No," the president said, "it failed. It failed because the preacher did not ask us to do something great."
I would hate to repeat such a mistake. The 1-talent servant knew what he was supposed to do. His own words proved it: “I knew you reaped where you didn’t plant…I knew you gathered where you hadn’t scattered seed.”
That servant knew he was responsible to do the planting, and the scattering but instead, he did the opposite.
Now you know, too. You know that God expects to reap a harvest from the grain he’s given you. So what will you do? Will you seek God and ask Him to show you how you can use what he’s given you for His glory, not yours? Or will you bury it in the dirt? Will you fall into the danger of Playing it Safe?
Will you risk and reap, or will you squirrel away and be sorry later?
“A ship is safe when anchored in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”
Don’t be a ship that never leaves the shore – lift the anchor and push out into the deep.
Don’t be a sorry squirrel – be a risking reaper.
