Put God's Buried Treasures To Work

In 2006, the Trachte brothers discovered a Norman Rockwell painting behind a false wall in their late father’s home in Vermont. The brothers put the painting up for auction and it fetched $15.4 million. (cbsnews.com) They must have been excited to find such a buried treasure. But my question is why did the father hide the painting? Aren’t paintings, especially good ones, meant to be displayed so that they can be looked at and admired?

According to our Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus warns each one of us from doing what that father did. No, you probably don’t have an expensive painting hidden behind a false wall, but we are often guilty of failing to faithfully use the gifts and talents our Lord has given to us. Instead, we think that these gifts belong to us so we can do with them whatever we want—even bury them. But today Jesus urges us: put God’s buried treasures to work. Do so faithfully, joyfully, and immediately. Listen to our text.

Jesus spoke this parable on the Tuesday of Holy Week. He was continuing to teach his disciples how to prepare for the end of the world. Jesus spoke about a rich man who was going on a journey. Before he left, he called in three of his servants and entrusted to each some of his wealth. Now the NIV translation which I read earlier said that he gave his servants “bags of gold.” The original text says that he gave out “talents.” A talent is a unit of money worth around $1.2 million today. To one servant he gave five talents ($6 million), to another two talents ($2.4 million), and to the last servant he gave one talent ($1.2 million). Even the servant with only one talent had a big responsibility...and opportunity.

But shouldn’t the rich man have entrusted his talents to a professional financial advisor if he wanted to ensure a profit on his return? Or shouldn’t he have at least left them in the care of a close family member? By entrusting these talents to his servants, what was the master saying to them? He was making the point: “I trust you. And I want to partner with you. I look forward to seeing what you will do with my money.”

Accordingly, the first servant immediately, without any delay, put the five talents to work so that by the time the master returned, he had earned five more. The servant with two talents did the same, and also realized a 100% profit, earning two more talents. The master said to each of these servants: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:21, 23)

The servant who had been entrusted with one talent however buried it. He then reported: “Master, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.” (Matthew 25:24-25). What do you think about this servant’s action and explanation? Well, at least he hadn’t lost the money, nor had he run off with it and squandered it in wild living like the younger son did in that parable about the prodigal (Lk. 15). In his mind he thought he was still a decent servant.

But there’s something that should make you question this servant’s motives for not having done anything with his master’s money. The servant accused his master of being a hard man who took advantage of others when he harvested where he had not planted. For that reason, said the servant, he was afraid of the master and decided not to take any risks with his money. But if the servant really was afraid of his master, shouldn’t he have worked especially hard to ensure the master was happy with him when he returned? If your boss tells you that the bathrooms better be cleaned by the time he returns, you don’t lean on your mop all afternoon doing nothing and then claim you were too afraid of the boss to do what he asked. No, you clean the bathrooms because if you don’t, you’ll have a reason to be afraid! Likewise, the one-talent servant should have put the talent to work even if that only meant depositing it in the bank to earn interest!

The real problem was that the one-talent servant despised his master. He saw him as a slave driver who enjoyed making others do what he wanted them to do. Well, that servant wasn’t going to play his master’s little game. Instead of putting the money to work, he was just going to bury it as if it was a dead skunk that he couldn’t wait to get rid of.