With What You've Been Given

For one of my religion classes I was required to write a chapel type message on Matthew 25, so here it is:

Two years ago, I saw a commercial on NPR for the website dontalmostgive.org. The commercial featured a homeless man under a thin blanket freezing in the cold night. As the picture was shown, an announcer talked about people who almost gave him food to eat, and others who almost drove him to a shelter, and still others who almost gave him a warm blanket. The fate of the man followed the same trend: “he almost made it through the night.” The point of the commercial was to persuade people that almost helping the man, ultimately did nothing for him. Along with this commercial, the website featured five others with a similar message: good intentions mean little without action. The website itself is a network of different organizations all across the country to which people can give.

I say that not to scare you to sign up to volunteer somewhere or to make you feel guilty about not opening up your home to those in need. My point is simply this: to challenge each of you to use the gifts you’ve been given and do something with them.

In Matthew 25:14-30, Jesus tells the story of man who goes on a trip and entrusts three of his servants with a number of talents, a unit of Greek currency worth about $1000 each. To one servant he gave five talents, to another two, and to the last one. While the man is gone these workers are to take care of the talents he’s given them. The servant with $5000, earns $5000 more. The one with $2000 also doubles his amount, but the third servant, the one with $1000, buries the talent out of fear. 

When the master returns, he sees the increase of the first two men and rewards them. To both he says, “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!” (verse 21, 23). The third, however, the master scolds. He calls the servant lazy and wicked and takes his single talent and gives it to the one with ten.  The moral of the parable is this: “whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them” (verse 29).

In the story, God is like the master, and He entrusts us all with different talents and abilities. His desire is for us to discover those talents and use them for His glory. And when He sees we are using those gifts He’s given us, He will entrust us with more. Those who make something of what they have are the heros of the story and we can look up to them for their good stewardship.

But what about the man who hid the money, what’s his story. People may look at him and immediately write him off as lazy and ignorant, and that may be true in part. But the main reason that he didn’t do anything with the master’s money was because of his fear. It says in verse 24 that the servant knew the master had high standards, and he was afraid (Message). Though most people don’t give him credit, the servant may have thought of investing the money somewhere, really making something of what he’d been given, but his fears kept him from trying. He didn’t want to risk losing the talent. Also he might have feared that his talent was useless. Maybe his thoughts were, “if only I had five, then maybe I could make something of myself” or “no one cares what can I do with my talent.” He put up a wall of his insecurities that stopped him from using the talent before he even tried. 

Sometimes in life, we have those same thoughts: we too are afraid of failure, we feel our talents are worthless or that someone else is better qualified. The echo of our hearts is constantly saying, “I’m not good enough,” and we believe that to be true, so we cover up who we really are and hide our talents thinking that we’re better off that way. We, like the wicked servant, let our insecurities overwhelm us and we bury the gift God has given us. The master isn’t pleased with the man’s ability to hide the money; he wanted him to do something with it, and God wants the same from us: our strengths are not to be hidden in shadows or holes, but to be discovered and increased in light of the world around us. 

In the next verses of Matthew 25, Jesus tells another parable. He tells the story about the end of the world and how he will separate the people like a farmer separates his sheep and goats. The sheep in this parable are like the first two servants in the parable of the talents. They are the ones who live in light of what they’ve been blessed with. The use what they’ve been given and do something with it. When God calls them aside, He commends them saying, they’ve done what was required of them. He explains; “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me” (verse 35-36).

The sheep are greatly confused by this because they do not remember doing any of that for Jesus. But Jesus assures them, “whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me” (verse 40). It’s the same with the servants in the first story, they didn’t do something with their talent because they were expecting the master to reward them; they invested their talent because they knew they’d been given a blessing. The sheep saw a void and helped to fill it; the servant used his talents and increased upon them.

The goats, however, are no so lucky as the sheep. God punishes them and says, “For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me” (verse 42-43). He basically says, I expected more from you; all these things you were capable of doing, you did not do. They, like the 3rd servant, may have been afraid. They may have been scared of failing, or of judgement, or they may have felt that what they had to offer wasn’t good enough. So they kept their blessings to themselves and figured the world was better off without their gifts. But it was not; the hungry needed food; the thirsty needed water; the stranger needed a home; the naked needed clothes, and the sick and imprisoned needed someone to care for them.

Like I said at the beginning, this isn’t a plug for volunteer organizations that need your help (though helping others is always a need), and it isn’t a message to scold you for not doing this or that (for then I’d be reaffirming the fear that has already taken residence inside you). But rather it is a call to question: what are you doing with your talents? If you’re a musician, are you bringing God glory through music? If you’re a dancer, are you bringing God glory by dancing? How about a server, are you shining the light of Christ is the places you serve? Or maybe your an encourager, a organizer, or a peace giver; have you realized your gift? Are you sharing it with the world or letting fear keep it hidden? We’ve all been given gifts and abilities that God desires us to use for his glory. Let us then be faithful like the first servants and the sheep, and that small faithfulness with prove we can be trusted with more.