I am not a big dreamer. I don’t think I dream much, but I’m not sure because I don’t remember them. However, since Karen went to be with Jesus, I have had some very vivid dreams of her, and often remember them in great detail. Let me share—if I can get through this—share one I had this week. Really short one:
I’m in the mall in my dream (which tells you I should have known it was fake), and I’m in the back hall of the mall. I’m walking down this hall, and Karen comes around the corner, and I am just blown away. Like, her beauty, the sparkle in her eyes… She has this blue and white sweater on that we still have— I still have in our closet. We come toward each other, and we’re about to hug, and she hesitates. Then we hug, and then she doesn’t want to let go, and I don’t want to let go, and then I wake up.
At this point, when I wake up, I am a swirling cauldron of emotions, a mixture of conflicting emotions: (1) Joy for seeing her, being with her. (2) Confusion. Like, what’s with the hesitation? And then (3) sadness that it was just a dream and that it ended and that I had to wake up. My “authoritative” interpretation of the dream is:
I think the hesitation was communicating that we can’t be together right now. I know this is a stretch, and it’s not the same thing, but it reminded me—as I was talking to our Father about this dream shortly after I woke up—it reminded me of when Jesus rose from the dead and he encounters Mary in the garden. Remember what Jesus said to her?
“Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father” (John 20:17).
I know it’s not the same thing, but it seems like that kind of thing where, “Not yet. We’re going to be apart for a while.”
Then the hug that neither of us wanted to see end, I’m interpreting as a glimpse of future unending hugs. There will come a day when there will be no more goodbyes, the hug that will never end. But we’re not in that day.
A little while later, in that same morning, as I was soaking in Matthew 25, I was struck by the fact that we are currently living in the gap between the awkward hesitation and the unending hug. That’s the space we inhabit today. We’re not there yet.
It could be called a space of delay, as it is in Matthew 25, specifically referring to the promise of Jesus’s coming and the actual “his coming.” There is this space, delay, and you can see it. There are more examples than this. Let me just give you a couple:
At the end of chapter 24:48, “My master is delayed.”
25:5, “As the bridegroom was delayed.”
25:19, “Now after a long time.”
The master’s on a long journey: big delay.
Jesus uses three analogies in Matthew 25 to help prepare us as to what to do in this space we could call delay. Last week we learned, in delay, we are called to prepare wisely (the parable of the 10 virgins). Today, Lord willing, we will learn to invest courageously (the parable of the 10 talents). Then, Lord willing, next week to love sacrificially (the analogy of the sheep and the goat).
For today, the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), in our journey through the gospel of Matthew: A man went on a journey. Prior to his departure, each servant was entrusted with some talents: servant number one, five. Servant number two, two. Servant number three, one. Verse 15: “each according to his ability.” So the master evaluates each person’s potential and entrusts his resources to them appropriately.
What is a talent? The Greek word “talanton” is referring not to skills or ability (like we think of when we think of talents), but to a measure of money. Interesting little evolution of a word: The only reason “talent” means what it means in English is this parable. It morphed over time. “A talent” came to be known as a metaphor for God-given abilities and skills, and eventually the money part was forgotten. Today in English it simply means skills or abilities, but in Jesus’s day it was a measure of money.
Specifically determining how much is difficult for a couple of reasons. One obvious reason is inflation. The other is that talents were made of different kinds of metals (copper, silver, gold), which would affect their value, of course.
But most scholars believe the talents referred to here would be equivalent to a typical person’s 20 years of income. That’s a lot. If you factor in inflation, we’re talking about a million dollars. A talent is worth a million dollars. So each of these servants is being entrusted with a vast sum of money.
Each servant entrusted, now invested. Each servant invested. Servant #1 took his five, and notice: “went at once.” There’s an urgency. And over time made another five, which—I used a calculator—comes to 10. Servant #2 took his two, added two, made four. Remember, there was no Wall Street back then, so these servants are most likely buying and selling businesses, farms, gold, silver, Bitcoin… Whatever they can buy and sell to improve on their assets, and they both doubled the master’s assets.
Servant #3 took a different route. He buried his, made nothing, and ended up with one. He, verse 18,
“hid his master’s money.”
“Now after a long time,”
verse 19 (“long time,” there’s the delay), the master returns and each servant is rewarded. Rewarded.
Servant one and two approached their master with what Daniel Doriani calls “elegant humility.” I love that. I think their approach is elegant, not just in their humility, but in their simplicity. You’ll see it in verses 20 and 22. They’re almost identical:
“Master, you delivered to me five talents…” (Matthew 25:20).
“Master, you delivered to me two talents…” (Matthew 25:22).
“…here, I have made five talents more” (Matthew 25:20).
“…here, I have made two talents more” (Matthew 25:22).
The humility is evident in the way they approach him and call him master. They know whose talents these are, who’s in charge. The simplicity is evident in that, you notice, they don’t offer up any explanations or excuses, rationalizations:
“If we hadn’t had the storm last year…”
“If I hadn’t encountered so many physical difficulties…”
“If you hadn’t put me in such a lame family…”
You know, “given me employees who barely function…I would have made way more.”
None of that. It’s just elegant in its humility and simplicity. “You gave me this, I offer up this.” Stunning.
Look at the commendation for both of them, identical, three parts:
First, the master congratulates them. Verses 21 and 23:
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”
What could be better than that? Well done.
Then he entrusts them:
“You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much” (Matthew 25:21, 23).
This “little,” “much” has captivated me. Think about that. Servant number one is messing around with $10 million— what would be equivalent to 10 million today. We’re talking businesses and farms and herds of cattle and whatever else he had (gold, silver, etc.). The master says, “That’s little.” Little. What does that communicate?
That communicates a couple of things: One, the master has vast resources. We know who the master is. He owns everything.
Secondly, it gives us a glimpse into what Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 4:17, the
“eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”
Whatever suffering you have experienced here, whatever success you have experienced here, it is little compared to the eternal weight of glory. We have no idea what’s in store for us.
The master just kind of casually says, “You know, I gave you five million bucks, you turned it into 10 million, you’ve proven yourself faithful over a little. How about we start messing with the real stuff in the future?”
He entrusts them, and then he invites them. 21 and 23 again, “Enter into the joy of your master.” This is the climax of the reward. This is the hug that will never end.
Notice the connection here between joy and job. The master gives the faithful servants more responsibility, more work to do, as he invites them into his joy. In our fallen world, usually we feel like joy and job go in two different directions. They’re mutually exclusive. However, in the new heaven and the new earth, when Jesus returns and sets up his eternal kingdom, joy and jobs will be experienced together.
The ultimate reason for this will be his joyful presence, which will permeate everyone and everything. We will experience the joy of seeing and savoring the One who has made us and everything for himself, and all things will work together for his glory and for our good.
This is known, in Christian tradition, as the beatific vision. Augustine ended his massive tome on the city of God with an extensive description of this beatific vision. Let me just give you a snippet of this:
“He [God] shall be the end of our desires [and by “end,” not termination, but culmination. The end of our desires] who shall be seen without end, loved without cloy, praised without weariness.”
It’s been a long time since we’ve used the word “cloy.” Do you remember what cloy is? Cloy is too much of a good thing. Like if you love ice cream and you go home this afternoon and start gorging on gallon after gallon after gallon of ice cream, soon you are not going to like ice cream. That’s cloy.
What Augustine is saying is that, in eternity, we are going to experience the culmination of our desires in him and therefore see him without end. We will experience love of him and all things and all people without any cloy.
Isn’t that one of our big fears about eternity? “It’s going to be boring after a couple million years.” No, it’s going to be cloy-free. Our work and worship will be experienced without weariness. No tedium, no boredom.
However, the scene turns dark in verse 24 when servant number three approaches his master not with elegant humility and simplicity, but with defensiveness and blame shifting. His defense could be described in three ways:
1. You are hard.
“I knew you to be a hard man” (Matthew 25:24),
“hard” meaning severe, unyieldingly harsh.
The fact that he says, “Master, I knew…” exudes pride. He’s not coming with humility. He’s psychoanalyzing his master. You always have people like that. “We don’t worship God, we psychoanalyze him.” Like, “If I were God, I would be more ______ or less ______.”
He offers up— Are you ready for a new word? I haven’t invented a word for a while. This needs to be in our dictionary. He offers up “accuscuses.” Accuscuses are accusations and excuses pushed together. Accuscuses. That is, he’s essentially saying, “My failure is your fault.”
You are hard, and
2. You are demanding. Verse 24,
“…reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed” (Matthew 25:24b).
Essentially, he’s saying, “You have unreasonable expectations.” Implying, “If I’m successful, it’s all yours anyway, and if I fail, then I’m accountable. So it feels like a lose-lose for me. I don’t like the arrangement.” Therefore,
3. You are scary. Verse 25,
“…so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours” (Matthew 25:25).
These statements are just oozing with insecurity, resentment, bitterness, and defensiveness. Verse 26,
“But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed?’” (Matthew 25:26).
The master is simply judging him based on his own words. “Even if you think I am what you think I am…” Verse 27,
“Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest” (Matthew 25:27).
“At least put it in the bank, not in the ground, where you may make a tiny bit of interest if you think I’m so unreasonable.” Verse 28,
“So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:28-30).
This is a horrific ending. But just like—you’re going to notice—with all three analogies in chapter 25, there is a theme of division: the foolish and the wise virgins, the faithful and the unfaithful servants, the sheep and the goats. Only two categories all throughout this chapter. Every one of us will fall into one of those two, and we will all one day hear one of two things: (1) well done or (2) weeping and gnashing of teeth.
So what did servant number three do wrong? Before we answer that, let’s look at what he didn’t do wrong. What he didn’t do wrong.
1. He wasn’t judged for a lack of ability.
Verse 15 says,
“each according to his ability.”
2. He wasn’t judged for a lack of time.
If he only had more time, he could have been more productive. No, verse 19 made clear it was a long time.
3. He wasn’t judged for lack of quantity.
I think this is a fear many of us are paralyzed by. We look at our lives, and we say, “I don’t have a lot that I’ve accomplished. When I think of him or her, and I look at all they’ve accomplished, and I compare myself to that, I’m a loser.” That’s not what this parable is saying. This isn’t a talent contest, as if we can try to get more productive and somehow please the Master with the volume of what we’ve accomplished.
How do we know that? Servant #1 and #2 accomplished very different amounts and received the same commendation. It wasn’t the volume. Servant #3 was judged for being more fearful than faithful.
He was more careful than faithful. What I mean by “faithful” is the full breadth of the meaning of that word: his faith was not in his master. He wasn’t putting his trust in his master or putting his confidence in who his master is and does, but his focus was completely on himself.
Now, we can be fearful and faithful. Like, you’ll see that all throughout the Bible. Some of the greatest servants experienced intense fears. But as this servant, servant number three, illustrates: his fearfulness manifested itself in character assassination (he misrepresented his master), risk aversion (he mismanaged his master’s talents), and placing his own interests above the master’s. This is significant. Notice there’s no description of some kind of vile moral behavior. He just looked out for himself and wasn’t really interested in the master.
So what does investing well, to use that analogy, look like for us? I want to give you a short answer and then a little bit more of an extensive answer. They’re saying the same thing, we’re just going to expand on it.
Here’s the short one: Investing well is courageously improving the master’s resources. Courageously improving the master’s resources.
This is illustrated well by the prayer we prayed at the beginning. I didn’t know Ryan was going to pray the Lord’s Prayer. But when you think about the breakdown of the Lord’s Prayer, it illustrates what good investing really is. Think about the Lord’s Prayer:
“Our Father in heaven,”
and then there are two sets of requests. The first could be summarized as purpose. The second could be summarized as provision.
The provision, the second set, is essentially saying, “Father, please give us everything we need to flourish.” What is that?
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
We need money. We need food. We need clothes. We need shelter. We need resources. Please provide that. Give us this day our daily bread.
“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,”
so solve our greatest problem: sin before you, sin before our neighbors. Wash us clean as we forgive those who are debtors to us.
Provision, pardon, (third) protection.
“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Protect us spiritually. Please shield us today.
Basically, the second half is: Give us everything we need to flourish, kind of like the master did with these servants.
But here’s the difference between servant #1 and #2 and servant #3. Servant #3 was focused just on the second half of the prayer. Servants #1 and #2 were focused on the whole prayer. “Give us everything we need.” Why? What’s the purpose? “That your name would be hallowed, that your kingdom would come, that your will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
This is why I pray this prayer every day. Lord, align my desires with your purpose so that when we as Christians pray big prayers of provision—”Lord, provide everything I need: provision, pardon, protection.”—we are doing it with an eye and an ultimate end purpose of hallowing his name. I don’t want to hallow my name today, Lord. I don’t want to build my kingdom today. I don’t want to shove my will through. Your will, on earth, as it is in heaven.
The reason this is significant is, when you courageously improve (that’s what you’re praying for) the master’s resources — “Pour those out on me so that I can pour those back to you, for you, for your glory, building your kingdom.” We are not like servant number #3, turned in on ourselves as if this is all for us.
Now, let me work this out with more detail. What does it really mean to courageously improve the master’s resources? It consists of at least four things:
1. Humility to trust the master.
It is a humble trust. Why? Because the master owns everything, including my life. Servant #3 rejected that. Paul commends this in 1 Corinthians 6:19,
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
I am not my own. Can we say that together? I am not my own. If we don’t settle that, we will not understand this parable, and we will live like servant #3.
He knows us. He made us. He saves us. He entrusts us with gifts, abilities, opportunities, relationships, trials, losses, gains, all so that we may flourish for his glory. So my call is not to grumble about what I lack, or envy what you have that I wish I had, but to steward well what has been entrusted to me. That’s humility.
2. Vision to see what matters.
This is where we need to apply this parable in the context of the entire message of Matthew: What does it really mean to seek first the kingdom of God? To love God and neighbor? Where self-fulfillment and self-comfort is not my highest aim? To make disciples of all nations?
Am I living my life with my own interests in mind or his? That’s the difference between servant one and two and servant three. Am I investing in what my Father values?
Vision to see what matters, and then
3. Courage to be willing to take risks.
It is impossible to invest without risk. A couple questions to help us see what we mean by this:
Are you familiar with that from Genesis 1:28? Cultural mandate: be fruitful, multiply, exercise dominion. Or, if you want it said a little bit differently, think Psalm 104:14. The psalmist describes so beautifully the way God creates and we cultivate.
That’s where we get the idea of culture. We take God’s creation, and—by his grace and power and the intellect and gifts and abilities he’s given us—we cultivate his creation, thereby courageously improving/expanding.
You say, “What are you talking about, Hubbard?” I’m talking about taking a chicken and making a chicken sandwich. That’s cultivating creation. I’m not anti-chicken, but if you’re starving to death, a chicken sandwich is an improvement on a chicken (without the feathers, and cooked).
Isn’t it stunning that our Father has put us on earth and poured all these resources out on us, and the intellectual, and all the vast abilities. When I look around at this place, I am stunned at the medical and educational and governmental and all of the other abilities he has poured out on us. Our calling is to courageously improve his resources for his glory and the common good. That’s the cultural mandate. That’s what we’re called to do.
Some of us don’t have that sense when you go to work, or you build a house, or you cook a meal, or you mow a lawn, or whatever you’re called to do, you teach students— all of that is fulfilling that calling. We want to be like servant one and two, who have a keen awareness that this is from him and through him and to him.
Ultimately, our purpose as followers of Jesus is to see the cultural mandate and the great commission tethered together because the great commission (we’re going to get to later in Matthew) is really, in a sense, the human ultimate fulfillment of the cultural mandate. Why? Because you’re seeing the gospel of Jesus not just turn a chicken into a chicken sandwich, but turn a sinner into a saint.
That’s the greatest miracle, where God—by his Spirit, through the grace of Christ—transforms us from inside out, thereby improving his resources in a way that is just mind-boggling. And we get to be a part of that. When we catch this vision, there is no way to be bored with that or to want to bury that. Like, to have the courage to risk.
One more question under that courage:
But, as servants one and two exemplify, as the followers of Jesus, we are not characterized by fear. God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind. So we see those faith-stretching experiences not as a threat, but as a promise from our Father.
4. Finally, patience to defer gratification.
When we invest, we lose before we gain. We go down before we go up. We sow before we reap.
Remember, in this parable, the master went on a long journey, which means there are times when it feels like nothing is happening. And we persevere. As Paul said,
“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:9-10).
Let’s pray. Father, every one, every person, every one of us in this room is servant number three…apart from your grace. So first of all, thank you for not leaving us alone— in our fear, in our cynicism, in our resentment, in our misunderstanding of you. Thank you for opening our eyes.
I pray for some who are right now servant number threes, and you’re calling them to yourself this morning, saying, “There’s a better way than going through life protecting, shielding, fearing, defending, deflecting, blaming… There’s a better way.” Thank you for patiently calling our name.
Please use this word that you have spoken to us to increase our humility and vision, our courage, and our patience so that we would be a people who are not afraid to take risks as we seek—not just to do something crazy—but to see your name hallowed, your kingdom come, your will be done. We thank you in Jesus’s name, amen.
