One Talent

ONE TALENT

November 13, 2011

Littleton Presbyterian Church

Stanley White Presbyterian Church

Rick Brand, Supply

I think that sometimes the best way to tell what you believe about God and what you believe about life, and what you believe about the purpose of life is to look at what you believe about yourself. What you believe about God and what you believe God did in creation certainly ought to have some bearing on what you believe about yourself.

That is why this story from Matthew is so interesting. This has to be one of the more familiar parables that Jesus told. This story of the talents. It is a simple story, and yet, like most powerful simple things, the more you listen to it and live with it the more complex it becomes. And in one regard, the most perplexing thing to me is: Why is it that Jesus picks on this poor one talent person. Why did Jesus focus all this attention on this one talent person. For no matter where you try to focus the spotlight of this story, in the end the light falls over there on that little man, cowering there before his master offering up his napkin and talent all safe and sound, and then being chewed out royally for his carefulness.

Look at the current story in the world. The focus is all on Joe Paterno. The multi talented, much beloved coach. The high profile guy. The one with all the records. We hardly talk about the janitor who was supposed to have seen the event as well. Our attention in such stories goes to the big names. Our normal attention would be on the five talented person. Steve Jobs, or Rupert Murdoch. So the question will not go away: Why did Jesus pick on this single talented person? Why did Jesus have such harsh criticism for this honest and careful guy? Jesus could have made up the story so that the five talented guy had gotten involved into many hedge funds, over extended like Corzine, the former head of Goldman Sach, the former Governor of New Jersey, at MF Investment and had to file for Bankruptcy. We might have liked that. To see the rich and the powerful get cut down to size, the way some enjoy seeing professional golfers like John Daly hit seven golf balls in a row into the water on the 15th hole. Everybody likes to see the arrogant and the pompous get put in their place by the perfect response. But not here. Jesus picks on this poor little who had so little to begin with.

What makes it even more surprising is that Jesus is usually the champion of the little people. The Gospel stories are constantly showing us that Jesus has a warm spot in his heart for the lost, lonely and wretched. Liberation theology keeps reminding us that the Scriptures have a prejudicial preference for the poor. It is the little, overlooked, outcast individuals who are almost always the heroes of his other stories: the despised Samaritan, the wastrel son in the pigsty, the blind beggar Lazarus, the publican, the harlot with the precious oil for his feet, the widow and the dead son, the woman with the flow of blood. The list could go on, but not here. Why this almost withering scorn for this poor cautious, fearful little man. Remember, this man has legally done nothing wrong. He doesn’t even have the Herman Cain possibility of inappropriate behavior. He has only down what most people did in that day to keep their money safe. He had put it in the ground, like our ancestors did during the Civil War. When asked for it, he did not claim he had lost it, he just brought it forward and gave it back. And yet, Jesus points a condemning finger at him. Why?

Naturally, I can’t speak for Jesus, and so I can not answer my question with authority, but perhaps the more you think about it, the more it appears there indeed may be a connection between Jesus great love and attention to the little people and his great anger and disappointment in this one talented person. Maybe it is precisely because of Jesus’ great and constant concern for the little, apparently unimportant people; Jesus great love for what we so often consider insignificant things in life, like a drink of cold water, a shirt off the back, or a visit to a sick person, a note to a person in prison, that is the reason for his frustration with this little man. Don’t you belittle any of God’s gifts. Don’t you dare call any gift you have worthless.

Because, let’s face, you and I are forever being hypnotized by bigness, by busy and important affairs of the world, with insatiable appetites for size and bigness. Everybody was curious and watched the 20 million dollar wedding of Kim Kardishsian. We have TV programs about the life styles of the rich and famous. We like big, fast, and expensive. Look at the Hummer. We have lists of the Forbes Five Hundred and Ten Best places to live and Ten Best Universities in the World. If it big, fast, smart, rich, and famous, then we automatically give it a higher place of importance than others.

Yet Jesus, in contrast, is forever picking out some insignificant detail and making it the center of the story. Making it of supreme worth. Five loaves and two fishes, one small boy’s lunch, and it feeds 5000. Or the mustard seed that hosts a flock of birds, or the widow’s mite, the lily of the field, the pinch of salt, one peculiar pearl, so that all of this might help us accustom our eyes to the new way of looking at things in the eyes of God, to change for us the notion that lots of talents are necessary for the good life, to educate us that the small and the unique and the ordinary are loaded with possibilities of supreme worth. Jesus is trying to convince us that God is tremendously concerned about little ordinary people with little ordinary gifts. If we believe that God is a God who focuses on the little, then we can believe we matter supremely to God.

And I can imagine that Jesus focuses attention on this little man because Jesus knows that there are peculiar and difficult temptations and dangers awaiting the person with five talents. When you know you are more talented and more gifted than all the people in your class, how do you keep from becoming arrogant and condescending? How do you keep from believing that the standard rules do not apply to you? When you have not experienced failure or disappointment because of your many talents, how do you keep from trying to do more things than you can handle? The five talented person has different challenges than you and I have. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have to worry about how to give away their vast fortunes. Handling hugh amounts of wealth is not easy. That is why those who win the lottery are usually broke in three years. The five talented people do have a different set of obligations, temptations and possibilities than most of us. Jesus understands that the one talented person, people like me, maybe you too, is beset by the peculiar danger of being far too ready to think of ourselves as little worthless people, that we don’t really matter much. Low self-esteem must be a real problem because most school systems have as one of their goals to enhance self-esteem. We so easily convince ourselves that we don’t really make much difference. What is one vote, why vote? We are just another paper pusher in the office, what difference would a couple of blank disk make to the company? The son needs them for his computer. No sense sending in our proxy for the stock holder meeting, it is just thirty shares? My pledge. they don’t need my pledge. It is just a puny thing.

It is this disgusting, cringing, self-debasing, this fear of risking, this fear of death, this fear of inadequacy, this hiding behind the wall of littleness, I think, that ignites Jesus’ ire. Jesus lashes out at him because Jesus just cannot stand to have the people of God pretend to be powerless, to be small, to be inadequate. “Thou wicked and slothful servant.” God is concerned about this man, God has created the earth for his enjoyment and use, God has created him unique and gifted, and this little man stands there cowering, not trusting God even enough to make use of the gift God has given him to us.

The fact of the matter is is that God is pretty good at working wonders with little one talented people who simple have enough faith in God and his power to have some faith in themselves and their own ability to make a contribution. To believe I can’t do everything, I can’t do all things, but I can do one thing, and I will do it as well and as often as I can. And God can make wonders of that faith. List to the roll call of those Saints: Peter, Paul, Luther, James, John, Mother Teresa, CNN will have a whole roll call of Heroes on Thanksgiving night of people who have taken their one passion, their one talent, their one idea and have made incredible contributions to their community. There are little people all over the world, laughing stocks of the world, who are remarkable for only one thing, they did not go cowering along shrugging off their daily opportunities and responsibilities because they had only one talent. They have taken whatever God has placed in their hands, however unpromising it might have appeared to them, trusted God would make something out of it, and God has made something of it. One man in India began a small bank of making micro loans to women and changed the whole economy of his area and won a Noble prize.

So what about us? Me with my one talent, you maybe with your one or maybe two. The spotlight of the story does eventually shift from the past to the present, from that fearful man in the parable and turns its glare on us. Cause if you take the parable seriously and believe the man who told it, all heaven, -- quite literally -- all heaven is breathless at the moment, watching eagerly to see, wondering about what we will do with our one talent. Waiting in suspense to see where we put the talent we have. In a real sense, waiting to see what we believe about God and what our belief in God means about God’s belief in us

Ah, you don’t really believe that do you? We are not really all that important. Look at all the millions and 7 billion people in the world. We are just one person. We are just too insignificant for all of heaven to be concerned about what we do with our little resources. That is exactly what got Jesus so hot and angry in this story. That is what I think this story is all about The Bible suggests that it is lack of faith that is our greatest sin, and the greatest obstacle to faith is this constant message from the powers of death and defeat that we do not matter. That we are accidental collections of atoms that have no real value.

At least that is the way it seems to me as I read this story. Jesus confronts this man and says, “How dare you so discount and demean yourself and my gift to you that you imagine yourself capable of doing nothing. Nobody expects you and me to win an Oscar and write a Pulitzer prize winning novel, and hit 400 during the baseball season and run a fortune five hundred company all at the same time. Not even God expects that of the one talent person, but there is a place where what I have and what you have is needed desperately to bless others and to use it in that place is to bring your own life into full bloom of joy and satisfaction. To God be the glory Great things He can do even with the one talented person.