These parables toward the end of Matthew’s Gospel are the
hardest parables, no question. They get harder and harder until we get to the
point where it feels like Jesus is contradicting himself. I mean, we just spent
weeks reading “the least shall be first and the first shall be last” and now
Jesus turns it around and says, “For to all those who have, more will be given,
and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what
they have will be taken away?” What is going on here?
Fear. That’s what these parables
evoke—fear that we haven’t gotten it right—fear that even after seeking after
God earnestly (and, let’s face it, we haven’t always done that so well), even
when we have, we are afraid we haven’t done enough, because it’s not clear from
Jesus’ parables what “enough” is. There are many folks who spend their lives
afraid of being insufficient; afraid of letting everybody down, and nobody more
than God; afraid that they are not enough and never will be enough.
Yet, there is a thread woven through
the Gospels of something different. Jesus is hard—harsh, even—but especially to
those who believe they have it all figured out. These are the ones who find the
swiftest rebuke, so that everybody ends up alongside Peter, asking the question
he once uttered: “Lord, to whom shall I go?” You are it. If everything is as I
hope, then you are the only one worth turning to, and if it’s not, then I have
nothing else to fall back on, so what else is there but you?
As I read the parable of the
talents, it seems to me that that last slave, given the one talent, is absolutely
paralyzed by fear. I recognize this, because I see it all the time. I see
people who are so scared of doing anything that they quietly live and die never
having really lived. I see people paralyzed by anxiety and a feeling of
worthlessness—that they don’t deserve a thing and can’t believe anybody would
fail to see through their façade and see them for the imposter they are. This
slave would rather not have been given the talent at all! It would be much
better if the master had just given talents to others!
I’m reminded of
that marvelous scene in the Lord of the Rings (and if you don’t know what
I’m talking about, then go read it, go see it, and then go see it again) where
Frodo says to Gandalf: “I wish the Ring had never
come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” And Gandalf replies, “So do all
who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to
decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
This parable hits home for those who
find themselves in a situation they never would have entered by choice. But
this is the life of faith, people! We don’t know how faith comes, why it is
ours, and it so often feels like we didn’t have a choice. To that point, we
don’t know why one person can believe in nothing, while somebody else believes
in everything. We don’t know. We can’t change what we have been given any more
than we can make ourselves grow taller. But we have to stop worrying about our
little faith and instead consider: What are we doing with this little faith we
have?
This parable of the talents is a reminder that having
little is no different than having much. “If you had but faith the size of a
mustard seed,” Jesus said on another occasion, “you could tell that mountain to
get up and move.” A little faith and a lot of faith are essentially the same
thing. The question is how are you going to invest it—what are you doing with your
faith? How are you putting it to work?
This is a strange thing to ponder
for those of us who are Lutherans, who have been told since the time we were
children that we are justified by grace through faith, as if that is the end of
the story. As if we don’t have to do anything with faith—as if it something
that doesn’t do anything at all! We move faith to the religious sphere, making
it only about getting to heaven, and so we don’t do a thing with it. The question
Jesus is asking with this parable is still the same: How are you investing in
your faith?
The slave in the parable assumes
that the master is in the bookkeeping division. His response is practical in
its fearfulness. He assumes that the worst case scenario is that he would lose
the coin, and he operates to make sure there is no possibility of that
happening. What if he came back with nothing? The master would surely punish
him then!
But, as it turns out, the master is
looking for something different. To him, the measure of the man is not what
faith he has remaining but whether he invests it at all. The slave may very
well have lost his faith if he went out and put it to the test, but it’s not
his place to decide not to go out and live his faith in fear of what he might
find. This is a tough parable, but it is also an inspiring one. It teaches us
that God wants us to go out and live our faith, test our faith, and find out
what happens. We can do that in fear, or we can do it in wonder, hoping that
perhaps there might be some incredible return on that investment.
The tough part is that you have to
do it. There’s no option B. If you’re too scared to ever use your faith, to
practice it, or to ask yourself, “Who am I? Who is God? And how do the two of
us meet?” then you will lose your faith without ever taking it for a spin.
Faith must be practiced. It’s the only way. Some people practice it in pain,
some in joy—most in both. Some people ask big questions, some people read and
listen for big answers—most do both. The life of faith is not one size fits
all, and it’s not distributed evenly.
On the one hand, that’s not fair, but
on the other hand, who cares? Stop worrying about what is fair. Stop living in
fear of what may happen. And go out and find God in your life. Look for God in
your children or grandchildren, look for God in the solitude, look for God in
your praying and in your reading, and in all the things that tell you there is
no God.
God will find you in unexpected places
when your faith is practiced, and the return on that investment will be
unexpected.
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