The Parable of the Talents

The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30 is one in a series where Jesus is teaching about the “coming of the Son of Man.” There are many lessons in this teaching, but one I want to focus on is how the “wicked, lazy servant” burying his talent relates to our relationship with Christ in our daily lives. Do we invest ourselves in our relationship with Christ in all things? Or do we bury ourselves in self-protection out of fear, carry the burden of daily life alone and lose everything of value in the end?

Many individuals have divested or compartmentalized our day-to-day lives from our "spiritual and religious" lives such that we see "everyday life" as separate from "religious" life. The first two servants saw the gift of the Master as entrusted (this is the key word) to them, and they responded by investing totally in the gift. However, many believe, much like the wicked servant, that our everyday life is separate from God and completely up to us.  We don’t recognize the gift of relationship with Christ for what it is, but instead, exclude the Master and bury the relationship under our religious responsibilities. Instead of a loving husband, we see a harsh taskmaster. Like Adam and Eve in Eden after the fall, we hide ourselves from God. Those who take this view bury our relationship with God (our “talent”) out of fear just like in the parable, because we believe God to be a “harsh taskmaster”, or a “hard man”, and we don't want to do it wrong and be punished. This fear tells us to protect our life experiences, so we don't "invest" our whole selves in our relationship with Jesus. We even feel sort of a "beyond possible" response to the thought that He would care about or be involved in our everyday lives, and that leaves the burden squarely on us. We want to do well, to choose good things, to get it right (like the Pharisees did in their attempt to follow the letter of the Law) but we cannot without the presence of God to guide and share with us in the experience through an active relationship (the Word of God written on our hearts). Our choices made apart from God are therefore fruitless (or the fruit is bad, like the Pharisees' fruit). Of course, a relationship buried does not and cannot grow. Thus, even what we have is taken away by the fear, and, of course, we create what we most fear: we have failed the Master. The paradox here, in fact, is that our own view of God precludes the type of relationship He desires to give us. We have missed the element of trust completely.

We turn everything from relationship to task because we are still looking for a standard to meet. “How do I stand before the Master?” “How do I measure up?” We want to know how we are doing. We use the Law as our measure for moral issues and our tasks (works) for everything else. Cody once observed, at every site where a building project is proceeding, there seems to be a compulsion to “dig a hole and make a mound.” When we watched the progress of the project together, we laughed about how one mound is used to fill in a hole and another hole is then dug to make another mound, in an endless series of pointless exercises that accomplish nothing. I relate this process to our accomplishing tasks for a harsh taskmaster. In essence, we are enslaved to “tasks”—shoveling dirt from one pile to the other. There is no value in the task, but at least we can measure our progress. “Look! I moved that whole pile from here to there!” We feel good about that as if that measurement buys us a sense of accomplishment, which feels like purpose. We then make that false sense of purpose a measure of our worth.

Whether it is the Law or tasks, it is still an attempt on our part to measure ourselves, to “measure up” so to speak, and to replace our lost identity in Christ (who we really are, and our real worth and value in His eyes) with the accomplishments of life on one side and the accomplishments of the Law on the other. Both exclude Jesus ultimately, don't they? But somehow we've convinced ourselves that we are OK as long as we have included Jesus in the area of religious stuff (albeit a distant, observing Jesus, checking us out to make sure we are getting it right). We believe we aren't even supposed to bring Him in on the mundane, everyday stuff. Yet, in this parable we are told the result is much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Ultimately, we cannot know fully about our relationship with Him except from Him. What He would desire to give us includes the true knowledge of Who He is, and how He sees us or who He says we are; in other words, an intimate connection or “oneness” with Him.

Humility and Hope

Romans 5:1-5 - 1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Romans 5:1-5 is an often misinterpreted Scripture, sometimes used to support the idea that God produces suffering to teach us a lesson...specifically humility. However, a more careful reading in context tells us this writing of Paul is a discussion of the irrelevance of circumstances, because of the hope we have through God's love being poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we can also rejoice in the suffering of our circumstances, because in the face of those circumstances, we continue to abide in the love of God in our hearts while He redeems the suffering through His hope.

Benedict (6th century), founder of the Benedictine Monastic order, developed a ladder of humility – including:
reverence for God, obedience to God’s will, enduring affliction, confession, contentment, self-reproach, silence, seriousness, simplicity. Notice where Benedict began his ladder (similar to Paul): reverence for God. To have reverence means "honor; profound enduring awe and respect" (Webster). Perhaps in our use of language, where love is diminished to an emotion, the description of reverence for God as something profound and awe-producing captures the feeling of being in His presence better...as long as it doesn't intimate distance or a feeling of shame. Just out of personal interest, I compared Benedict's ladder with Cody's life style and beliefs. I thought I would share my own thoughts, for what they are worth.

Cody loved (loves) God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. He certainly revered Jesus, but His relationship with Jesus also held a quality of familiarity that Benedict's "reverence" might not capture. So I choose to make the first step on Cody's ladder to "adore God with your whole being."

Cody demonstrated obedience to God's will but not in the sense of making himself go against what he felt or wanted, like obedience itself was a struggle. Instead, he found that God's love and presence in his heart produced a desire to live as God does - to be close to Him and stay there. So I choose to make the second step on Cody's ladder to "follow God in your heart and listen to Him all the time."

Cody certainly endured affliction; yet, he always disagreed with people who described it that way. In fact, he openly scoffed that he was not suffering, and fully believed nothing was "wrong" with him and he could do anything his heart desired. This belief came from living in the kingdom with Jesus instead of living as a part of this world. So I choose to make the third step on Cody's ladder to "live with both feet in the kingdom of God within your heart."

Confession, many believe, is a "requirement" of forgiveness; however, Cody saw it as something provided by God for our sakes so that our own feelings of shame could be overcome. Cody knew Jesus' blood was sufficient for all of his sins, from the beginning to the end of his life. So I agree with the step of confession being on the ladder as long as it includes the understanding that confession is for our sake, and not a requirement of God's before He will offer forgiveness. So I choose to make the fourth step on Cody's ladder to "confess in order to realize and recognize God's forgiveness so you can look Him in the eye with no shame."

Peace was Cody's constant state of being. Contentment doesn't quite capture the level of peace Cody felt, so I choose to make the fifth step on Cody's ladder to "live in the peace that passes understanding through knowing the truth of Jesus."

Self-reproach was not something I ever saw in Cody or heard him say. So I choose to change this step to one that would more reflect Cody's life and belief. Cody's sixth step would be to "realize I need God and I cannot be my own god."

Silence, in the context of listening, would be something Cody would completely agree is crucial to humility. So I choose to make the seventh step on Cody's ladder to "listen in silence to the voice of Jesus in your heart in all things."

Seriousness would not be a word I would use to ever describe Cody. In fact, his incredible joy and amazing sense of humor, the blazing smile on his face, and the depth of feeling he brought others with his wisdom, his comments and jokes and his individual perspective on life was anything but seriousness. So I choose to change the eighth step on Cody's ladder to "feel everything deeply and share yourself completely." Cody never ever hid his heart.

Finally, simplicity would be something Cody would agree was a huge part of knowing Jesus. Jesus can share truth in one image or a simple phrase that seems to encompass the universe in a word. Truth is indeed a simple thing. So I choose to make the ninth step on Cody's ladder to "live in the simple truth of Jesus."