Sermon on Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon on Matthew 25:14-30 Grace Lutheran Church

Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18; Psalm 90; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 November 13, 2005

Crafting a sermon is a very tricky business. It’s not just knowing your audience, reading the Scripture, and trying to find out what God is saying through it. It’s listening very carefully to the text, so that you can hear and then repeat what God is saying for this time and this place, for someone who is listening today.

Today’s Gospel text is one of Jesus’ forty parables. It’s not difficult to understand—at least in one sense. Like all Jesus’ parables, the story is told to make a point.

What is the point of today’s text? On first reading, it would seem to have to do with “the end of time” or “the day of the Lord.” I say that because that’s what Jesus is referring to by the pronoun in verse 14. “It is as if”—what is? Well, to answer that question, we have to go back to the beginning of chapter 24. If you have a “red letter edition” of the Bible, which shows Jesus’ words in red print, you’ll notice that chapters 24 and 25 are almost all red. That’s because both chapters are Jesus’ answer to a single question the disciples ask him in chapter 24, verse 3: “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

So if we take this parable to be exclusively about the end of time, we can hear its meaning clearly: Christ (the Master) has gone away (to heaven), giving to each of his servants (us who call ourselves “Christians”) talents (Same word, different meaning—by “talent,” we mean “natural skill or ability”; on the surface of this story, Jesus is referring to very valuable coins.). When the Master returns (the Second Coming of Christ), we will be held accountable for how we have invested the talents he entrusted to us—how we have used what He gave us to increase his holdings, to bring honor and glory to him. And then we can speculate about all the possible meanings for the kind of “increase” that would bring honor and glory to our Master.

That is a simple and not incorrect reading of this parable. That’s the sermon I preached last Thursday evening. But all the time I was preaching, I could hear in my mind God saying, “This is not quite the message I want you to preach.” Not that the Scripture was the wrong choice nor that I was saying anything untrue. Just that there was another message in this text that I needed to seek out and speak out.

I think the key to a deeper understanding of this parable is verse 29: “For to him who has, more will be given; but from him who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away.” This saying or ones very nearly like it occur several times in the New Testament; Jesus says this at least three times in the Gospels: Luke 19, Matthew 13, and here in Matthew 25. It sounds like a riddle: What is it, that having it causes you to get more of it, and not having it causes you to get none at all?

Well, in certain economies, we could say that money is the answer. But it would be so unlike God to suggest that having money is a good thing, in and of itself. Especially since, elsewhere, Jesus says that it will be almost impossible for the rich to get into heaven.

So, to see more of the light that’s in this parable, let’s turn it over and look at it from another angle. In this parable, as in life, we are apt to be blinded by the material—the money. But let’s suppose that, to hear God’s voice more clearly in this parable, we must listen beyond the clink of coins.

Paul reminds us that, in the courts of Jesus’ day on earth, the truthfulness of any account had to be established by the witness of two or three individuals. Let’s look at the difference between the servants who are entrusted with five and two talents, and the servant who buried his talent in the ground. What do the first two do? They take what their Master has left with them, do profitable business with it, and have a 100% increase to return to him. Remember, none of these talents were theirs, nor would they ever have thought so. They were servants, using what had been entrusted to them, to serve their Master. They knew he would eventually return and demand an accounting. Apparently, they did not fear that, in trying to gain profit for him, they might lose what he had left with them and thus incur his wrath. They were willing to make investments of faith, trusting in what they knew of their Master. They could risk because they didn’t fear; their Master’s patient understanding could be relied on. These two men’s actions testify to the truth of this Master’s character. While their Master was gone and they were stewards of his gifts, they lived lives of faith, not of fear.

But now, what do we hear from the third servant? “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed, so I was afraid.” He’s cringing even as he reports on his unfaithful behavior.

The Master responds: “Reaping where I did not sow; gathering where I did not scatter? I don’t know what kind of Master you are serving, but you’re not serving me. What do you mean, reaping where I did not sow and gathering where I did not scatter? Is that the kind of Master you think I am?! One who takes, instead of one who gives? Was it not I who entrusted to you all that you have in your hands? All that you have comes from me! You obviously have no idea Who I Am. And I do not know you. Throw him out; he’s in the wrong household!”

The third servant isn’t thrown out of the house because of what he did or didn’t do. He is thrown out because he doesn’t belong in this Master’s house. He doesn’t even know who this Master is. He is completely without faith in this Master; he is living a life of fear.

Now let’s go back to the “riddle”: What is it, that having it causes you to get more of it, and not having it causes you to get none at all? The first two servants have exercised faith in their Master, based on his having entrusted his talents to them. Because they have put their faith to work, the Master rewards them with more than they had before. But the third servant has exercised no faith. The Master had invited this man into his household, but the man never responded to the Master’s overtures. This third servant never put any faith in the Master, so he ended up with even less than he had to begin with.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells his disciples, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:32, 34-35).

What is the deeper truth in this parable? Just this: God wants us to be freed by the truth of Who He is: He is not a master who leaves us to guess what will please him; who looms over us as a harsh judge, and who can hardly wait for us to fail, so that he can destroy us.

Absolutely the opposite: The truth is that our Lord God makes His will known, fills our lives with gifts and entrusts them to our care. And, in the meantime, although He is not bodily present, God is still with us in His Holy Spirit, who lives within us to guard, guide, and comfort. He never leaves us alone. Jesus wants you and me to be free, to quit trying to justify ourselves by misrepresenting God; to open up our clenched hands that grasp things as if they can make us worthy; and to let go of our fears.

The one who trusts in himself and mistrusts God will eventually find that the faith God offered him is no longer within his grasp. But we who treasure and use God’s gift of faith will find that faith growing even until the day when Christ returns to receive us into his joy.