“Investment Strategies”
Sermon
delivered November 13th, 2011
Scriptural basis: Zephaniah 1:7,12-18, 1Thessalonians 5:1-11, Matthew 25:14-30
If we take a look at the numbers in today’s gospel lesson, a few things stand out. First of all, the fellow heading off on an unspecified journey is fabulously wealthy. A talent in Matthew’s day was roughly the equivalent of fifteen years wages for a common laborer, and this guy hands out eight talents to his three servants to put to good use according to their abilities. This works out to be one hundred and twenty years’ wages, and at the current median wage in the United States, which is approximately thirty-five thousand dollars a year this is $4.2 million dollars. Another way of looking at this is that a talent was roughly eighty pounds of gold, and at a current market value of $1,790 an ounce, this generous fellow has just handed his employees $18.3 million dollars as he’s heading out the door for a long time. When he steps through the door upon his return, servant number one hands him ten talents; depending on how you cut the numbers that’s either $5.25 million dollars in wages or $22.9 million dollars in gold. Servant number two presents him with quite a bit less, but still a handsome sum of money in the four talents he returns, and the laggard of the group, servant number three merely hands the master back his $525,000.00 in wages or $2.3 million in gold.
The second thing to consider is that both servant number one and servant number two are either brilliant investors or have ties to the Palestinian mob; it takes fourteen and a half years at 5% interest to double your money, seven years at 10% and three years at 25%. Twenty five percent is loan shark territory, or certain credit card issuers, which may not be a whole lot different. We have no idea how long the master was away, but I think it’s fairly safe to assume that it wasn’t fourteen years or even seven. These two gentlemen either worked with the first century equivalent of Bernie Maddoff on their investment strategies or hit the Palestine Power Ball lottery. Regardless, they had a tolerance for investment risk that’s way beyond what any sane person would consider in the twenty first century unless they had so much money to begin with that losing $4.2 million dollars wouldn’t have a negative effect on their standard of living. Servant number three, on the other hand, is probably the most risk-averse investor ever to walk the earth, taking his $525,000.00 and stuffing it under the proverbial mattress until the master comes back home. Looking at these three through the lens of our current economic crisis, I think I’m more closely aligned with servant number three than with the other two. However, since this story is a parable, we’re not really talking about years of wages or pounds of gold. We’re talking about faith and salvation and the coming kingdom of God. And in this case, the investment strategy you choose has much longer-term implications than the size of your bank account.
Jesus tells this parable near the end of his discourse on the end times, very near to the end of his life. He’s trying to teach his followers how they are to conduct themselves while they await his return in glory, but is careful to not set a specific date when this will occur. There is to be no sitting around, doing nothing with the gifts that we’ve already been given, while we wait. Just as in the parable of the ten bridesmaids that we discussed last week, and in the epistle for today from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, we’re told to make preparations for what is to come, to stay awake so that the coming of the Son of Man doesn’t pass us by while we sleep or while we’re cowering in fear of making a mistake with what the master has entrusted to us.
Fear is what motivates servant number three, fear of what the master would do to him if he messed up and lost some or all of the talent that he had been given stewardship over. He boldly, or perhaps foolishly, tells the master that he knows him to be harsh and that he harvests what he did not plant, and so rather than take even the minimal risk of putting the talent he was given in the bank and collecting interest, he buries it and gives it back. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, the only difference being a bit of dirt on the talent that wasn’t there before. A totally risk-averse investment strategy that gained nothing for the servant and nothing for the master. In other words, a failure.
The talent was given in trust that the servant would do the best he could, according to his ability, to make the talent grow, and that required that he risk it all as his fellow servants did. And he risked nothing, and he lost everything. The master was made whole, true enough, but the master had wanted more. The master had wanted it all, everything servant number three could offer him, and he got nothing in return for his trust. Because servant number three was afraid. To his credit, he admits his fear. He doesn’t try to duck and dodge the issue, but I doubt that he anticipated the reaction he got from the master, which to our ears is beyond harsh. But the stakes in this investment game are high, the risks are great, the rewards even greater than we can imagine.
The master in the parable, who is of course Jesus, is extraordinarily generous with the servants, who represent members of the church. His departure on a journey which will last a long time is foretelling of his Passion and Resurrection, his return the Parousia. The rewards given to the two servants who double their talents, and the punishment given to the servant who did nothing with his talent, are speaking to the final judgment which will come when the master returns. That’s all pretty straightforward, but what isn’t quite so straightforward is the love that is evident in the actions of the master. He gives those generous gifts to his servants, and then he leaves, giving the servants the time and space they need to flourish and grow, to take risks they might not otherwise take if they knew the boss was sitting in his office. It’s not at all unlike parents who send their children off to school or to summer camp in the hopes that they will mature and take on new responsibilities in their new environment, away from the safety net of home and hearth. It would be all too easy for God, in the person of Jesus Christ, to direct each and every action we take, to dictate each step in our investment strategies so that everything turns out perfectly, but that wouldn’t be the most loving approach. We have been gifted with free will, and the ultimate expression of that free will is to invest our talents with joyous submission to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and living our lives in trust and faith. This is what God longs for from us.
God does not long for us to be fearful, neither fearful of him nor fearful of living our lives fully and richly. To live in fear is to reject God’s love, to reject the talents each of us have been entrusted with, to be paralyzed and unable to respond when we are called to serve. To live in fear is to die in a way, because it forces us to seek only safety and security and assurance, and if we find none of those things in a given situation we withdraw to our safe havens and shut out the rest of the world, to disengage and shut out those who love us and care about us, and this is not the life that the master would have for us. Servant number three is a prime example of what fear can do, and what it can cost us in the long run. He knows what he is expected to do with his talent, but won’t do it because it might not work out the way he planned, so he buries his talent and by doing so never even gives it a chance to grow. He’ll never know what might have been if he’d only tried. Maybe he thought his one talent wasn’t enough to make a difference, maybe he felt slighted by being given only one talent while the others received more. But what if his one talent was the key that unlocked the door of hope for the downtrodden in his community. What if his one talent was the last step on a long journey for those seeking rest from their labors? What if the talent, or talents, that you have been entrusted with are the keys that will open the gates of heaven for your friends and family? If you bury your talents, or think them too small or insignificant to matter, then you are rejecting God and that has consequences, not only for you but for those who might have benefited from your talent. Sitting on our hands, or burying our talents out of fear that they might not measure up, is precisely the wrong response. Living a life of faith is a dynamic, exciting and rewarding thing, but so many hesitate to grab it out of fear. Why? We can trust that God will not abandon us if we’re doing the best we can with what we’ve been given, we won’t be punished if everything doesn’t turn out like the textbook says it should. Get out there and live joyfully and faithfully, invest your talents boldly, accept the risk that goes with it and trust in right outcomes!
I invite you to take an inventory of your talents. You’ve all got them, some of you have lots of them and some of you only a few, but they all matter and they’re all gifts from a loving God who wants you, who expects you to invest them in the work of the kingdom. Some of you can sing, others can write, all of us can pick up the phone and call a friend who’s having a hard time or isn’t feeling well. Some are gifted with leadership skills, others with followership skills. Every one of us can do lots of different, important, necessary things that are of service to others and to our communities. Take some time this week to identify which talents are yours to invest.
Thousands of years ago, talents were units of money. Over the centuries, we’ve come to understand them as gifts or abilities that we have been given stewardship over. Regardless of what form they take, they are to be invested so that they will double, or triple or more and as a result be of even greater value than we can imagine. Burying our talents isn’t a great investment strategy. Being reckless with them isn’t a great investment strategy either. Praying about them, seeking sound advice from the giver of the gift, and then being bold and accepting an appropriate level of risk, will reap the greatest rewards.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
