"Abundance and Risk": A Sermon on the Parable of the Talents

Vincent van Gogh, Lying Cow (1883)

Preached at Church of the Incarnation, Dallas. Readings here. Listen to a recording here, which differs somewhat from the text below, because the latter benefits from suggestions from my rector which I incorporated into subsequent services.

"Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that, by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever." (Collect for Proper 28)

Ruminants. That’s what today’s collect calls us to be with the Bible. Ruminants. You know, animals who chew their cuds, like cows and sheep and camels.

Have you ever seen a cow chewing its cud? I grew up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, and so I have a pretty clear picture in my mind of a cow chewing its cud, savoring it patiently, with eyes half-closed, perhaps even drooling. 

Today’s collect always makes me think of a cow chewing its cud, when it asks for the grace to “hear [the Holy Scriptures], read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.” The collect calls us to ruminate on Scripture, to chew it over and over in order to receive its nourishment—and to taste its sweetness.

Bernard of Clairvaux said of the words of the Bible, “Enjoying their sweetness, I chew them over and over, my internal organs are replenished, my insides fattened up, and all my bones break out in praise.” [1] But some parts of Scripture need more chewing than others to draw out their sweetness. Some parts are like milk and honey: they taste sweet right away and go down easily. Other parts, though, are more like liver: they’re less appetizing and you’ve really got to chew on them for a while and they require some extra digestion.

Take today’s Gospel lesson for instance. I don’t know about you, but when I first hear this story it sticks in my craw. Especially the ending: “For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away” (Mt. 25:29). 

It just doesn’t seem fair! Those who have will get even more?! And those who have not, will lose even what they have?! Where is the justice in that? Taken as a general statement, isn’t this just a description of the injustice and inequity of this world?

And why is the master so hard on the third servant, the one who got one talent? I can understand why the master is thrilled with the first two servants, the ones who got five talents and two talents: they doubled his investment after all! I’d be pretty pleased, too, if I was the master! Wouldn’t you? But why is he so hard on the third servant? The third servant didn’t do anything wrong! He didn’t lose his master’s money through carelessness or spend it greedily on himself or otherwise waste it. No, he kept it safe, hidden in the ground. When there’s no FDIC insurance and when bankers were seen as pretty crooked characters, money is safer in the ground than in the bank. Wasn’t the third servant just being prudent? Fiscally conservative? So why does the master get so upset with him?

And what of the business ventures of the first two servants? What sort of risky and ethically dubious deals did they do to get such a fantastic rate of return? What if they’d lost their master’s property in a business speculation that turned sour? What would the master thought of them then?

Clearly we need to chew on these words of Scripture some more. Roll it around in our mouths. Figure out what it is we are tasting.

Let’s start by recalling the context. Remember that the parable of the talents is one of a series of parables Jesus tells his disciples. They want to know when God is going to set everything right to fulfill all his promises to his people. When the day of the Lord will arrive. 

Jesus tells them, in effect, “Don’t worry about when; there’s no knowing when. That day will come suddenly, and you’ll know when it’s here. So live expectantly in the meantime. Wait patiently and hopefully. Live now as if the day of the Lord has already come; live now as you will when God’s reign is made manifest.” 

And he tells four stories to drive home the point: The first about two servants who have been left in charge of their master’s household while he’s away. One servant was wise and diligently did the work he was given to do, just as if the master was at home. But the other servant took advantage of his master’s absence and abused the authority he’d been given and “beat his fellow servants, and ate and drank with the drunken” (Mt. 24:49). The second story is about the wise and foolish bridesmaids waiting for the groom—we heard about that last week. Our story is the third one. 

And the fourth is the one about the Son of Man coming in his glory, separating the sheep and the goats, judging the nations based on how they treated “the least of these.”

Here’s the point: these stories are for teaching Jesus’ disciples how to wait for the day of the Lord. How to watch for the Lord to come in the fullness of his kingdom; how to live between the times, in the time of our pilgrimage when we walk by faith not by sight. 

So the parable of the talents has to do with the significance of how we live now between the times, with the fact that we are accountable to God. What we do matters, because our Lord will come to judge the quick and the dead, and, as he says, “then he will repay every man for what he has done” (Mt. 16:27). 

But what sort of Lord do we await? It’s the same nagging question about justice again. Is the God to whom we are accountable like the master the third servant feared? He said, “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid” (Mt. 15:24–25). Is our Lord, our Master, a hard man? Hard to please? Severe? Harsh? Unjustly demanding?

Well, no! Let’s look again at the story, and I think we’ll see that the master isn’t as harsh as the third servant thought him to be: The master calls his three servants and entrusts them with his property; to one he gives five talents, to another two, and to another one, each according to his ability. Do you know how much money a talent is? I didn’t either, but I looked it up, and it turns out that one talent is a lot of money! One talent was more than a laborer could expect to earn in 15 years! So two talents is more than someone could expect to earn over the whole course of their career, and five talents would have been beyond a servant’s wildest dreams!

The master is generous: he gives even the least talented of his servants an extravagant sum. And think of the trust he placed in his servants by leaving this immense fortune in their care. And look again at what he says to first two servants: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.” Not only does he reward them for their faithful service, but he invites them to share in his joy. He welcomes them into his happiness. He wants their company.

Our Master, our Lord, gives us even more generous gifts and welcomes us to share in his joy. Our Lord gives us even our life. Everything we are and have is a gift from him. And God gives his people what they need to live in anticipation of joy and beatitude we will share with him his kingdom. As Sam Wells says, “God has given his people everything they need to worship him, to be his friends, and to eat with him. […] [H]e gives his people more than enough. He overwhelms them by the abundance of his gifts.” [2]

You see, the third servant misunderstood both the character of his master and the nature of the gift. Remember what he says to the master, “I knew you to be a hard man...so I was afraid.” He was afraid. He focused so much on his master’s demands that he overlooked his generosity. He couldn’t imagine that his master might invite him to share his joy at his return; he could only imagine the account books. He was concerned only with not doing anything wrong, with keeping safe what he had been given. But in trying to secure it, he loses it. 

Aren’t we often like this servant? Unable to imagine a God who desires our happiness. Only able to imagine life as a zero-sum game. Only able to think that what God gives can be used up and lost. Afraid to take Jesus at his word when he says, “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (16:25). We want to keep our life. We want a safe investment. We don’t want to risk the vulnerability of love. 

But, as C.S. Lewis says, “To love at all is to be vulnerable.” “Love anything,” he says, “and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket…it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” [3]

“Whoever would save his life will lose it,” Jesus says, “and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt. 16:25)

God the Giver gifts us the gift of love. And love is not diminished by being given away. Think of how a candle burns just as brightly after another candle has been lit from its flame. That’s what love is like. God is light and love, and gives us himself in Christ Jesus. And Jesus, the true light who shines in the darkness, gives the community of his disciples to be the light of the world. 

“Let your light so shine before men,” he says, “that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:16).

Our Master has risked everything for us, and gives us what we need to risk giving ourselves in love. He pours out his Holy Spirit into our hearts, so that we can risk the vulnerability of love, because we know that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ. He gives us what we need to learn to love our enemies and speak the truth and practice peace. Through his word and sacraments he nourishes us to do these good works he has given us to do— feeding the hungry and thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, visiting those in prison. 

St. John of the Cross said, “Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love.” [4] When we risk love, we find that love is its own reward. For “God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. And there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 Jn. 4:16b, 18).

And now I think we can taste at last the sweetness of Jesus’ words, when he says, “To everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance” (Mt. 25:29). Risk love, and you will find love. Love, and you will have an abundance of love.

[1] Quoted in Ivan Illich, In the Vineyard of the Text, pp. 56–7.

[2] Samuel Wells, God’s Companions, p. 17. 

[3] C.S. Lewis, Four Loves.

[4] Quoted in Dorothy Day, "The Scandal of the Works of Mercy," in By Little and By Little, the Selected Writings of Dorothy Day.

"Deepen (Follow Me)": A Sermon on Matthew 4:18-22

Domenico Ghirlandaio, Calling of the Apostles (Sistine Chapel, 1481)

I preached this homily this past Sunday at the 5:30pm Uptown contemporary service at Church of the Incarnation. It's part of a sermon series on discipleship that's part of an initiative at Incarnation called "3D Faith." Check out Incarnation's website for the other sermons in the series.

"As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him." (Matthew 4:18–22)

Have you ever noticed that the Gospels give two different versions of the calling of the disciples? We just heard Matthew’s version: Jesus shows up and says, “Follow me,” and “immediately they left their nets and followed him.” But John’s Gospel says they were called in a different way. We heard John’s version last week. Do you remember it? Two of John the Baptist’s disciples are hanging out with him and Jesus walks by and John says, “Hey, there goes the Lamb of God.” And the two disciples get curious and tag along after Jesus, and he sees them following him and asks what they’re looking for, and they ask to see where he’s staying, and he says, “Come and see,” and so they do. Anyway, one of these guys was Andrew and the next day he gets his brother, Simon, and brings him to Jesus, and Jesus looks at him and says, “You’re Simon; I’m going to call you Rock” (which is what Peter means). Pretty different from Matthew’s version, right? In John’s version Andrews calls Peter, but in Matthew’s Jesus calls them both. There Jesus says “Come and see,” here he says, “Follow me.” Why the difference?

Back in the fourth century, a preacher named John Chrysostom wondered about the difference, too. Here’s what he suggests: What if Matthew is telling the story of the second time Jesus called Peter and Andrew, and John’s version is the story of the first time? He notices that in John’s version John the Baptist is not yet in prison, while Matthew goes out of his way to say that John the Baptist had already been arrested when Jesus calls the disciples. What if Andrew and Peter followed Jesus for a while and, hearing that John the Baptist was arrested, went back to their old way of life, leaving Jesus to return to fishing? What if Jesus finds them fishing because they had stopped following him? If this is the case, what does it say about Jesus?

Chrysostom sees in the different stories a Jesus who is as persistent and patient as a master fisherman. He says, “Jesus neither resisted them at first when they desired to withdraw from him, nor having withdrawn themselves, did he let them go altogether. He gave way when they moved aside from him and came again to win them back. This, after all, is exactly what fishing is all about.”[1]  He sees Jesus as a seasoned fisherman, rather like the one in the Old Man in the Sea, who can tell from the pressure of the line between his thumb and finger when to let the line run with the fish and when to reel it in, who feels a gentle touch on the line and is happy. [2]  If Jesus is like a master fisherman, he says “come and see” to bait the disciples and “follow me” to hook them. 

If Jesus is like a fishermen, then he’s fishing for you and for me. He wants to catch us. He wants to draw us out of the deep. He wants us, but he will not force us to come to him. He is patient, luring us to him, calling to us, “Come and see, taste and see my goodness.” He does not force us to follow him, but lets us nibble at the bait. But he is persistent, and he does not give up on us. He keeps casting his net. And there comes a time when he says, “Follow me.”

Stanley Hauerwas says there’s a difference between admiring Jesus and following Jesus. [3] Lots of people admire Jesus; he’s a pretty impressive guy after all, going around healing people and driving out demons and talking about love and forgiveness and peace. Crowds of people admired Jesus; they were attracted to him, and came from all over to see him preach and teach and heal. Maybe Andrew and Peter initially admired Jesus; they went and saw where he was saying. And then they went back to their fishing and their nets. But Jesus doesn’t let them go altogether; he fishes them out and says, “Follow me.” “And immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

You see, that’s the difference between admiring and following Jesus. You can admire Jesus all day long and then go back to whatever you were doing before. But if you want to follow Jesus, you must change your life. You’ve got to leave your nets behind. And not just once, but again and again.

What are “nets”? Well, lots of things! Good things and bad. “Nets” can be anything that draws us away from the love of God, anything that keeps us from putting our whole trust in the grace and love of the Lord Jesus. The world, the flesh, and the devil—the things we renounce in Baptism—are “nets.” The idols in the epistle lesson are “nets”; the many false gods from which the Thessalonians turned “to serve a living and true God” (1 Thess. 1:9). Greed and envy and ambition are nets. Fear is a net and shame, and so is regret over past choices. 

But good things can be the most subtle nets. In the Gospel lesson, the “nets” are, well, nets. But they’re not just objects; they represent the source of livelihood of Simon and Andrew, and James and John; they represent their wealth.  And what did Jesus say about that? “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Mt. 6:24). And James and John didn’t just leave their nets behind, they left behind their boat and their father. Even our families can be nets. A respectable, responsible middle class lifestyle can be a net. Our loves can be nets.

Whether good or bad, “nets” are those things that keep you from giving your whole self to God. “Nets” are those things in which you are tempted to place your entire trust, which you are tempted to idolize. For, as Martin Luther said, “to have a god is to have something in which the heart entirely trusts.” [4] But, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me”—only the living God, who raised Jesus from the dead and called Israel from Egypt and light out of darkness, is worthy of your entire trust. If you place your entire trust in “nets”, you’ll find that everything flows through them; you won’t catch what you’re looking for in them.

The problem with nets is that they don’t go deep enough; they only skim the surface. As C.S. Lewis puts it, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased,” he says. [5] But Jesus calls us to leave our “nets” behind, because only he can truly satisfy the desires of our hearts. He says, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. […] But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you as well” (Mt. 6:25, 33). Often “nets” are good things, but Jesus calls us to something better. Being with Jesus, putting your whole trust in his grace and love, is the best thing. As Augustine famously confessed, “You made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Jesus calls us to leave our “nets” behind because he wants what is best for us. When he says, “Follow me,” we can hear him saying, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt. 11:28–29). Because Jesus gives us in himself what we are seeking in our nets, we can let them behind and follow him without fear or worry. Because we find what we seek in him, we can bear the cost of discipleship. Because Christ is our life, we can risk the loss of our lives in following him.

Paride Taban is a retired Roman Catholic bishop from southern Sudan. He was ordained priest in 1964, and was one of the few remaining priests in southern Sudan during years of war. He was made bishop of the Diocese of Torit in 1983 and lead his people for two decades through some of the most difficult years of Sudan’s brutal civil war. When he retired in 2004, he moved to a remote area of Sudan and founded the Holy Trinity Peace Village where people of different ethnicities and religions live together. Bishop Taban knows what it is to risk his life to follow Christ. I can scarcely imagine the sacrifices he has made. I mention him, though, not because of how much he has left behind to follow Christ, but because he says something that suggests that what really matters in discipleship is how we hold what we have. He says, “Life is a very precious gift. If you grasp it or hold on to it with all your might, you will crush it. Hold it loosely in your hands, grateful for the gift.” [6]

In other words, discipleship is a matter of the heart, a matter of holding your life loosely, a matter of lifting it to God the Giver of Life. And God wants your whole heart, your whole life. As Gregory the Great puts it, “the kingdom of heaven is worth as much as you have.” [7] And what do you have that you have not received?

You can only give your life one day at a time, though. You can only follow Jesus one step at a time. When Jesus called the disciples and they left everything and followed him, they did not know where the road would lead. But they took the decisive step out away from their nets toward Jesus. I wonder what concrete step Jesus is asking you to take today? I wonder how you will leave the shallows and cast out into the deep, into the deep, deep love of Jesus?

Maybe, though, you feel all tangled up in your nets and that you can’t get free. You’re all tangled up and you’re gasping for breath. The good news is that Jesus wants to come to you and slowly disentangle you.

At the end of John’s Gospel, Peter is all eaten up with shame because he’s denied Jesus. That’s the net he’s tangled up in. But the risen Jesus comes to him on the shore one bright morning and asks him three times, “Peter, do you love me?” “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?”

You see what Jesus is doing? He’s disentangling Peter from his net, from his shame and regret. And then he says to him, “Follow me.”

We can follow Jesus because he comes and frees us from our nets.

[1] John Chrysostom, Gospel of Matthew, Homily 14, in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Matthew 1–13, p. 71.

[2] Cf. Hemingway, Old Man in the Sea.

[3] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew (Brazos Theological Commentary), p. 57.

[4] Luther, Large Catechism, 3.10.

[5] C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory.

[6] Paride Taban, The Long Road to Peace, quoted by Ross Kane, "We Need Training in Transcendence," Faith & Leadership.

[7] Gregory the Great, Forty Gospel Homilies, 5.2, in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Matthew 1–13, p. 71.