Entrustment Is Fruitful Where Gratitude Abounds
Sermon
Where Gratitude Abounds
Gospel Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost (Last Third)
My family and I enjoy watching professional as well as Final Four collegiate basketball. The display of talent in many players is exciting to watch. However, what I wish to offer is a mixed review on the public behavior of some coaches before referees and players. I get this sense that some coaches are freed up enough to use and to enjoy their coaching skills, because they don't have to take credit for them: a John Wooden of the great UCLA days, for instance. You just know, when you watch and listen to such coaches as he, that they are mindful that their gifts are abilities which come from a Source other than themselves. This awareness on their part is, I believe, based on their ever-growing gratitude for what they have received. I'm concerned for some coaches who seem to have significant doses of Woody Hayes disease. They're incredible coaches, but they haven't been able, I believe, to make a very critical transition from believing their abilities and talents are native to them and therefore always need to be proven, to believing their ability-and-talent-package is a gift and entrustment from Another. The former state can really vex a person into doing very foolish and angry things. The latter state frees one up to stay in touch with the One who generously gave the gift and to be grateful for His continuing presence and counsel. Vexed coaches may be grateful for their achievements, but are they yet freed up enough to deepen their gratitude base within themselves for One who was and is so generous to them? If so, their behavior should increasingly show it.
The parable of the talents has a lot to do with God's entrustment of what has always been and always will be His gift to us, our abiding gratitude for such gifts being deposited by Him into our lives. Genuine gratitude keeps you mindful of the roots of blessing and tender in your heart toward living it out. Two recipients of talents in our story obviously were grateful persons who achieved much. A third recipient, however, was more self-concerned and fearful of the Giver than grateful and freed up. He too was entrusted with a costly and impressive talent, but he had a stewardship style that moved him to be uptight and bury the talent. The entrustment gift, I believe, was blurred by his ingratitude. The ingratitude distorted his perception of the Master and paralyzed him so he chose not to do anything creative or productive with the talent entrusted to him.
It would be helpful if we would consider the "talents" to be currency, but not coins; rather, the currency of the day was expressed by weight and involved gold, silver, and copper. Silver was the most common metal used. The exact worth of a talent, related to our dollar, is not really known. We can assume it represented a large sum. One Bible interpreter, Eugene Lowry, shares that a full talent could represent "the equivalent of over fifteen years of labor."1 So, the one-talent man was better off than you and I might at first think.
William Barclay tells us that Jesus calls the scribes and Pharisees on the carpet through the one-talent person. They were more interested in keeping things as they were, symbolized by the one-talent man's action of burying his talent.2 They were not grateful for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus, because to accept him was to enter change they weren't receptive to. They buried their heads and hearts away from God's truth in Jesus, just as the one-talent person buried his talent.
In verses 14-15, we read of a generous God who gives varying gifts to people. Why doesn't He equally gift all of us? I'm convinced God called me to preach so I wouldn't sing. I love music, and I will occasionally recommend a variety of music numbers to our parish music minister. But, oh how I wish I had a singing voice! I wish as well that I was taller, unbald, and handsomer, none of which I am. Maybe the latter is God's way of teaching my ego not to have conceit and for me not to be as tempted in some areas if I were handsomer. I have come to believe that the gifts (abilities, skills, capacities) He does allot to us are His way of angling us in our service areas to Him and society. It's how He reveals His call upon our lives. We will always have other preferences for certain gifts, but He reveals His preference for us through the gifts He chooses to give us. Can we learn to be grateful, trustful, and responsible in our use and development of those gifts? It's important that we do; otherwise, resentment and distorted perceptions will result. His entrustment of specific gifts to us will only be fruitful where our gratitude for them abounds.
In verses 16-18, we note His specific deposit and distribution of those gifts to three persons. Though receivers of different amounts of talent, they can potentially give equal effort and devotion to their development. And their call to faithfulness is equal, as well as is the invitation to use those talents in service to God.
In verses 19-23, the five- and two-talent persons give an accounting to their Master of their fruitful/productive use of his loaned talents to them. Do you intuit the strong note of gratitude in the words in and between the lines? "Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents." Their gratitude for what they received gave them an accurate perception of their master's generosity, and their gratitude motivated, fed, and directed their fruitful development and multiplication of their talents.
And do you notice the master's joy and further generosity in words in and between the lines? "Well done, good and trustworthy servant; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master."
The entrustment is expressed in the bestowal of still more gifts/talents, with the implication that once one identifies and develops the gifts/skills he/she currently has, the faithful use of them leads to the discovery of still more gifts/talents to be used and developed.
One thing that is important to include here is that gifts and skills are not a sign of maturity, but rather are a call to maturity. I believe the deeper the gratitude, the greater the willingness to mature, so that the gifts are used rightly.
In verses 24-28, we are privy to the very personal conversation of the one-talent man and his master. He is a person controlled by fear (v. 25) and resistant to responsible action (v. 24b), apparently an attitudinal and behavioral style he carried all his life. I recognize no evidence of gratitude in him. When one lacks gratitude, one invites fear to influence one's perceptions. Fear, on some levels, alerts us to matters of risk and foolishness, and so it proves helpful. But when fear, on other levels, makes us more suspicious than trusting, more hiding than sharing and more excuse-giving than responsibility-taking, it will limit and even distort our powers of perception. The one-talent man, for some reasons unknown to us, chose to fear and to fear greatly. As a good teacher of mine, Pastor Bill Coffin, once said, "Whereas love seeks truth, fear seeks safety." The one-talent man was primarily interested in hiding from developing, because he was apparently more fear-ridden than gratitude-based. He was unfruitful because gratitude did not abound in his life. The master's entrustment of a talent to him was not perceived in such a way as to move him to fruitfulness. Fear overtook gratitude, and while the man lived, he actually died on a certain level. In the words of one commentator:
We are made to grow. Every new chapter of life, including the difficult ones, can be a time for deepening of faith, a time for new adventure, a time for sharpening our powers of alertness. The problem with the one-talent person in our text is fear of the unknown. He is frozen by life's worst phobia -- the fear of the future. Uncertainty of what will happen immobilizes him into playing it safe, into doing nothing ... Along with his caution, there is an underestimation of his worth.3
You and I and all human beings know fear. God invites us to know Him in fear's place and to choose to love Him more and more. The more love and trust we have for the Father, the less of a hold fear has on us. Trust it and act on it!
In verses 28-30, we see clearly the note of judgment in every line: the one-talent man loses his talent, the ten-talent man receives additional talent, and a principle is established: use your gifts rightly, responsibly, and gratefully, and you're invited to "enter into the joy of your Master." The gracious, giving master becomes judge at our life's end when we don't handle His gifts with gratitude and responsibility. In the words of William Barclay:
If we have some gift for doing something, the more we exercise that proficiency and that gift, the harder the work and the bigger the task we will be able to tackle. Whereas, if we fail to use it, we lose it ... It is the lesson of life that the only way to keep a gift is to use it in the service of God and in the service of our fellow-(person).4
To insist on gifts you don't have is to be defiant and to render you paralyzed in place, with no progress in sight. To disbelieve that God accompanies the gifts He gives us with His grace, encouragement, and empowerment is to find oneself managed by fear rather than enlightened by gratitude. When gratitude abounds within you, you're giving the Master permission to bear fruit through you. When you're fruitful, you're alive. When you're primarily fearful, your perceptions of life will be more distorted than accurate. Life and liveliness will be diminished within you. Never forget: Entrustment is fruitful when gratitude abounds in your life. Escort fear out of your life; invite gratitude in and to abide. Then your life will be fruitful -- for Him.
____________
1. William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, October-December, 1996, Vol. 24, No. 4, year A, p. 28.
2. William Barclay, Matthew, Volume II, Westminster Press, p. 323.
3. Herbert W. Chilstrom, "Am I Responsible?" Emphasis, November-December, 1996, p. 24.
4. Barclay, op. cit., p. 324.
The parable of the talents has a lot to do with God's entrustment of what has always been and always will be His gift to us, our abiding gratitude for such gifts being deposited by Him into our lives. Genuine gratitude keeps you mindful of the roots of blessing and tender in your heart toward living it out. Two recipients of talents in our story obviously were grateful persons who achieved much. A third recipient, however, was more self-concerned and fearful of the Giver than grateful and freed up. He too was entrusted with a costly and impressive talent, but he had a stewardship style that moved him to be uptight and bury the talent. The entrustment gift, I believe, was blurred by his ingratitude. The ingratitude distorted his perception of the Master and paralyzed him so he chose not to do anything creative or productive with the talent entrusted to him.
It would be helpful if we would consider the "talents" to be currency, but not coins; rather, the currency of the day was expressed by weight and involved gold, silver, and copper. Silver was the most common metal used. The exact worth of a talent, related to our dollar, is not really known. We can assume it represented a large sum. One Bible interpreter, Eugene Lowry, shares that a full talent could represent "the equivalent of over fifteen years of labor."1 So, the one-talent man was better off than you and I might at first think.
William Barclay tells us that Jesus calls the scribes and Pharisees on the carpet through the one-talent person. They were more interested in keeping things as they were, symbolized by the one-talent man's action of burying his talent.2 They were not grateful for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus, because to accept him was to enter change they weren't receptive to. They buried their heads and hearts away from God's truth in Jesus, just as the one-talent person buried his talent.
In verses 14-15, we read of a generous God who gives varying gifts to people. Why doesn't He equally gift all of us? I'm convinced God called me to preach so I wouldn't sing. I love music, and I will occasionally recommend a variety of music numbers to our parish music minister. But, oh how I wish I had a singing voice! I wish as well that I was taller, unbald, and handsomer, none of which I am. Maybe the latter is God's way of teaching my ego not to have conceit and for me not to be as tempted in some areas if I were handsomer. I have come to believe that the gifts (abilities, skills, capacities) He does allot to us are His way of angling us in our service areas to Him and society. It's how He reveals His call upon our lives. We will always have other preferences for certain gifts, but He reveals His preference for us through the gifts He chooses to give us. Can we learn to be grateful, trustful, and responsible in our use and development of those gifts? It's important that we do; otherwise, resentment and distorted perceptions will result. His entrustment of specific gifts to us will only be fruitful where our gratitude for them abounds.
In verses 16-18, we note His specific deposit and distribution of those gifts to three persons. Though receivers of different amounts of talent, they can potentially give equal effort and devotion to their development. And their call to faithfulness is equal, as well as is the invitation to use those talents in service to God.
In verses 19-23, the five- and two-talent persons give an accounting to their Master of their fruitful/productive use of his loaned talents to them. Do you intuit the strong note of gratitude in the words in and between the lines? "Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents." Their gratitude for what they received gave them an accurate perception of their master's generosity, and their gratitude motivated, fed, and directed their fruitful development and multiplication of their talents.
And do you notice the master's joy and further generosity in words in and between the lines? "Well done, good and trustworthy servant; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master."
The entrustment is expressed in the bestowal of still more gifts/talents, with the implication that once one identifies and develops the gifts/skills he/she currently has, the faithful use of them leads to the discovery of still more gifts/talents to be used and developed.
One thing that is important to include here is that gifts and skills are not a sign of maturity, but rather are a call to maturity. I believe the deeper the gratitude, the greater the willingness to mature, so that the gifts are used rightly.
In verses 24-28, we are privy to the very personal conversation of the one-talent man and his master. He is a person controlled by fear (v. 25) and resistant to responsible action (v. 24b), apparently an attitudinal and behavioral style he carried all his life. I recognize no evidence of gratitude in him. When one lacks gratitude, one invites fear to influence one's perceptions. Fear, on some levels, alerts us to matters of risk and foolishness, and so it proves helpful. But when fear, on other levels, makes us more suspicious than trusting, more hiding than sharing and more excuse-giving than responsibility-taking, it will limit and even distort our powers of perception. The one-talent man, for some reasons unknown to us, chose to fear and to fear greatly. As a good teacher of mine, Pastor Bill Coffin, once said, "Whereas love seeks truth, fear seeks safety." The one-talent man was primarily interested in hiding from developing, because he was apparently more fear-ridden than gratitude-based. He was unfruitful because gratitude did not abound in his life. The master's entrustment of a talent to him was not perceived in such a way as to move him to fruitfulness. Fear overtook gratitude, and while the man lived, he actually died on a certain level. In the words of one commentator:
We are made to grow. Every new chapter of life, including the difficult ones, can be a time for deepening of faith, a time for new adventure, a time for sharpening our powers of alertness. The problem with the one-talent person in our text is fear of the unknown. He is frozen by life's worst phobia -- the fear of the future. Uncertainty of what will happen immobilizes him into playing it safe, into doing nothing ... Along with his caution, there is an underestimation of his worth.3
You and I and all human beings know fear. God invites us to know Him in fear's place and to choose to love Him more and more. The more love and trust we have for the Father, the less of a hold fear has on us. Trust it and act on it!
In verses 28-30, we see clearly the note of judgment in every line: the one-talent man loses his talent, the ten-talent man receives additional talent, and a principle is established: use your gifts rightly, responsibly, and gratefully, and you're invited to "enter into the joy of your Master." The gracious, giving master becomes judge at our life's end when we don't handle His gifts with gratitude and responsibility. In the words of William Barclay:
If we have some gift for doing something, the more we exercise that proficiency and that gift, the harder the work and the bigger the task we will be able to tackle. Whereas, if we fail to use it, we lose it ... It is the lesson of life that the only way to keep a gift is to use it in the service of God and in the service of our fellow-(person).4
To insist on gifts you don't have is to be defiant and to render you paralyzed in place, with no progress in sight. To disbelieve that God accompanies the gifts He gives us with His grace, encouragement, and empowerment is to find oneself managed by fear rather than enlightened by gratitude. When gratitude abounds within you, you're giving the Master permission to bear fruit through you. When you're fruitful, you're alive. When you're primarily fearful, your perceptions of life will be more distorted than accurate. Life and liveliness will be diminished within you. Never forget: Entrustment is fruitful when gratitude abounds in your life. Escort fear out of your life; invite gratitude in and to abide. Then your life will be fruitful -- for Him.
____________
1. William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, October-December, 1996, Vol. 24, No. 4, year A, p. 28.
2. William Barclay, Matthew, Volume II, Westminster Press, p. 323.
3. Herbert W. Chilstrom, "Am I Responsible?" Emphasis, November-December, 1996, p. 24.
4. Barclay, op. cit., p. 324.
