“Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’
“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
-Matthew 25:24-27 (NIV)
In this story known as The Parable Of The Talents, Jesus tells of three servants who were made caretakers of different amounts of money (talents). The first two doubled their money, while the third chickened out and buried his in the ground. He is then immediately showered with flattering adjectives such as “wicked”, “lazy”, and “worthless”. That’s gotta sting.
Honestly, a part of me has always had a difficult time with this passage. On first glance, it sounds like the master was a little bit harsh. The servant gave him all of the money back, right? I mean, it’s not like he lost it all!
By comparison though, the two other servants were not referred to as “shrewd” or “profitable” as one would think, but were simply called “good” and “faithful”. Praise was given to them for their faithfulness, not their results. The point? What was wicked about the third servant was his inaction. In the eyes of God, that’s worse than us trying something on faith and completely messing it up.
We are called to invest what we’ve been given, whether that’s big or whether that’s small. How much we have is irrelevant. And if we do nothing with the God-given abilities, efforts, and finances that he has entrusted to us… If instead we hoard it up and hide them in the dirt… Then we are wicked, lazy, and ultimately worthless.
Because it’s not about what you have… It’s about what you do with what you have.
Hey Nick, I just started keeping up with your blog in my Google Reader and saw this post. That’s an awesome write up on that passage. The church I go to in Raleigh, Hope Community Church (www.gethope.net) takes that passage and applies it every year in what they call the Mina Project. They take some amount of money and pass it out randomly to the congregation and we are supposed to somehow take the money given to us and multiply it. Last year they handed out $50,000 I believe and got back around $400,000. Half of that money was spread among various missions in Raleigh and the other half built a hospital in Haiti. Anyway, that is a great passage and one that we definitely need to be reminded of often.
Thanks so much for the comments, Thomas. That is an incredible story you shared… I would love to get my church involved with something like that!