A Worthy Investment

Homily by David Whitlow

I grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC.  In those days, we still had a small shopping center a few blocks from our house that had a dry cleaner, a barber shop, an independent grocery store, a bakery, and a hardware store.  The hardware store had a special place in the hearts of boys my age.  We were able to ride our bicycles to the store, park them on the sidewalk, and go inside to marvel at the displays of tools, supplies, ladders, and, above all, the pocket knives that were displayed in their own wooden display box on the top of the counter.
 
I was completely taken by one particular knife.  It really was a small penknife, pale green plastic handles with a sparkly red lightning bolt running the length of the hand grips.  It was magnificent!  I would ride down several times each week to gaze longingly at this masterpiece, hoping each time that it would still be in its position.
 
That Christmas, this knife was high on my Christmas wish list and sure enough, on Christmas morning, there it was.  I eagerly opened the small, wood grained cardboard box that held this treasure.  I ran my fingers over its smooth, shiny surface and marveled at the two small shiny blades.  I carefully returned it to its box and took it to my room to place it in a safe place, my bedside table, that was affectionately referred to as my junk drawer.
 
There it stayed, where I caressed it every day, not actually using it for fear that it might acquire a scratch or chip.  Week after week, it was cradled among the other treasures of my young life, the prize above all others.  When spring arrived, I was concerned that this was not necessarily a safe place to keep it.  Who knows whether or not someone might come into my bedroom and steal this treasure?  Immersed in reading pirate stories, it became apparent to me that the safest way to keep treasure was to bury it.  You can see where this is going.  So, one warm late spring day, I carefully wrapped the little knife in tissue paper, placed in in its box, and buried it in the corner of the backyard garden, even creating a map so that the treasure could be found.  Weeks and months and years went by, without the knife ever coming to mind.
 
The Gospel reading for today is referred to as the Parable of the Talents.  A little context for parables:  A parable is  an ancient rhetorical form used long before Jesus.  We find Semitic parables in the Old Testament, such as the prophet Nathan addressing David after he had arranged for the death of Bathsheba’s husband, or at other places in 2 Samuel, 1st Kings, and Isaiah, to name a few.  Aristotle and Socrates are also noted for their use of classic secular parables.  The parables tell a short story with a moral or theological point.  In the New Testament, scholars consider the parables to be actual words of Jesus, some of the few that we can view with any certainty.
 
In today’s Gospel, we hear of a master who is going away and entrusts his slaves with the management of his estate.  The first slave traded and invested the sum with which he was entrusted and managed to double it by the time of the master’s return.  The second slave did as well.  The third slave, however, did not want to take any risk and feared retribution from his master, went out and buried his share in a hole in the ground, risking nothing and earning nothing.  The master returns and the first slave presents him with double his share, as does the second.  The master greets these slaves with great joy, but the third slave, unwilling to take any risk, and returns only what he was given.  The master takes the talent from this slave, gives it to the first slave, and accosts the third slave with derision, casting him out into the darkness.
 
This is the point at which you might wonder what kind of moral or theological conclusion Jesus wants us to draw.  Is Jesus really talking about money and wealth?  And is he really talking about punishment?  How does any of this fit into his teachings?  If he is talking about money, maybe this is the E. F. Hutton moment—when he talks, people listen.
 
To try to drill down in this parable, we must first discern what a talent is.  Various sources offer different opinions as to the value of a talent, ranging from what a servant might earn in 20 years  to a measurement in weight of gold, equivalent to more than $1.5 million in today’s terms.  Whatever it is, I think that it is an impossibly large sum, unimaginable to Jesus’ audience.
 
Some evangelists have used the parable to preach a prosperity Gospel, highlighting the importance of wealth accumulation by those who follow Biblical principles.  Most of the theological community rejects this interpretation.  Nowhere else in his teaching has Jesus placed any merit on the accumulation of wealth, so why would he start near the end of his work?
 
So, could the term talent refer to something else, perhaps as we think of talent today, some kind of innate ability or superior skill?  This seems improbable, given that Jesus focused on the ordinary
and downtrodden people of that time.
 
Setting this parable into its position in the Gospel of Matthew, we see that it is very near the end of Jesus’ earthly life, just days before the Passover and his crucifixion.  I think that it is fair to say that in this parable as well as the passages that surround it, Jesus is giving his final instructions to his disciples.  If we interpret this as instruction, and view it metaphorically, three things start to materialize to me:
First, Jesus might be the master in the story, and he has given the disciples his wisdom and love; he is now going away, and he will return at a time that neither Jesus nor the disciples know.
 
Second, Jesus is saying that God has given humanity something of great value, something impossible to fully grasp.  And what is this great gift?  The Bible has told us over and over and Jesus preached it over and over, that it is love and grace.
 
Third, Jesus tells us that if we accept this gift of love, it is God’s expectation that we use the gift.  He has also indicated that doing so involves taking some risk.  Jesus has already said that the greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbor.  And Jesus tells us that investing this love in God’s kingdom will result in a growing love and an acceptance into God’s joy.
 
Let me get back to the story of my knife.  Several years after burying my treasure, I was emptying out my junk drawer, disposing of most of the contents and I came across my treasure map, with its directions to where the treasure could be found.  Out of curiosity, I went into the backyard with a trowel, measured off the distance from the fence, according to the map, dug down a few inches, and sure enough, there was the knife.  The box had disintegrated.  The knife was now completely encased in rust, the blades half gone and the folding mechanism inoperable.  The handle, once smooth and shiny and so marvelous was now scratched and fogged, and rivets that held the pieces together loose.  It was no longer a beauty, and it no longer had any use or value.  I laughed at my own ignorance as I carried it to the trash can.
 
My friends, Jesus tells us in this parable that God has given us the greatest gift of all, an abiding, unconditional love that surmounts all things.  God only asks one thing in return:  we are to use this gift to extend love to one another and expand the kingdom of God.  Let there be no mistake, the kingdom is here, now, all around us, and if we choose to bury this love as I did my knife, instead of investing it extending love to the kingdom around us, we will not experience the full value of the gift.  And if we take the risk, and share the love, we will be rewarded with a greater portion of love.  A worthy investment?  I think so.
 
Go forth to love one another and all of God’s creation and in Jesus’ words from the Gospel, “enter into the joy of your master.”
 
Amen