I teach high school English, and every day this week I gave a test to one of my classes. I gave two reading check quizzes, two vocabulary tests , one major unit test, and one in-class essay. Is this bringing back memories? For some students their anticipation is worse than the test. The fear of failure is crushing. They may study but on the day of the test freeze up. Oh, weeping and gnashing of teeth.
We have three test-takers in today’s Gospel. Let’s look at the test three slaves take and how they perform. One gets five talents, one gets two talents and one gets one talent. And then the master goes away. The test proctor has left the room, and they get to decide what to do with their talents. Just for reference, a talent in this time was a weight of money worth more than fifteen years’ wages for a laborer. Given the life-expectancy, that’s more than half the money you’d earn in your lifetime. This is life-changing money for all three.
The master comes back, the first slave has doubled his money, the second slave has doubled his, the third slave fearfully has buried his. The first two are rewarded and the third is punished, his money given to the first slave.
Let’s look at the possible outcomes that Jesus doesn’t include in the story: one slave trades with his money, and improves the value, but then loses it all just before the master returns, one goes trades with his money and loses most of it, but saves just a little, one trades with his money and comes back with only the initial investment. None of these failed outcomes are a part of Jesus’ parable. The message is clear: those who use their talents do not fail.
Today when we use the word talent, we mean skill or gifts, our “God-given talents. In the parable, the master’s gifts to his slaves are like God’s gifts to us. If we use our talents, if we act on what we are given, we can only succeed.
Now I am not talking about a guarantee of worldly success. Paul reminds us in today’s reading that the world’s standard’s of success, “peace and security,” is false and ends in destruction. Paul tells us the end will come like a thief in the night. We all sympathy for the third slave who buried his talent in the ground. In these economic times, it’s easy to see how he would be fearful and want to bury his money in the ground or put it under the mattress instead of give it to bankers. His response is like our fearful test-takers. For him and for us, it is not the test, but fear that prevents success.
Our third slave in the Gospel is like those who Paul writes about who live in darkness and in the night. When Jesus encourages believers to use their talents, twenty or thirty years later, Paul writes to a community that is doing just that. Paul knows that they love God and encourage one another. He has lived with them, worked side by side with them, risked his life with them. Paul calls these early Christians in Thessalonica, “Children of Light.”
We, too, are children of the light. We are living in the world’s night, but Jesus tells us that day has come. Night and day, darkness and light. the world’s success and God’s peace: absolute contrasts. We know what darkness and night look like, and we know the illusion of the world’s peace and security: housing prices fall, people lose their homes, retirement accounts lose value, people lose jobs. But what does the daylight and God’s peace and security look like?
I don’t always believe that it’s daylight. I don’t say to myself, “I am afraid,” but I act that way. In moments of crisis, those seemingly darkest moments, it is easy for me in fear to turn inward, to turn away from God and my neighbor. But sometimes I do remember that we are Children of Light. When my daughter broke her arm last month and needed surgery to set her broken bones. I remembered to pray, and I remembered to reach out to my community. You prayed for her, other friends helped in ways they could. Despite the pain and tears, I felt comforted and secure. I was still afraid, but I wasn’t alone. We lived that moment of the world’s darkness in Christ’s daylight.
Living in the light is not just for moments of crisis. In The Rule of St. Benedict, directions for monastic living, everyone is expected to help in the kitchen, barring illness or infirmity, so that all my exercise charity and then great reward is obtained. Washing dishes as an act of love! I’ll have remind my kids of that next time they do the dinner dishes. If even washing dishes can be a prayer to God and service to our neighbor, every moment of our lives can be lived connected to God and connected to our community, every moment can be a reminder that even thought the world lives in darkness, we live in the light. How much would my world change if in every moment I felt your love and God’s love, and in every action I loved you and loved God? These are not tests that God has given us to fail. These are opportunities to remember that we are Children of the light and we live in the day.
So what do we do now?
Using our talents also means encouraging others to use theirs. Here in a church community is where we can do that best. The church should be the place that helps people uncover and live out their gifts, but because we are human and fearful, we bring the world’s darkness with us. We fall short. In our reading from Judges, Deborah exercises her gifts of prophecy and leadership for the Israelites. We know that women have gifts for leadership. Between then and now, how long have women waited to again exercise gifts for leadership? How many still wait? The Christian church currently disagrees about whether to accept openly the gifts of service from those who are gay. How many wait? The list of those talents the church has buried in the ground is endless. We do not serve our gifts by burying someone else’s in darkness.
Live your gifts as Children of the light. Encourage others also. Christ will not fail us. Christ died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, whether we live in the day or live in the night, we may live with him. That is our great reward.