Five, Two, or One?

            How many talents do you have?

            It’s a topic Saturday Sisters talked about today when we met for breakfast. The discussion was based on the story Jesus told in Matthew 25. A departing master left his servants in charge of five, two, and one talent. They were to invest the talents and account for them when he returned.

Most of us decided that we wanted to be the servant who was given five talents—it was the most. Don’t we usually want to get in line for the most of almost anything? Others of us decided we we’d be happy with two, the middle ground. No one liked the idea of the servant who got only one talent.

As I’ve read this story during my life, I’ve had mixed reactions.  I don’t have five talents—I’m not sure I even have two. I’m probably the one-talent servant. At other times I’ve sided with the one-talent guy who at least returned the single talent to his master—he didn’t lose it in the stock market. Why did the master get so angry with the servant? Was that fair? As I’ve said before, these are the kinds of thoughts I didn’t say out loud, especially at church. Today at breakfast I confessed to those thoughts. I don’t think I’m alone.

I’ve tended to think of the talents in the passage as pennies, not really anything of enormous significance. Even silver dollars wouldn’t be worth much in our economy. As I’ve pulled the story into my culture and my lifetime, it became distorted until a few weeks ago. 

In his book, Spark, Jason Jaggard bridged the culture of New Testament times and today in examining Jesus’ story. Context is everything! In this case it’s essential.

In today’s economy, the servant who got five talents received the equivalent of $2.5 million. The servant receiving two talents took on $1 million. Can you guess what the third servant got? The equivalent of working twenty years at minimum wage, which equals $500,000!

Now I understand why the master was so angry! Now I want to say, What were you thinking—or not thinking? What have you been doing for all this long time the master was away? Sitting on the site of the buried $500,000?

Oh, wait a minute. When was the last time God asked me to something and I stalled? When was the last time I wished someone was behind me when I knew God was giving me an opportunity to speak truth into a situation? When was the last time I had a pity party because someone else was better than me at blah, blah, blah? When, when, when was I . . .? Guess there’s a little of the third servant in me.

How many talents do you have? What is in your hand to use for God’s service? Whether it’s much or little, it’s still a lot. Even though our economy is shaky right now, investing for the Kingdom of God is never a risk.

So, how much have ya got, and whatcha gonna do?