RISE UP AND SHINE
PARABLE OF THE TALENTS
DR. JIM DIXON
SEPTEMBER 23, 1991
MATTHEW 25:14-32
In the year 1956, Hollywood made a movie called “My Fair Lady.” The movie told the story of Eliza Doolittle, who was a cockney, impoverished London bag-lady. She had, seemingly, no potential in life; but she was transformed under the tutelage of a professor of phonetics and then passed off as British aristocracy. The story was taken from George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion.” That play was, in turn, taken or based on Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and upon the Greek mythological character of Pygmalion.
All of those stories describe transformation into greatness, and that is what most people in this world want. Most people in this world want, at least in some measure, to be transformed into greatness. Or, at least, they want to attain the fullness of their potential.
Now, we don’t all have the same potential. Casey Stengel was the manager for the New York Yankees. He was, of course, one of the most famous managers in baseball history. Casey Stengel was a great judge of potential. He also had a kind of flaky sense of humor. On one occasion when talking to a reporter, Casey Stengel said, “See that fellow over there? He’s 20 years old. Ten years from now, he has the potential to be a star. See that other fellow over there? He’s also 20 years old. Ten years from now he has the potential to be 30.” Casey Stengel was right. Everyone doesn’t have the same potential.
We vary in potential, but most people want to take whatever potential is theirs and maximize it. Most people in this world want to take whatever potential is theirs and attain the fullness of it. Sometimes, even Christians think that’s what the parable of the talents is all about. Some people think that the message of the parable of the talents is this: we all have different abilities, different aptitudes, different potentials. But the will of God in heaven is that we, as human beings, take our potentials, take our different abilities and reach our potentials—maximize ourselves. They believe, somehow, that’s the message of the parable of the talents: that we all need to maximize ourselves and reach fullness of potential, whatever our gifts, whatever our endowments.
That’s not the message of the parable of the talents. The parable of the talents has to do with the kingdom of heaven. It has to do with the service of the kingdom of heaven. The message that Jesus gave us in the parable of the talents is this: We do have different abilities. We have different endowments, we have different gifts, different resources. We are to take those gifts, those endowments, those resources—whatever they are—and use them not to maximize ourselves, but to maximize the kingdom of heaven. That we are to take those gifts, those endowments, those abilities, and use them for the service of the kingdom of heaven—so that the kingdom of heaven might reach its potential.
The truth of Scripture—and it’s a truth that is absolutely critical for all of us to understand—is this: if we spend our lives trying to maximize ourselves, it’ll only end in futility. But if we spend our lives trying to maximize Christ and His kingdom, it’ll produce joy and blessing and fulfillment. Now, as a church—Cherry Hills Community Church—we believe this. As a church, we live to maximize the kingdom of Jesus Christ. We want to use all of our gifts, resources, and abilities, so that the kingdom of Christ might prosper, so that His kingdom might advance, and so that His kingdom might be all that it’s meant to be.
Now, in this little parable, our Lord Jesus Christ condemned one of the servants. He condemned one of the servants, and He did it for three reasons. I would like us briefly to explore those three reasons.
First of all, He condemned this servant because the servant was worthless. He was of no use. Jesus called him “the worthless servant.” Worthless. The Greek word is “achrestos,” and it means “without use, without utility.” This man was of no service, no use to the kingdom of heaven.
Some of you have been to Egypt. You’ve been to Cairo. You’ve seen the banks of the Nile. Some of you have been to Giza, and you’ve seen the ten pyramids that are there. Some of you have seen the Great Pyramid, the pyramid of Khufu, whom the Greeks called Cheops. You’ve seen that Great Pyramid rising 500 feet into the sky, the equivalent of a 50-story building, it’s base covering 13 acres.
Within that great pyramid, there is the king’s chamber and the queen’s chamber. There’s also the Grand Gallery, which is 153 feet long and 28 feet high. The pyramid was built out of 2,300,000 stones, with the average stone weighing two and a half tons. If all of the stones in the great pyramid were recut into stones one foot square and lined up so that they touched each other in a straight line, they would cover two-thirds of the circumference of the earth. Now, I don’t know who figured that out, but I do know this: it took a lot of work to build the Great Pyramid.
How did they do it? They didn’t have modern day machinery. They didn’t have machinery at all. They didn’t have iron tools. How did they do it? Well, archeologists, historians, those who examine such things, tell us that they built the Great Pyramid using copper tools. They took limestone rocks and carved them into stone blocks using copper tools, some from nearby quarries and some from great distances. The stones were brought on boats and barges along the Nile. Then these great stones were dragged by people, dragged over sledges. Then they were dragged up ramps, and the ramps would take the stones up to the next layer. Then they would build the ramp to a higher elevation and drag the stones up to a higher layer . . . and so on.
It took years. It took hundreds of thousands of people working on this. The assumption is that these people must have been slaves or maybe captives from other nations and from other countries—slaves forced by the tyranny of these callous pharaohs to do this toil and labor. Sometimes movies in times past have portrayed the construction of the pyramids in this way. But it’s wrong.
Archeologists have now discovered that’s all wrong. The Great Pyramid wasn’t built by slaves. The Great Pyramid wasn’t built by captives from other nations. The Great Pyramid was built by people willingly. In fact, all the pyramids were built by Egyptian farmers who gladly gave four months out of every year. They considered it a great privilege to leave their farms and come and labor on those pyramids. They did it for the kingdom of the sun god, whom they called Ra. They did it for the pharaohs, who they regarded as intermediaries between the gods and men. They did it for the kingdom of Egypt, a kingdom that was to endure for 3,000 years on the earth. They considered it a great privilege to be of some use in glorifying the kingdom of Egypt.
Now, some of you are Christians. Some of you really believe in Jesus Christ. Some of you have really invited Him to sit on the throne. You want Him to be your Lord. You want to live for Him. Some of you trust Him as your Savior from sin. You know, as a Christian, that you’ve entered a kingdom. It’s called the kingdom of Christ. It’s called the kingdom of God. It’s called the kingdom of heaven. You know that this kingdom is not of this world. You know that it doesn’t last a mere 3,000 years. You know that it is eternal, that it lasts forever, that it never ends. You know that your King has called you to serve it.
How incredible that people and generations past have served earthly kingdoms that could never provide for the people. So many Christians today are unwilling to serve the kingdom of heaven. Our King does not call upon us to build monuments to the dead as the Egyptians did. Our King calls upon us to build facilities for the living and to minister within those facilities. That is what we at Cherry Hills Community Church want to do. But it requires that none of us be without worth. It requires that all of us take a part. It requires that all of us willingly become of some use, that we give ourselves to the furtherance of the kingdom of heaven.
You know how Jesus came into Jerusalem at the end of His earthly life. It was the beginning of passion week, His final week on earth. You know how He did not stay in Jerusalem that week. He stayed in Bethany, probably with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. You know how one day He journeyed from Jerusalem to Bethany with the disciples along that dirt road. As they journeyed, they saw that fig tree. Jesus went over and He saw that the fig tree was barren, and He cursed it. The disciples did not understand it. They’d never seen the Son of God curse a tree.
The next day, when they returned to Jerusalem and they saw the fig tree, they marveled. They were in awe because the fig tree had withered to the ground. They were in awe at the power of Christ, but they still didn’t understand. But they came to understand. They came to understand that the fig tree, as a symbol of Israel, represented Israel’s barrenness.
Israel had been called of God to bear fruit. Israel had been called of God, blessed by God in order to be a blessing. God had said, “By you, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” But Israel had refused to be of any use to the kingdom of God. The curse of God had come up on them.
God wants us to understand that we have been grafted into the tree of the kingdom. We have been called to bear fruit, so that we would not be worthless or of no use; rather, we would all seek to be productive—not for ourselves, but productive for the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “You’ve not chosen me. I’ve chosen you, and I’ve appointed you to go and bear fruit. Now your fruit should remain.” That’s the call of God in our life, and that’s why He said, “Seek first My kingdom.”
Now, this servant was condemned not only because he was of no worth, he was of no use to the kingdom, but he was also condemned because he would not risk. He was not willing to risk for the kingdom. Jesus not only said, “You worthless servant;” Jesus also said, “You slothful servant.” Now, unfortunately, this is not an accurate rendering of the Greek word Jesus used. The normal Greek word for sloth is the word “nothros,” the word which means “sluggish” or “slow.” That’s not the word used here.
The word that Jesus uses at this point is the word “okneros.” The word “okneros” does not mean sloth. It literally means “to shrink” or “to shrink back.” It means to be timid. It means to be fearful. Jesus was saying, “You timid servant, you fearful servant, too afraid to risk for the kingdom.” He just went and buried his talent. He just played it safe, and he was condemned.
Do you see the kind of people God is looking for? Do you see the kind of people the Son of God is looking for? People who do not just play it safe, but people who are willing to risk for the kingdom. People who do not just bury their talents, but people who want to multiply their talent for the kingdom’s sake. That is what our Lord Jesus Christ is looking for.
Some people say, “Well, this is awfully risky what Cherry Hills Community Church is doing right now . . . awfully risky. You know, it is risky. This building program, this capital stewardship campaign—what if we don’t raise the money? What if we get down there and some of our people don’t want to go?”
Of course, that is a risk. Though I must say, coming from California as Barb and I do, it’s hard to understand the attitudes that many of us in Colorado have about travel. We attended and grew up in a church that was 50 minutes from our house. My folks thought, “That’s quite a long drive. We need to find something close by.” So, we chose a church a half mile away. And we didn’t just go to that church on Sunday morning, we went there three to four times a week. My brothers and I were immersed in the life of that church. It was a half hour away, and most of the people in the church gladly came from a half hour’s distance. But here in Colorado, people aren’t used to that. Most of you will not have to travel a half hour to get to the new church site, but very few of you would have to travel more. Nevertheless, maybe that’s a risk.
Maybe the risk is that we get down there and some people might not want to come. Some people say, “What if we get down there and the people in that community don’t want to join us?” That’s risky. Of course, the only response we can give is that we feel called. The session of Cherry Hills Community Church has felt called. The staff has felt called. After much prayer, we feel called, and we are simply trying to obey—to obey and be willing to risk for the kingdom’s sake.
I think some people really aren’t so much afraid of the church’s risk as they are of the risk that they’re being asked to take with respect to their own giving. I mean, that sounds risky. We’ve asked you to give and to support this work. What if the money you give is needed down the road in your life? I’m sure many of you think of that, and it seems risky.
God wants you to understand that when you invest in the kingdom of heaven and when you invest in the church of Christ, you can’t make a better investment. You know, Barb and I have been married for 20 years. We just this year celebrated our 20th anniversary. To celebrate, we went and had dinner at the Penrose room at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. Now the Penrose room is on top of the east building of the Broadmoor. Of course, there in the Penrose room, you can spend $25 for a dinner that you could buy for $10 anywhere else. But the great thing about the Penrose room is the view. If you’ve ever been up in that room, you know how on one side it looks down on the Broadmoor Lake in the front range. On the other side, it looks out at Colorado Springs and the plains.
The room was named after Spencer Penrose. Spencer Penrose came to Colorado in the year 1891. When he came to Colorado, his family made fun of him. They said, “This is crazy.” Particularly, his brother Boies Penrose said, “That’s crazy going all the way out west where it’s uncivilized.” Spencer Penrose came anyway. When he got here to Colorado, he decided he wanted to invest in a mine or invest in mining. So, he wrote his brother Boies Penrose and asked him to send $1,500. “Send $1,500 and invest with me in this mining deal. His brother wrote him back and said, “There’s no way I’m going to invest in a mining deal with you. That’s too risky. However, I am enclosing $150, and I want you to use this to take the train back home. Use it for any other incidental in expenses, but I want you to come home and give up this craziness.” Well, Spencer Penrose didn’t go home. He took that $150 from his brother; and instead of using it on the train, he put it into the investment.
One year later, Spencer Penrose went back to the East Coast and gave his brother Boies Penrose $75,000 in gold coins. His brother said, “What’s this?” He said, “It’s your return on your investment.” Boies Penrose said, “Well, I didn’t invest in your deal.” He said, “I sent you $150, but that was for various expenses and getting you back here.” Spencer said, “Well, I took it and put it into the investment and this is your return. If you’d done what I asked you to do and sent $1,500, I’d be giving you $750,000 in gold coin today.”
Now, I think most of you know that investments don’t normally work like that. You’ve been involved in enough investments. You just know it doesn’t normally turn out like that, particularly with risky investments. You know that in risky investments, normally you send the money out and you don’t get anything back. But God wants you to understand: you can’t make a better investment than the kingdom of heaven and the church of Christ.
If some of you have had bad luck in your investments, try investing in the kingdom of heaven. Try investing in the church of Christ. You’ll be amazed at how God will bless you, how He will open up the windows of heaven for you and pour down an overflowing blessing. How He will give to you in full measure—”pressed down, shaken together, overflowing”—and how you will reap abundantly.
Christ is looking for a people willing to be of use to His kingdom and willing to risk for His kingdom. As a church, we could just play it safe. A lot of churches do. We could just say this is it. We could bury the talent. I don’t know what the future would hold, and I don’t want to find out. Maybe we would, by the grace of God, stay about as we are. Maybe we would begin to shrink in the upcoming years to match the Sunday school facility and the parking lot. But I know this: the call of God is upon us. His message is clear. The only question is, “Are we going to be faithful?”
Now, this servant was condemned because he was of no use and he was not willing to risk; but he was also condemned because he was wicked. Jesus didn’t simply say, “You worthless servant.” He didn’t simply say, “You slothful servant.” Jesus said, “You wicked servant.” Doesn’t that seem strange? I mean, what was so evil about this guy? Does that seem fair? What was so wicked about this man? I mean, all he did was take his master’s money, bury it, and give it back. What was so wicked?
The word that Jesus uses is a very unusual word, not the normal word for evil, not the normal word for wicked. The normal Greek word for wicked and for evil is the word “kakos,” which means “intrinsically evil,” “evil,” “wicked in character.” That’s not the word Jesus uses here. The word Jesus uses here is the word “poneros.” It is based on the Greek word “ponos,” which means “pain” or “toil.” This word was used to describe people who were not wicked intrinsically, but wicked in their effect, wicked in their effect on their surroundings—they produced wicked results. It was used to describe people who caused others pain. It was used to describe people who caused others toil. It was used to describe people who caused others hardship. To describe people who were painful, wicked, evil in their effect. That’s the word Christ uses.
Now, we need to understand that the context is the kingdom of heaven. And in the kingdom of heaven, wherever you have people who are not willing to be of any use . . . whenever you have people who are not willing to risk, but just want to play it safe . . . they’re always going to produce pain. They’re always going to produce toil for others. They’re always going to be wicked and evil in their effect.
The kingdom of heaven exists to bless people, to be light in the darkness, to offer life and hope and joy to children and adults. When members of the kingdom of heaven do nothing, when they’re not willing to be of any use, when they’re not willing to take a risk, the result is pain. Somebody that would’ve been blessed has pain, and those who are willing to do the work have to do more work. Their toil is increased.
Some of you might remember a few years ago reading in the newspaper about a woman who died on the streets of New York City. Her name was Kitty Genovese. Incredible story. Kitty Genovese was raped and murdered right on the street in New York City. It took one half hour for the rape and murder to take place—one half hour, as a gang of young men raped her and murdered her. Now, the amazing thing was that the police discovered that there were many people who had witnessed this. Thirty-eight people, the police discovered, had actually seen the rape and murder. Some of them had watched it on the street, some from their office, some from their room or their apartment. They just watched it.
Were these people intrinsically evil? Was their character wicked? When the police examined all 38 of these people later, the police discovered that none of them wanted this to happen to the woman. They all felt horrible. Every one of them. Some of them were afraid because the gang of young men were many in number. They were afraid that if they went and tried to intervene, they’d get hurt.
Then the police said, “Well, why didn’t you at least call the police department?” All 38 of these people said, “Well, you know, we thought surely somebody else was doing that. We thought surely somebody was calling.” You see, when good people do nothing, evil prospers. Were they wicked? In their effect, yes. When we do nothing, there’s going to be pain and there’s going to be hardship. In the church of Christ, certainly it is true.
You know, it’s a risky thing to go and teach a Sunday school class. It’s a risky thing. But if someone doesn’t do it, there’s going to be pain in children’s lives and hardship for the few teachers who are willing to do it. When we do nothing, it always produces evil in its effect. It’s risky to be of use to the kingdom. It’s risky to give a sacrificial gift financially. But if we don’t do it, there are children who won’t have a Sunday school space. There are men and women who don’t know Jesus Christ and have heard that something’s happening at Cherry Hills. . . . that it’s a little different over there. So, they drive over here and can’t get in the parking lot because good people did nothing. It causes pain and it causes hardship.
You know, the Denver Broncos play the San Diego Chargers at 2 PM today. I’m sure many of you will see the game. I’m planning on watching it. People say it’s a critical game. It’s always a critical game for Denver, always critical. I’m told the Chargers have a great defensive line and a great rush. Now, what if a member of the Denver Broncos offensive line just says, “I’m going to take the day off. I’m going to just sit there, just vegetate, just take up space.” What if a member of the offensive line says that? There’s going to be pain for John Elway. There’s going to be pain for the whole Broncos team and for all the fans. There’s going to be pain. Maybe somebody else is going to have to toil harder. It’s always that way when some members of the team aren’t willing to be of any use.
It’s that way in the church because we’re a team. So, I can guarantee you, the future of the Denver Broncos is only as bright as the willingness of each individual member of that team to take a part, to be of use. The future of Cherry Hills Community Church is only as bright as the willingness of each individual member to play a part, to be of use, to take a risk for the kingdom’s sake. Let’s close with a word of prayer.