PARABLE OF THE TALENTS
STEWARDSHIP SUNDAY
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 25:14-30
JUNE 3, 2001
The end of our church’s fiscal year is coming up, and I promised the elder board and the finance committee that I would share a message on stewardship with you, the congregation. Our passage is taken from Matthew 25. What I want to do is focus on the basic principles of stewardship in the life of the Christian. So we’re going to take a look at the Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25, and that begins with verse 14.
“For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one, he gave five talents; to another, two; and to another one, each according to this ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’” (Matthew 25:14-30).
This ends the reading from God’s holy word. Let’s pray together before we begin the message. Dear Father, we would be good stewards of our time, talent, and treasure. Anoint Your Word and give us ears to hear. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. In Jesus’s name we pray, amen.
Numismatics is the technical term for the science of coins and metals. Particularly speaking, numismatics refers to the world of coin collecting. Now, I have here a number of coin books from my childhood, when I was just a little guy. Barb and I were cleaning out the basement, and we found these. This one is for the Jefferson nickel. This is for the Benjamin Franklin half-dollar. And here are ones for the Liberty Head or the Morgan-style silver dollar, the Mercury dime, Washington Head quarter, etc. I have many more of these at home. The only problem with these is if you open them up, there’s nothing inside. Apparently, I didn’t really collect coins. I collected coin books! But there are people out there who actually collect coins.
Some people collect coins as a hobby. Some people collect coins as an investment, seeking rare coins that will increase in value. Some people collect coins nationally, seeking to attain all of one nation’s coins. Others collect coins globally, seeking at least one coin from every nation on the earth. Some people collect coins thematically. They’ll collect coins that portray animals, or they will collect coins that portray ships, or they’ll collect coins that portray famous women. Of course you can learn a lot about famous people from coin collecting, and you can learn a lot about history from coin collecting.
There are people who collect coins from biblical history. There are people who collect coins from the biblical era. There are coin collectors out there who have the Roman denarius. They have the Greek drachma and the tetradrachm, and they have the Hebrew shekel and half-shekel and quarter-shekel. But in the entire world of numismatics, there’s not a single coin collector who has the Hebrew talent. Nobody has the Hebrew talent, and the reason nobody has the Hebrew talent is because the Hebrew talent was not a coin. It was the highest monetary unit for the Jews, but it was not a coin. It was a unit of weight. The talent was equal to approximately 80 pounds of weight, although some historians and scholars believe it was equal to 120 pounds of weight. But its worth varied, depending on whether it was a silver talent or a gold talent or a copper or bronze talent. The most common talent in the Jewish world was the silver talent, and the likelihood is that in the Parable of the Talents Jesus was referring to the silver talent.
How much was a silver talent worth? You can look in the margin of your NIV translation of the Bible, and it will tell you that a silver talent was worth about $1,000. Nothing could be further from the truth. The new RSV is far closer to the truth when, in its footnote, it tells us that the silver talent was equal in value to more than 15 years’ of wages. That is far closer to the truth.
You see, in the Roman world, the average day laborer was paid a denarius a day. That was equal to the Greek drachma, which was also for one day’s labor. In Israel the day laborer received a quarter shekel. A quarter-shekel was equal to one denarius or one drachma. A full shekel was worth 4 days’ wages. A full shekel was equal to four denarii. So how much was the silver talent worth in Israel? It was worth 3,000 shekels. Three thousand shekels, therefore equaled 12,000 denarii. It would take the average day laborer 12,000 working days to earn the equivalent of one silver talent. It was almost equal to 40 years’ labor.
Even if it wasn’t the Hebrew silver talent that Jesus was referring to—if He was referring to the Roman Attic talent—it still would have been 6,000 denarii, which would have been almost 20 years’ labor. It was a lot of money. Even the man in the parable who received the one talent was given a lot of money. And that’s only if it’s a silver talent. The gold talents were 15 times the silver talents in value.
So we come to this Parable of the Talents. We examine this very critical subject of stewardship, what stewardship requires in your life and in my life and in the life of all Christians. There are three principals we see in this parable. The first principal is the principal of ownership.
Now, the Yakama Indian Nation has a long and proud history. Today many of the Yakama Indians dwell on the Yakama Indian Reservation in the south and southwest regions of the State of Washington. Currently, the Yakama Indian Nation is in the midst of a great dispute with the federal government of the United States, and it’s over the subject of rain. It seems that in the State of Washington there’s a federal agency called the Bonneville Power Administration. The Bonneville Power Administration regulates and disburses the energy from the federal dams along the Columbia River. There’s been a drought in that region of the United States. Apparently a representative of the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agent, was talking to an Indian chief from the Yakama Indian Nation. He was complaining about this absence of rain and how it was affecting the federal dams along the Columbia River.
This Indian chief went back to the Yakama Indian Nation. Apparently in early March of this year, they performed two rain dances. The precipitation along the Columbia River since then has still been below normal, but it has been higher since then than it was before then. The Yakama Indian Nation has billed the federal government $32,000. The federal government says, “We’re not paying it!” A representative of the federal government said, “We don’t pay God for rain.” That’s an interesting statement with really some theological implications.
Who owns the rain? I mean, whatever you think of this dispute between the Yakama Indian Nation and the federal government, who owns the rain? The Bible is pretty clear. The Bible is very clear. God owns the rain. Not Mother Nature. Not the Yakama Indian Nation. Not the federal government. God owns the rain. In fact, God owns everything. The Bible says in Psalm 24, and Paul quotes it in I Corinthians chapter 10, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein. He has founded it upon the rivers, He has established it upon the seas.” It’s all His. Everything belongs to God. We who live in this world are simply stewards. We own nothing. We’re just stewards as long as we’re here. It’s all owned by God. This is the first principal of stewardship. We can’t be good stewards unless we first understand that God is the owner of everything.
When you drive home today, it’s not really your home, and you’ll never really be a good steward unless you understand that. It’s not your home. It belongs to God. When you get in your car in the parking lot, it’s not your car. You might think it belongs to the bank. It’s not the bank’s car. I mean, theologically it belongs to God, and this is foundational to stewardship. When you go out to lunch or brunch today and you pay that bill, it’s not your money. You can’t be a good steward unless you really understand this. Everything belongs to God.
So in this Parable of the Talents, the master entrusts to his servants what? His property. What does he say to the worthless, slothful servant? “You should have invested my money with the bankers where, upon my return, I would have had what was my own and with interest.” We can’t be good stewards unless we understand this principal of ownership.
Now, most of you, if you’re Christians, have been baptized. I’ve been baptized three times. I was baptized as an infant. I was baptized when I joined the church (it was kind of a mistake. In Presbyterian tradition, you’re only supposed to be baptized once). And then I was baptized in the River Jordan just because I had the opportunity and, you know, I’m a great sinner. Three baptisms! What does baptism represent? It represents regeneration and rebirth in some Bible passages. In other passages it represents the forgiveness of sins—the cleansing, the washing of regeneration. In other Bible passages, it represents death and resurrection. But in the early Church, it’s curious to see that oftentimes baptism was associated with ownership—that as you went under the water in full immersion, you were relinquishing everything to the Lord—all that you are, body and soul, everything to the Lord, acknowledging His ownership. That’s why, in the early church, most Christians used the word doulos to describe themselves—slaves. Their very lives were not their own. God is the owner.
In the year 800, Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day by Pope Leo III. After that, he began to drive opposing armies into the sea and into the rivers and into the lakes, forcing them to receive Christian baptism. When you come to the 12th Century, later in the Middle Ages, Frederick Barbarossa did the same thing. He was Holy Roman Emperor, driving opposing armies into the sea, into rivers, into lakes, forcing them to receive Christian baptism.
There are strange stories that come out of that time. People in pagan armies driven into the waters, forced to receive baptism… They held their battle swords and their battleaxes out of the water, refusing to take them under, refusing to relinquish their weapons of war to the ownership of Christ and Christendom.
Nobody, of course, can force you to receive Christian baptism. It doesn’t work like that today. No one forced me to receive Christian baptism. That choice is yours, but it seems today like a lot of people will hold their wallets out of the water. I mean, it really does. God owns everything but my money. God owns everything but my bank account. God owns everything but my financial assets. The Parable of the Talents makes it very clear: even our money belongs to Him. He is the owner. We’ll never be good stewards with regard to our money unless we acknowledge that and understand that.
Well, there’s a second principal, and the second principal is not ownership but productivity. God seeks productivity from His stewards. You look at the etymology of the word “steward” and it’s kind of interesting. The word steward, etymologically, comes from the AngloSaxon. Saxon landowners were very wealthy. Saxon landlords were very wealthy. They made most of their money off of pigs and cattle. They put their cattle in huge enclosures, many acres in size, and the enclosures were called stigs, the Anglo-Saxon word “stig,” which means enclosure.
They put their pigs into smaller enclosures, usually less than an acre in size, but that enclosure was also called a stig. Then they placed—the landowners and the landlords, the Saxon landlords—a servant in charge of the enclosures. That servant was called a “wearden,” the Anglo Saxon word meaning “guardian.” So these people who guarded the enclosures of cattle and of pigs were called “stigweardens.” Of course they weren’t just expected to guard the enclosure and the cattle and the pigs. They were expected to “prosper” the cattle and the pigs, to care for them, to feed them, to provide for them and to grow them so that they grew in size and in number, and all for the sake of the Saxon landlord—the owner, the master. They were stigweardens.
Eventually, as the word evolved, stigwearden became stigwarden, and stigwarden became stigward, and stigward became styward, and styward became steward. Here we have the word steward, stigwearden, and that’s what we’re called to be: guardians of the enclosure. Within your enclosure, everything belongs to God. Everything in your life, everything within the fence of your life, it all belongs to God and you are the “wearden,” the guardian, and you are to prosper it. You are to grow it, quantitatively and qualitatively, and all for the sake of the Master. He wants you to be productive.
You come to the Gospel of Matthew, in the 21st chapter, and you see that very curious passage of scripture where Jesus has just cleansed the temple and turned over the tables of the moneychangers. Then He goes to Bethany, probably to spend the night with Mary and Martha. He’s returning to Jerusalem the next morning. He sees a barren fig tree, and He curses it. He curses a barren fig tree, and it withers to the ground. What’s that all about? Why did Jesus, why did the Son of God, curse a tree towards barrenness?
We understand when we see that the fig tree was a symbol of Israel. Israel was barren, and Israel was cursed. He did this as a metaphor, that we might understand that fruitlessness and barrenness is cursed. We have been called to bear fruit. And so the gospel was given to the gentiles. Jesus said to His disciples, “You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you. I have appointed you to go and bear much fruit, that your fruit should abide.” We are called to be fruit bearers, and we are called to be productive. This is part of stewardship, that we would be productive, not just towards ourselves but toward the kingdom of heaven. That is of course the point of the Parable of the Talents. It’s all for the Master.
In the year 1964, I was 18 years old. I remember taking a date to the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood to see the movie My Fair Lady, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. It won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Of course it told the story of Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney, impoverished London bag lady who seemingly was lacking any potential and destined for insignificance. Through the tutoring of a professor of phonetics, she was transformed. She underwent a metamorphosis, and they were able to pass her off as British aristocracy. Of course the whole movie, My Fair Lady, was really based on Shaw’s play Pygmalion. Of course the character of Pygmalion was based on Ovid’s Metamorphosis. The Greeks used that word “metamorphosis,” which means “transformation,” to describe a person’s rise to meet his or her full potential. That was your metamorphosis as you rose to reach your full potential and all the transformation involved in that rise to the fullness of your potential.
In the Bible, in Romans 12, this Greek word “metamorphosis” is used to describe the Christian’s rise to the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ, that we are transformed into the likeness of Christ and into the image of Christ and reaching our full potential in Christ as our metamorphosis.
Some people think, “Well, that’s what the Parable of the Talents is all about—our transformation, our reaching our full potential.” The idea would be that God has given us talents and abilities and aptitudes and giftedness, and that we are to cultivate them and become all that we can be. But that’s not really the point of the Parable of the Talents. It’s really not about you reaching your potential, and it’s not about me reaching my potential. It’s not about you becoming all you can be, and it’s not about me becoming all I can be.
The Parable of the Talents is about the kingdom of heaven. When you look at it contextually in Matthew 25, it’s all about the kingdom of heaven and whether or not we want the kingdom of heaven to experience metamorphosis and growth…whether the kingdom of heaven is going to become all it can be…whether it will reach the fullness of its potential. We’re all called to be part of that. We’re all called to the service of the Master and of His kingdom. It’s not about us reaching the fullness of our potential, but His kingdom reaching the fullness of its potential. That’s what is understood by the good steward. I promise you, when you stand before Christ at the consummation, it’s not only going to be whether we have grown and reached our potential in Christ. That is important—that our character be transformed—but it’s also going to be about whether we have sought the kingdom’s growth and whether we have sought to prosper the Master and His kingdom.
I know there are many of you who are probably reading the book The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson. The Prayer of Jabez is a very popular book today. Almost 5 million copies have sold right here in America. In the last four weeks, it has been the number one seller on the USA Today bestseller list. Surely many of you have read this book. Some of you are repeating the prayer of Jabez daily. Of course that prayer is found in I Chronicles, chapter 4, verses 9-10. The prayer of Jabez as Bruce Wilkinson quotes it, is, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me and that You would keep me from evil that I may not cause pain.”
Biblically we know very little about Jabez. We know he’s descended from the Tribe of Judah and was a tribal leader. We know that he was said to be more honorable than his brothers. We know that God answered his prayer, that God did bless him, that God did enlarge his borders. God enlarged his coast. God enlarged his territory. We know that God did indeed protect him and keep him from evil or harm. We know that God did these things.
Of course Hebrew scholars remind us that the more likely translation of the end of that prayer is not that “You would keep me from evil that I may not cause pain” but the more likely translation is that “You would keep me from harm that I would not experience pain.” Of course there are a lot of scholars out there who find the prayer of Jabez to be a little selfish. “Enlarge my borders. Enlarge my territory. Bless me. Keep me from any harm. Don’t allow me to experience any pain.”
Now, in fairness to Bruce Wilkinson, I want to say (and I respect him greatly, and he’s the founder of the Walk Through The Bible Series, which is just an excellent series) he does point out that when you say “enlarge my territory” you should be thinking of the territory of your service and the territory of your ministry, and that’s a good prayer. If you say “enlarge my territory,” and you mean the territory of your service and the territory of your ministry so that you may further the cause of God, that’s a great prayer. But, of course, you all know the danger here, that when you pray the prayer of Jabez, you’d be self-serving, and it would be “all about me.” Prosper me. Enlarge my territory. Make me rich. Make me great. Keep me from all evil and never let any harm come to me. Keep me from any pain.
I’d bet you, I know there are a lot of people praying it just like that. I would remind you that in the Bible, the prayer that is given to us as an example is The Lord’s Prayer. It’s The Lord’s Prayer where the Bible says, “When you pray, pray like this.” It does not say that with regard to the prayer of Jabez. Certainly, if you’re praying the prayer of Jabez, seek to be servant-hearted as you pray it because our focus as good stewards needs to be not the building of our own kingdoms and our own territories, but the building of His kingdom and the building of His territory. Our focus should be productivity for Him with your time, with your talent, and with your treasure.
None of us know how much time we have. I don’t know how much time I have. It’s not my time. It’s God’s time. He could take me home whenever He wants. Time is short. Whatever talent I have, whether it’s 5 or 2 or 1; whatever treasure I have, whether it’s 5 or 2 or 1; it’s all to be used for the productivity of the kingdom of heaven. That’s to be my priority, and that’s to be your priority.
You know today, as you sit here in this worship center, whether you’ve acknowledged the ownership of God and whether you’re seeking to be productive first for His kingdom with your time and your talent and your treasure. As we close, the final point of this parable concerns accountability. I want you to know we’re all going to be held accountable. That’s what this parable makes so clear. We’re all going to be held accountable. The master in the parable returns to settle accounts. Of course one day Jesus Christ, the Master, will return to judge the world and to receive His people unto Himself, and He will settle accounts. If we do not live to that day, we still go to Him when we die, and there will be accountability. We all must experience accountability, and we are culpable for the way we’ve lived.
As we look at this parable, we see two destinies. To two of the servants, the master says, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” but to the third, the master says, “You wicked and slothful servant.” To the two, he says, “Enter into the joy of My kingdom.” To one, it is said, “Cast him into the outer darkness.” Two destinies. Really, there’s a choice that must be made, that you must make and I must make. That choice is this: who are we going to serve? Am I going to serve myself or am I going to serve Christ? Because that’s really what this parable is all about. Who are you going to serve? Are you going to serve yourself, or are you going to serve Christ?
I was watching the A&E channel some time ago, and they were interviewing Sean Connery. He had just recently been knighted by the British Monarchy. They asked Sean Connery if he was going to make any more James Bond movies. He laughed and said he was too old. They asked him if there was any movie that he would like to do a sequel to. He said, “Well, there is one.” He said, “I would like to do another one of the Indiana Jones movies.” He said, “I had a lot of fun with that.” Of course he played the father of Indiana Jones in the third movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
If you remember that movie, you remember at the end of the movie, Indy and his father, played by Sean Connery, and the Nazis were all at the secret cave and chamber where the Holy Grail of Christ was hidden. There was a crusader knight guarding the Holy Grail. The problem was to find the real Holy Grail because there was this shelf of like a hundred different cups, a hundred different grails.
The Nazi commander, you remember, chose the most adorned cup, the ornate one. He drank from that cup, and he drank judgement upon himself. It was like his body was cremated in a moment in time. Then Indy chose the humble cup of the carpenter from Nazareth. He chose the cup of Christ. When the Nazi commander chose his cup, the crusader knight said, “He chose poorly.” When Indy chose the cup, the crusader knight said, “You have chosen wisely.”
We all make choices in life. We all have critical choices to make, and the consequences can be in the extreme. The great choice that we must make with the most extreme consequences has to do with who we serve, whether its ourselves or whether its Christ.
In Deuteronomy, chapter 30, verse 19, God says to Israel, “I call heaven and earth to testify against you, that this day I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose life.” I know in a sense He says that to us today. Choose life. “I set before you life and death, blessing and cursing.” How do we choose life? We choose life when we choose to serve Christ as opposed to serving ourselves. In a sense it’s a choice we make every day. Certainly it’s not enough to go forward at an altar call and then just live for yourself. I think millions of people do that. They go forward at an altar call and then they just live for themselves. By their lives, they show the real choice they’ve made. You see, we’re called to choose Christ and to seek to live for Him, that it might be reflected in everything we do every day and the way we use our time and the way we use our talent and the way we use our treasure.
So we have these three principals. He is the owner of everything. Everything within the enclosure of your life belongs to Him. We are just stigweardans, stewards. The second point is productivity. We are called to bear fruit for the kingdom of heaven, to be productive for the Master. The third point is accountability. One day we will be weighed as to how we have lived and whether we have served ourselves or Him. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.