Royal Investments

How many of you have ever taken a ride on the Montreal Metro or commuter train? Have you ever noticed the advertising on the cars? If you have, I’m sure you’ve also noticed one category of advertising in particular. Here’s an example: “an MBA at John Molson School of business will take your career to the next level.” Here’s another: “jump-start your career by enrolling at LaSalle College.” The suggestion of this kind of advertising is that there are all kinds of really valuable secrets out there -- secrets that could change your life if you were only willing to pay the secret-keepers to divulge their secrets. But if we pay too much attention to advertising like this, we might start to imagine that learning these important life-changing secrets is just a matter of hearing them.

But we know that that isn’t how life works. Learning is only as easy as hearing for the secrets that don’t matter much; it never is when it comes to important things in life. When Paul wrote about our salvation -- one of the most important things he wrote about -- he pled with his readers to “work out [their] salvation with fear and trembling,” because he understood this principle: our salvation is worth the investment of time and care and effort. And when Jesus talked about our salvation, he ...spoke in parables -- for the same reason. Because parables might be simple, but parables certainly aren’t easy. Anyone who thinks that Jesus’ parables are easy is only pretending to understand them. In Matthew chapter 13, the disciples came to Jesus and asked him why he spoke in parables and in verse 10, we read:

 “And Jesus replied, ‘The knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom of God has been given to you. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.’”

Now isn’t that a curious reply to the question “Why do you speak to people in parables?” It is almost a parable in itself! But whatever else Jesus is saying here, he is making a strong connection between his parables and “the secrets of the Kingdom of God.” But parables are not like courses at community college: instead of a collection of facts that many people acknowledge to be true, parables can be a source of great controversy and puzzlement. Jesus’ parables can be very difficult to understand, and they can be even more difficult to put into practice -- because, of course, putting the teachings of Jesus into practice is vastly more important than simply understanding them.

As most of you know, I have a hobby that some people think is all about “secrets.” Now I know that many of you have seen this before, but if I were to take one of my business cards, and make it disappear… well, it isn’t magic, of course. There is a secret to it. But there isn’t just one secret. There are secrets on at least three levels. There is the appreciating level of secret -- a secret that you know -- and I’m happy to give that to you: “I quickly put the business card where you couldn’t see it.” :-) Now if you aren’t satisfied with that as an explanation, that’s good: that means you are looking for the next level of secret: the apprehending level. That is, knowing isn’t enough: you want to understand -- you’d like me to show you where the card was hidden, and how it got there. But even if I were to explain all that to you (which I won’t), some would still be unsatisfied. Some might want me to train you how to do it: because the last level of secret is the apprenticing level -- where you don’t just know; you don’t just understand; you actually come to own the secret.

Playing the piano is similar. At a appreciating level, the “secret” of playing the piano is simply putting your fingers on the right keys, but just knowing that has no value. At a apprehending level, the “secret” of playing the piano requires a bunch of theory, until you understand the connections between that theory and the marks on the page and the keys on the piano, but that isn’t enough to enable you to play the piano. For the likes of me, what Medad does on the piano is thoroughly amazing. But if you were to beg him to reveal his secrets, he would likely look at you with that smile, and ask if you were ready to put in the time and effort -- are you really willing to sit down and let him train you? He might start with scales. And after weeks of playing scales, you might say, “No, seriously: what are your secrets.” And he’d then get you to do those scales with two hands. Over and over and over. It might involve ear training. “But that’s difficult,” you might say. Quite right. “But that’s boring,” you might say. Perhaps. But the real secrets of playing the piano are not just in the head -- they are in the fingers and in the ears as well. Similarly, the real secrets of sleight of hand are in the hands and in the attitude.

Now the secrets of the Kingdom of God are all apprenticeship-level secrets, or, if you prefer, discipleship-level secrets. If we are satisfied with knowing, or even understanding, then we are just hearers of the word. Instead, we need to invest in the “higher level secrets”, the ones that we can’t get by just listening to a sermon -- we need to own them.

It would be awesome if everyone here this morning left church praying that God would train them to be a disciple. You need to know what kind of practice is necessary, and then become so adept at it, it comes naturally. Because putting the teachings of Jesus into practice is vastly more important than simply understanding them. So as we approach one of Jesus’ parables this morning, let’s be on the lookout for some of those secrets of the Kingdom of God. Reading from Matthew 25, starting at verse 14...

“For [the Kingdom of God] will be like a man going on a journey, who called his staff and entrusted to them his valuables. 15 To one he gave five million dollars, to another two million, to another one million, each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received five million dollars went at once and traded, and he made five million more. 17 So also he who had two million dollars made two million more. 18 But he who had received one million dollars went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received five million dollars came forward, bringing five million more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five million dollars; here, I have made five million more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with something small; I will appoint you to something great: enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had two million dollars came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two million dollars; here, I have made two million more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with something small; I will appoint you to something great: enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received one million dollars 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, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your money in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed[?] 27 So you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 Now take the money from him and give it to him who has ten million dollars. 29 For whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Ok: the contours of this parable are certainly familiar to anyone who grew up going to Sunday School. And it is all so familiar… with one small exception, that we need to get out of the way before we proceed. As most of you know, in the King James Version -- and many other versions -- of the Bible, the Greek word that my translation renders “one million dollars” is rendered with the word “talent”, which, in the English language, means a natural gift. But in Jesus’ day, that word meant something like “kilogram” -- it was just a unit of weight (about 50kg). And in the context of money, that amount of silver would be enough to pay a typical worker’s salary for twenty years. So if you do the math using Quebec’s median household income, it’s about one million dollars.

So let’s let go of the idea that this parable is about what we now call “talents”. The point of the parable is not at all to tell us to develop our natural gifts. After all, of all the people who have ever lived, Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God and Lord of Creation, was certainly more than capable of composing exquisite music or writing beautiful literature or designing helpful technology, but the fact that he didn’t do any of those things proves that a life dedicated to God and His glory doesn’t require that kind of talent-development at all. But if the money in the parable isn’t representing talents, then what does it represent? It is a very important question; but we’ll save it for later.

But before we get back to that, let’s ask what else the parable is telling us? What can we know from the parable before we discover what the money represents? Three quick things. First, this parable is telling us that life isn’t fair. Some people get more; some people get less - one servant received five times as much as another. There is just no avoiding unfairness in this life. And most modern efforts toward “equality” -- no matter how well-intentioned, no matter how well the government legislates and polices it (because governments do that kind of thing so well?) -- those efforts inevitably result in some people being “more equal than others” (thank you, George Orwell). You know it is true. Life just isn’t fair.

But that’s not the end of the story. When we arrive at the end of the parable, when the master returns, we discover a different kind of fairness -- an ultimate fairness -- is in play. What does the master say to the first two servants? His commendation of them is word-for-word identical, isn’t it? (he says)
Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with something small; I will appoint you to something great: enter into the joy of your master.

Hold on. Did you notice that this master is saying that five million dollars is “something small”? Wouldn’t it be nice if someone wanted to invest in you to the tune of even one million dollars? What an amazing opportunity and privilege that would be! But the master says that this was just “something small.” Now that’s the kind of person I want to work for! And those words? “Well done, good and faithful servant” those are words I want to hear!

But back on point: the first servant was given five, and made five; the second servant was given two, and made two. One has more than twice what the other has, but their reward is identical. And of course, the lesson here is that we aren’t defined by what we have; we are defined by what we do with what we have. Now people -- people will often judge you by what you have. God won’t. God isn’t impressed by anything we have. After all, He gave it to us in the first place. And people will often judge you by your circumstances. But God won’t. After all, He put you in those circumstances in the first place. He knows how difficult they can be for you. He’s asking that you do what you can with what you have in the circumstances you find yourself in. Life isn’t fair; but God has a way of making things fair in the end.

Do you remember the event outside the temple? The disciples watched as a rich man empty bags of money into the collection box. But then Jesus called the disciples’ attention, not to the drama of the rich man, who sounded trumpets to make sure that everyone was noticing his great charity, but to a poor widow who put two small coins into the box while nobody else was looking. Please listen again to our master’s words (Mark 12):

“Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the collection box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

...we aren’t defined by what we have; we are defined by what we do with what we have! So first? Life isn’t fair… now; God makes everything fair in the end.

Second, like a number of Jesus’ other parables, this one tells us that we shouldn’t be surprised if it feels like the master is far away. After distributing his wealth to his servants, the master in the parable goes away (in verse 15), and in verse 19, we read that he is away for a long time. So yeah: there will be many times in our lives when God seems far away.

But just like in the parable of the Ten Bridesmaids (that we looked at a few months ago), all the important decisions in life are made when God seems far away. That’s when the temptations are the most difficult. But that’s also when our choices make all the difference. But the parable is also telling us that we better not make the mistake of using God’s distance or his delay as an excuse to live like He doesn’t care. That business about outer darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth? I don’t know exactly what that implies outside of the parable, but it is a fair bet that it is something we want to avoid.

You see, this parable is exceedingly serious. Jesus is making this dramatic contrast between the reward of the first two servants and the punishment of the third servant because he wants to impress upon us just how important getting the lesson of this parable is. He doesn’t want us to end up being surprised at our treatment when the master returns to judge the living and the dead. He is giving us the “heads-up” to keep us away from what he calls that “wide and easy way that leads to destruction.”

And so these are the easy lessons: Life isn’t fair until the end. God will often seem far away. What we do with what we’ve been given is gravely serious. But now we need to come back to the money. Because it is also clear from the parable that God has entrusted something really valuable to us, and is counting on us to act as his financial managers, growing his investment. SO what, exactly, is this valuable trust? Well, the key is found in verse 29. Once the parable has reached its conclusion, Jesus adds:

For whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.

Does that sound familiar? It should: that’s what we read from chapter 13 earlier:

The disciples came to [Jesus] and asked, ‘Why do you speak to the people in parables?’ And [he] replied, ‘The knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom of God has been given to you. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.’”

Clearly, what is true of the money in the parable is also true of the knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom of God. So the money in the parable could very well represent those secrets. But let me repeat: these secrets aren’t just head-knowledge. Kingdom secrets are those that move us, and change us, and prepare us for glory. Kingdom secrets reside deep in our hearts, not just in our heads. That’s why James writes:

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

That’s why Jesus, elsewhere, says:

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”

That’s why Jesus’ final commission to his disciples was to go and make disciples (and not just converts). It is no coincidence that the word “disciple” and the word “discipline” are so closely related. And, of course, discipleship is apprenticeship -- representing the highest level of secret. Being a disciple take time. It takes patience. It takes investment. It takes commitment. It is more than just listening to Jesus words, it is doing them.

Now we could stop there. This parable has already provided a number of important lessons. But if we want to truly understand the parable, we need to consider its most difficult and challenging passage -- that is, the confrontation between the third servant (the lazy one) and his master. Their exchange takes up more than one quarter of the entire parable, and Jesus isn’t in the habit of wasting words -- so it must be important.

Some commentators suggest that this servant’s opening words: “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed,” are an insult or a judgment or an accusation from the servant to the master. But that’s our modern thinking being imposed on an ancient story: servants back then wouldn’t even think of behaving that way.
Besides: there are hints in scripture that reaping where you did not sow is not a negative. In Joshua 24:13, for example, God tells his chosen people: “you live in [cities you did not build] and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.” And in John 4, Jesus tells his disciples “Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true.” Now I’m not claiming to understand exactly what’s going on, but we can at least say we can’t be confident that this represents an insult on the part of the third servant.

Instead, the lazy servant seems to think that these words will actually be acceptable to the master -- that is, they represent the best possible spin he can think of -- it is his best excuse for inaction: “so I was afraid, and I went and hid your money in the ground.”

You see, in those days, it was common for a master to give his money to his servants, but it wasn’t common for that to be done for the purposes of investment. Instead, it was common for the purpose of safe-keeping. And that’s the spin that the third servant is attempting to get away with here. He wants to pretend that the commission that he has received -- after all, his master didn’t spell it out -- is simply to return his master’s resources in pristine condition. And safekeeping wasn’t an unreasonable assumption in those days. After all, back then, commerce was considerably more risky than it is today. They didn’t have GICs; they didn’t have insurance; they didn’t have huge regulated banks.

But the surprise in the parable -- the scandal, if you like (and whenever there is a surprise in Jesus’ parables, that’s likely where the most important lesson is) -- is the fact that the master finds this servant’s behavior to be unacceptable -- entirely unacceptable! Jesus is saying that while the inclination of the human heart might be to hoard the valuable things of God, our master is requiring us to go and do commerce with them. So what are those things? What are the real secrets of the Kingdom?

We find a clue in Jeremiah, where God says: “I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.” Kindness. Justice. Righteousness. These are things that need to be shared. These are the things with which we need to do commerce. When E. is kind to me, it doesn’t leave E. with less kindness. When I am good to N, it doesn’t leave me with less goodness. And so we see that when it comes to the things that are valuable to God, the risk is low. There is no need to be afraid. The return on the investment is guaranteed.

You see, salvation isn’t just a mark that God puts on our hearts, without any impact on how we live our lives. Rather, salvation picks us up, saving us from being pointed in the wrong direction, doing the wrong things and running after the wrong goals and sets us down in the right direction, to do good works that he has prepared for us in advance to do. But it is up to us to take that new direction seriously.

Salvation that doesn’t change your life is a contradiction in terms. Our King wants His Kingdom to grow -- particularly at the expense of the kingdoms of this world. If we aren’t pushing back the darkness, we aren’t being the light of the world. So let’s choose to spend our time and energies and opportunities to grow his Kingdom this morning, this week, this month, this year. And we too, will then hear those wonderful words “Well done, my good and faithful servant.