July 26, 2026
Safe and Sound, Down to the Last Cent
Matthew 25:14-30
Rev. David Germer
Last week, we began a new series: Stories with a twist. We’re looking at some of Jesus’ parables, and noting that these stories that Jesus tells are often far from safe, felt-board moral lessons for children; often far from what we thought they were saying or even would like for them to be saying.
Several years ago I was introduced to the work of an author named Robert Farrar Capon, and his writing, particularly on the parables, and on grace, has become so significant to me that I knew I’d need to share some of his words with you this morning, so I’m going to, a couple of times. He says that examining parables is the best way to make sure we’re listening to Jesus, and not what we wish Jesus said, as long as we get that he uses them in an almost ‘twisted’ sort of way. He writes, “With Jesus, the device of parabolic utterance is used not to explain things to people’s satisfaction but to call attention to the unsatisfactoriness of all their previous explanations and understandings.”
(That might be slightly overstating what we’re trying to do, but not entirely off.)
Last week, Patrick kicked off our series by helping us see the twist in the story of the 10 bridesmaids: it’s not a fable about kindness as we might hope, but a warning about what we miss out on in the moments that matter when we don’t make steady, unglamorous deposits into our spiritual accounts. The lines I keep thinking about are: “you can’t run out to the store to buy resilient character” (in the moment). And: “A friend can pray for you but you cannot borrow a prayer life from your friend.” You have to put in the work.
Our text today immediately follows and pairs with that story, in Matthew 25. Listen for God’s word:
“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his servants and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. At once the one who had received the five talents went off and traded with them and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy servant; you have been trustworthy in a few things; I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy servant; you have been trustworthy in a few things; I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless servant, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
This is an even more challenging passage than what Diane read.
[Judges 4:1-7, with many challenging names and locations!]
Have you heard this story before?
I imagine that when you’ve heard this before, one of the ways its been presented is this:
We all have talents. We need to discover what ours is or are, so that we can use them well, for God. Maybe your talent is playing the trombone, or baking cookies, or woodworking, or hospitality, or filmmaking… whatever it is – use that, for the kingdom of God.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with that message, nor that it runs counter to the teachings of Scripture at all. In fact – I think that is a great kids Sunday school lesson, and there are some other stories in the Bible that I think offer messages at least similar to this.
The problem is that that is not what THIS passage is about. Our passage is not nearly so safe and tidy and tame. That reading softens what is actually a much more remarkable and frankly, demanding, teaching from Jesus.
There are two things that are obscured, at the heart of this passage, if we reduce it to: we all have gifts that we need to use.
The first thing we miss, is because of an unfortunate translation issue, or really an etymological shift.
The word ‘talent’ comes from the Greek word ‘talanton,’ which was a balance or scale, a specific weight or amount of money. Over time, because of how people read this passage, it came to be used to mean anything that we have, any gift from God, that we might use or misuse. Think of the “most talented” superlative in the high school year book, an honor inevitably given to some kid who is both sporty AND musical (the most on-the-surface visible ‘talents’)… not given to the kids with the biggest house and bank account (which would actually be more biblically and linguistically accurate, for ‘talented.’)
A talent, in biblical times, had nothing to do with skills or aptitudes or hobbies; it was a specific amount amount of money: about 15 to 20 years wages for a typical worker or day laborer. Anywhere from half a million dollars to several million dollars, today. That’s what the master gave his three servants.
And so too often, we’ve missed the meaning and challenge of this parable.
Some could ask, and have asked: “Ahh, but might ‘talents’ stand in for something else valuable, though? Could this truly remarkable amount of money – a treasure, in fact, some would call it… might it be appropriate to think of the talents given to the servants as The Great Treasure – the gospel itself?” Earlier in his ministry, Jesus had told parables directly suggesting that the kingdom of God, the very gospel itself, is properly understood as an incomparable treasure, for the sake of which we should leave and sell everything else.
So you may have heard this story explained as a parable about how followers of Jesus are called to not bury the gospel, the good news – but get it out into the world where it can do it’s work, and produce a return. That, honestly… is not bad. I think that reading mostly fits, and is appropriate. Absolutely, we are called to not keep the gospel for ourselves. Absolutely that message comes across throughout the New Testament.
To make this point, some churches have used what’s become known as a reverse tithe – have you heard of this?
The reverse tithe is a concept in which congregants, instead of giving money in the offering plate, for one particular week, are given money. Actually handed cash! (So I’m fairly sure it’s not announced ahead of time that it’s a ‘reverse tithe’ Sunday. Imagine the attendance on those days.) The invitation and idea is for each person to use that money to bless someone else, to ‘put it to work’ for the sake of the gospel, with no string attached (other than perhaps the invitation to share in the following weeks about what they did with the money).
It’s a pretty cool idea. And so, I’d like to invite the ushers to come forward… Just kidding. We aren’t doing the reverse tithe today.
But it does demonstrate and help people live out this idea:
Don’t hold onto what’s been given to you; get it out there. Spread God’s generosity.
Certainly, that point can be demonstrated with that small amount of money. What’s missing, is what is actually at the heart of our parable:
Risk. Risk is key to what’s happening in the parable of the talents.
The man given 5 talents – for clarity let’s call it, conservatively, two and a half million dollars; and the man given 2 talents – let’s call that one million dollars… it would have been safe for them to bury their money, as the man with 1 talent – half a million – did. But they didn’t; they took a risk.
Being given half a million, or a million, or two and a half million dollars, by your boss or master, and being told to take good care of it…. doing ANYTHING with that money, is risky.
Being a part of God’s mission… is risky… because it may cost us dearly. My favorite lines in the Book of Order, which we’ll profess later, reminds us that the church called to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of its very life. Mission, what we are doing as followers of Jesus, is inherently risky.
This week the youth served with local agencies doing great work in our community, each of them embodying this sort of risky faithfulness. (You can see pictures on the front of the bulletin). Deliberately become a hangout for those on the streets, like 12 Baskets? Risky! Invite anyone to share openly in worship, like Haywood Street? Risky! Employ people coming right of being in prison for the past decade, like Deep Time? Risky!
And one of the two core truths, one of the two ideas that lie at the heart of this parable, is the fact that God looks favorably… on risk-takers. God loves a good gamble. If you’ve heard a sermon on the risk of being part of God’s mission in the world, you’ve probably heard the famous scene from the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe quoted and referenced. (If you’re playing sermon bingo, you could put a chip on the Narnia reference square, now). In the first book, one of the young girls, new to Narnia, upon learning that the beloved Aslan she’s heard so much about, who is on the move – the king who might set everything wrong, right… when she learns that Aslan is actually a lion, whom she may soon meet, she is terrified. And so she’s asks Mr. Beaver: is he safe? To which Mr. Beaver indignantly responds: did you hear what we said? He’s a lion! Of course he’s not safe! But he’s good.”
There is something at stake, when she goes to meet Aslan. It’s risky…
The problem with the reverse tithe, at least if it’s used in an attempt to help us engage with this parable… is that, freely given a dollar, or two, or five, there’s nothing at stake – what we have we got to lose? What are the stakes? These servants had their masters fortune, to lose! Right? Does this make you at least a little more sympathetic to the man given one talent?
I hope so.
I see myself in that prudent servant sometimes, and, I have to tell you, as I’ve wrestled with this passage, I’ve been so convicted about how much I see myself in the 1-talent-servant, particularly in some conversations I’ve had about Saturday Sanctuary.
Every year, saints in that ministry will suggest: couldn’t we be doing more? Couldn’t we stay open longer hours, or serve for more than six months of the year? The people we are feeding on Saturdays… do they not need to eat on Saturdays during the warmer months?
There are important conversations that need to be had about logistics and how to pull this off; about determining if this is a genuine need for our neighbors. (Spoiler: for many, it is.)
But my first response has most often been not to dream big, but to ask Liz to print out the budget so that we can see what we have there and in the designated account. “How much longer could we keep doing Saturday Sanctuary, if we added additional expenses?”
And so I’ve been wondering: when I do that… am I a person of faith at all? You all: we just raised 5 million dollars for our capital campaign. And my first question, when thinking about expanding, one of our central, most life-giving, beautiful ministries, is: do we have enough money?!
I’m the risk-averse servant.
But it goes even further. Because I wonder: if we truly understood and believed the gospel, maybe as the first two servants did… I wonder if they, and if we, would actually come to the conclusion that this proposition wasn’t nearly as risky, as it seems at first glance.
Did you notice what the 1-talent-servant says to the master, about the master, when he comes to collect in the story?
“I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter, so I was afraid.”
Or as The Message translation puts it: “You demand the best, and make no allowance for error. I was afraid I might disappoint you, so I found a good hiding place, safe and sound, down to the last cent.”
Here’s how Robert Farrar-Capon imagines the master’s response, a bit more fleshed out (and this is a much longer quote than you’re supposed to use in a sermon, but you’ll hear why I couldn’t cut any of this):
“I didn’t ask you to make money, I asked you to do business – to exercise a little pragmatic trust that I meant you well and that I wouldn’t mind if you too some risks with my gift of a lifetime. But what did you do? You decided you had to be more afraid of me than of the risks. You decided. You played it safe because of some imaginary fear. And so what was yours is now his, and you know why? To remind everybody that when I give you a gift – grace, forgiveness – I expect you to do business with it, to keep it moving (forgive others) – not just to keep it to yourself wrapped up in some danged napkin – some low-risk spiritual life in which you neither sin much nor love much. But I’m also giving it to him to show that I never really cared about results anyway. Don’t you see? all that matters is that you play at all, not that you play well or badly. You could have earned a million with the money I gave you or you could have earned two cents. You could even have blown it on the horses for all I care: at least that way you would have been a gambler after my own heart. But when you crawl in here and insult me by telling me you decided that I couldn’t be trusted enough for you to gamble with something that wasn’t yours to begin with, that I was some legalistic type who went only by the books… well…”
Well… in the parable, the timid servant’s unfounded fear becomes self-fulfilling. There was nothing in the story, prior to the servant’s trembling, panicked defense, to suggest that the master was all the things that the servant accuses him of being. Did you notice that?
But if the master is God – and I think that much is clear – then what do we know about what the servant is saying? … He’s wrong! He has the completely wrong idea about who the master is.
God is beyond our comprehension, but if our faith tells us anything, it’s that we can bank on this fact: God is like Jesus. Or even before Jesus, when Moses asked God: “Who are you? What’s your name?” he hears:
“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation.”
None of these three servants had to earn anything – they were already in the master’s favor. He had laid down his life – literally, his livelihood – handed it over to them. These servants were in – were already the recipients of grace – unearned favor. That grace of acceptance, in Jesus’ stories, always, ALWAYS comes before judgment.
The judgment issued in this parable (and there is judgment in the parable – remember the weeping and gnashing of teeth?)… the judgment comes, tragically, in the form of this ill-fated servant getting the only master that his tiny and warped vision can see: this peevish little accountant tyrant god he believes in.
God rejects that vision of Godself, and God rejects this version of careful prudence.
It’s not wisdom or prudence itself that God rejects. It’s risk-averse prudence in the interest of self-preservation, motivated by fear. The kind of self-preservation and fear I’m operating out of when I worry that Saturday Sanctuary will come to an end if we do too much, because we’ll run out of money.
Fear that we’ll mess something up, and God will be angry.
Fear that if we try to turn something that’s pretty good… into something that is incredible, we’ll make it worse, so we better sit tight.
But God isn’t skeptically peering over glasses with folded arms, or down their nose, saying, “don’t you dare.”
The image we should see is actually the opposite: God grinning and nodding and giggling, urging us on, saying: “I dare you!”
The story isn’t about using our talents well. The story isn’t about a generous master who suddenly turns cruel to punish the cautious.
It’s about embracing the expansive God who sends us out to take risks, fully assured that whatever the yield, whatever the response, whatever the return… will have no bearing whatsoever on God’s acceptance and love for us. God isn’t an accountant keeping a ledger of what we’ve earned or lost, insisting we keep it all safe and sound, right down to the last cent. God’s just hoping we’ll have the courage to get out there and risk what we’ve been given – and gets the same kind of kick out of our spectacular failures as our giant success stories.
God is a gambler, a risk-taker. The incarnation, the resurrection, the Church… are all a series of gambles, or one massive risk. It’s God going all-in, pushing in all the chips, because of God’s deep love, for us.
We’ll end with a minute of silent reflection, to think about that, and to ask and listen:
Where are you, where are we, called to step out in risky faith, to remind ourselves, and show the world, who God is?
…