Matthew 25:14-30
“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his 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.’
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, song, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Gospel reading for Sunday, November 19, comes from Matthew chapter 25, verses 14 through 34. It will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted them his property. To one he gave five talents to another two, to another one, to each according to his 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 masters 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 sell set you over much Enter into the joy of your master. And he also who had two talents came forward saying, Master, you deliver 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 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 I 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 gathered 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 10 talents for 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. Here into the reading. This is the famous parable of the talents from Matthew chapter 25. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus tells the parable of the talents. And we have to distinguish this one from some of the others. The others that I think about, the person with the five talents ends up getting 10 cities at the end, right they're given more. Here we just have servants who go out and Enter into the joy of the master the two good and faithful servants. And then there's the one who does not get the joy of his master but gets cast out where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. So the story goes, Jesus, who is the man calls his servants to Him, and He gives one five talents another to another one, each according to his ability. So the Masters assessed the abilities of His servants he knows one can be responsible with five another responsible with two and another responsible with one, the first two servants go immediately about their work. And they begin to make double what they earn. The final one, when he hears this command of his master, when he hears the command of the one buries it in the ground. What we see here is that the two servants who begin this, here are their masters instruction. They see their masters trust with these talents and they immediately go to work. Now, you'll probably ask yourself, what are these talents mean? We likely get our word talent from something like this and many people will point us to your abilities, your your things that you can do in the time talents and treasure thing that people often talk about. There really isn't a whole lot from the Bible that you can save specifically what this is. So we'll leave that up. So the first two servants they hear the Masters command. They know he trusts them with these things this man many talents that he has given them. And they immediately go out joyfully at work to do what their master says. The final servant hears the Masters command. And instead of doing what the first to do, instead of immediately going out and joyfully doing the work, he is terrified, and he buries it under the ground. When the master comes back, the first two servants present their earnings. And he says to them, 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. Now I want you to hear what the final servant does, how he approaches the Master, what he says about the master, he says, 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, I hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours. In the kingdom parables that Jesus says the master is always God. It's always or Jesus, the one who goes away and returns is the Savior, who ascended into heaven and is coming back for us. Think about what this means for the servant though, he's turning to the master to Jesus and saying, You are a grasping, greedy, cruel and hard man. That's not just thinking about his business practices that's turning to God and saying, You're wicked, you're evil, I was so terrified of you that I did nothing. And that's the reason the servant is rejected here. Not because he didn't make enough with with his talents, not because he didn't have five and make it into 10 or two and make it into four. But because instead of listening to his loving Savior, and going out to work, he buries his talent onto the ground. The attitude of the servant towards his masters the real problem. So in response to that, he cast that servant out acts like he is no longer his servant, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. I think when we consider this, we can often look at this and say that this is a very law based idea about who we should be as servants of the master. We ask ourselves, am I serving hard enough? Did God give me five talents? Have I made my 10? Did God give me two talents? Have I made my four? But the real answer here is, what do we do? And how what is our attitude towards the master when he does give us what we need, and we serve with it? Is our attitude to joyfully go about the work knowing that our master has trusted us and empowered us to do it? Or is it to hide and be afraid and think about God as someone who only punish us? I think we should be like those two servants who saw God's trust, and said I will gladly and willfully serve. Because we have a master who's returning is not about judgment for us, but about mercy and grace. And so if we come before him, and we offer up what we've been given, and we say, hey, you know what, you gave me all these things. And I didn't always do it. We can say, He will say to us, yes, I know you're not as good as you could have been, but Enter into the joy of your master. We could say, You gave me all of these things. And I set out and I tried, and everything I did failed. Why am I so broken? And he will say, yep, you could have done better, but Enter into the joy of your master. I actually feel a little sad that Jesus didn't include a servant who went out and invested his money and went bankrupt, and got nothing back. Because I think he would then say, and turn to the joy of your master. Because what he did was he went out and served. The problem is that final servants simply said, I am too scared of my God, to go out and work through go out and do His will. I must hide it under the ground. And so we can rejoice that God has given us so much to do so many people to serve so much gospel to share. And we don't have to worry about the results of it just that we are joyfully serving. So we can always do more. But God will come. He'll raise us from the dead. And he'll say well done good and faithful servant. That's it for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai