Perspective: A "Talent" is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Originally part of a Sunday School lesson delivered at Bethel United Methodist Church on February 28, 2010.¹
I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.

A "Talent" is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Scripture:

His master replied, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!"

Matthew 25:21 (NIV)

It's your life
What you gonna do?
The world is watching you
Every day the choices you make
Say what you are and who
Your heart beats for
It's an open door
It's your life

From "It's Your Life" by Francesca Battistelli

Jesus once told a parable about a rich man who goes out of town and entrusts some of his money to each of three servants. To one, he gives the amount of five talents; to another, two talents; and to another, only one talent. The first two servants invest the money they are given and each receive a 100% return on their investment. The third servant, on the other hand, becomes nervous and buries what is given to him. To put it in modern terms, he hides it all under his mattress.

When the rich man returns, he is very pleased with the two servants who invested the money they were given, and he entrusts them with even more responsibility. With the third servant, though, he is quite angry. He takes back the money he entrusted to this servant and gives it to one of the wiser servants. He sends the foolish servant away, and there is, as St. Matthew liked to write, “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”²

Needless to say, this story is not just about managing one's stock portfolio. It is not too hard to figure out what this parable means. The rich man is God; the servants are each of us; and the talents are all the things that God has given us. Maybe you feel like the third servant: you feel as though God has given everyone around you five talents and that He has only given you one measly talent. In Jesus' time, a talent was the total amount of money a laborer would accumulate over fifteen years. Though the third servant was given significantly less than the others, he was still given a lot.³ That is fifteen years' salary – fifteen years of one's labor – fifteen years of one's life.

God has given each of us lives and gifts. Christ's parable shows us that these are precious things that are not meant to be wasted but put to use. The parable tells us that the two servants who invested their talents were welcomed into the joy of their master. Our lives are only what we make of them, and what joy it is to live out God's purpose for our lives! The parable also tells us what happens if we don't use our gifts. As the old saying goes, “Use it, or lose it!”⁴ Don't bury the gifts God has given you: put them to good use.

So what kind of gifts are we given, and how do we use them? St. Paul had much insight into the types of gifts that we are given by the Holy Spirit. In the first letter to the Corinthians, he lists a number of them:
To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.⁵

Some of these gifts may seem somewhat out of reach. Some of them may even seem downright rare. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, lists a group of more basic gifts of the Holy Spirit which he calls "the Fruit of the Spirit." These gifts are "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."⁶ These nine gifts are the natural outgrowth of the Spirit of God working in our lives.

God gives us all of these gifts so that we can, in turn, give them to the world. This is how we give back to God. Christ states that whatever we do "to one the least of these" we have done for Him.⁷ God wants us to use the gifts He has given us to share His love with the world. As the "Parable of the Talents" shows us, if we use our gifts faithfully, he will entrust us with even more gifts to give.

St. Paul, in the aforementioned first letter to the Corinthians, states that there is one spiritual gift, the absence of which renders all other spiritual gifts meaningless. This gift is love. Paul writes:
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.⁸
If you have but one "talent" to give the world, let it be love.

As we reflect on our gifts and our purpose, let us ask God for the wisdom to identify our "talents," for the resolve to put these "talents" to use, and for the love to freely give of ourselves to others.


Notes:
1 - The basis of my original Sunday School lesson was:
Simon Peter Iredale. "Anointed by a Woman in Bethany", Adult Bible Studies Winter 2009-10. Cokesbury.
2 - To read the "Parable of the Talents" in its entirety, see Matthew 25:14-30.
3 - Iredale, p. 92 (also pointed out to me by a friend from college)
4 - Iredale, p. 93
5 - I Corinthians 12:8-12
6 - Galatians 5:22-23
7 - Matthew 25:40
8 - I Corinthians 13:1-2

If you have any feedback, thoughts, stories, or even arguments to contribute, please leave comments.