HEELCATCHER

In the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus presents the story of a master who entrusts his servants with all of his wealth, in proportion to their ability, while he is away. They, in turn, are to take care of his wealth and conduct business with it in order to gain even more.

There are certainly different ways to interpret a parable. You have to be careful that you don’t stretch it too far or read too much into it. In this parable, Jesus seems to be conveying several basic points: He is leaving. He has entrusted His servants with responsibility while He is gone. When He comes back, there will be an accounting.

What is a talent? In Jesus’ day, a talent was a unit of measure. It represented about 70 pounds of gold or silver. You are talking about a massive amount of treasure that is put into the hands of these servants. Since the servants are given talents “based on their ability” (25:15), then I don’t think the talents represent “talents” or abilities alone. I think it is much bigger than that. The talents represent all the abilities, resources, relationships, time, and opportunities that God places into our hands. Every breath we take and every thing we have is a gift from God. And we are responsible for how we use these gifts.

When Christ comes back, when we stand before His throne, the issue will be faithfulness. What did we do with what we had. We won’t be evaluated in comparison to anyone else. God knows our abilities. He knows our hearts. And He knows the specific gifts and opportunities that He gave us. His question will be…what did you do with the specific time, abilities, and resources that I gave you? It’s worthless to spend all your time comparing your life to others. God holds you accountable for you.

And faithfulness is not a measure of worldly success but of the overall trajectory of our lives. We all will fail. We all will mess up. But over the course of life, as the Lord gives us breath, and we seek to honor Him each day, God will bear fruit through us. We are to be faithful. He will be the one that makes us fruitful. I control my response. God controls the results. Thus, the multiplication of the talents is a testimony not to the business savvy of the servants but to the fact that they sought to honor their master with the time and resources that they had. God did the rest.

I love the master’s words to his two servants. Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.

He commends them. They were good in their heart attitude. They were faithful in their actions. These two things must go together.

He promotes them. They were faithful with a few things; he makes them ruler over many things. It is faithfulness in the little things, in the things that people do not see, in the things that don’t garner a lot of attention, that give us the best indication of where our heart is.

He welcomes them into Paradise. Heaven is the “joy of your Lord.” If you know Jesus Christ as Savior, then heaven is experiencing the unbridled, unhindered joy of relationship with Him. The creator of your soul knows what will truly bless, satisfy, and thrill your heart. You have shown me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand (Psalm 16:11). Don’t ever buy the lie of heaven being a boring monotony of playing a harp on a cloud. The greatest thrill you have ever experienced on this earth was but a small, temporary taste (or a cheap imitation) of the eternal pleasure that will engulf you in heaven.

Lord, help me to be faithful. I have so much to be thankful for in this life. Help me not to take these gifts for granted or clutch onto them as if it were mine. Instead may I use my time, my resources, my abilities, my possessions, my body, my breath to bring You glory and to bless others.

For he will not dwell unduly on the days of his life, because God keeps him busy with the joy of his heart. (Ecclesiastes 5:20)

Here is a good balancing verse for life. In today’s fast-paced, stressed out world, we often hear an emphasis on the need to rest, to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10), to be like Mary in a Martha world (Luke 10:41-42). Amen and amen! Our busyness is oftentimes a hindrance to relationship (with God and with others) and an escape from dealing with the important matters of life.

But there is an opposite problem that is equally detrimental. Idleness. It is amazing how many old quotes dealt not with the sin of busyness but of idleness.

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. (Puritan proverb)

Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all virtues. (Benjamin Franklin)

In idleness there is a perpetual despair. (Thomas Carlyle)

Ghandi also had a good quote in this regard: Purity of mind and idleness are incompatible.

Solomon would agree. When we sit around with nothing productive to do, we find ourselves drifting further and further into despair and depression…which in turn feeds more idleness. And the downward spiral begins.

Solomon’s cure? Get up and do something. And learn to find joy in the work that you do. Pour your heart and energies into it. Do the best job you can. Redeem the time. Make the most of your opportunities. Plant a garden. Clean the house. Build something. Learn to play an instrument. Stretch your mind with a good book. Volunteer. Minister. Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men (Colossians 3:23).

One of my favorite movies is Groundhog Day. In the movie, Bill Murray gets stuck in one particular day. He can’t escape it no matter how hard he tries. He is caught in the futility of reliving the same day over and over. Once he realizes this, he first turns to full, unbridled pleasure. But this doesn’t satisfy. Next he turns to a prideful self-exaltation. This also doesn’t work. Then he turns to total despair and depression, even trying to end his life to no avail. But at some point he realizes that though he can’t change the day he is in, he can change his response to it. So he begins to pour his energies into making that day the best day possible. He learns to be aware of the needs around him, to seek to help people, to learn how to play piano, to find joy in each moment, and in the end the cycle is broken.

It wasn’t a perfect movie but it did illustrate the choices that we have in the futility and brevity of life on this earth. We can seek pleasure for pleasure’s sake. We can spend all our time focused on ourselves. We can fall into despair over life’s struggles and difficulties. Or we can find joy in the gifts that God has given us and make the most of the time that we have. I think that message is similar to Solomon’s advice in Ecclesiastes.

Life is short. So pray long. Work hard. Rejoice always. And rest easy in the hands of God.

²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:20-21)

We are ambassadors of Christ. What is an ambassador? Here is the dictionary definition: A minister of the highest rank sent to a foreign court to represent there his sovereign or country.

Think about it. We are ministers of Christ given the high rank and privilege of representing Him and His kingdom to the world. Since we are citizens of heaven, then we are strangers and pilgrims in this world. It is a foreign country to us. Our values, attitude, speech, and lifestyle are different than those of the world around us…or at least should be different.

And as ambassadors we have a message from the King of our country. It is a short message but very urgent. Be reconciled to God.

That’s it. That is the heart of our message. Sin has cut us off from God. God has extended an offer of peace in Jesus Christ. Indeed, Jesus Christ has taken our sin upon Himself and now offers us His righteousness. But each person must respond to this offer. That’s why we “implore” people. We don’t speak with anger or derision. We don’t condemn or criticize. We urgently and lovingly point people to Christ.

We are “ministers of reconciliation” with a “message of reconciliation” (5:18-19).

Have you ever seen a reconciliation? It is to sad to say but we rarely see it. Our pride would rather cut someone off and let them die in our minds than to humble ourselves, admit our part of the problem, and extend the hand of peace. Even among Christians it is often rare to see true reconciliation. We pack up and go to another church rather than face our own sin and deal with the hard, messy parts of restoring a relationship. Of course, sometimes one side desires a reconciliation and the other side just refuses to give in. It takes two sides for a relationship to be restored.

I remember seeing an incredible reconciliation in a marriage. Two people who had divorced because of estrangement, unfaithfulness, and stubbornness came back together again in marriage. It was a Fireproof kind of restoration. And the joy that I saw in their faces, I will never forget. After seeing that restoration, I remember thinking how ironic it is that so often we would rather be miserably stubborn than joyfully reconciled.

In the case of salvation, God is the willing party. He has done all that He can do. He has taken on human flesh, walked among us, served us, and bore our sin on the cross. He has removed all the obstacles but one. Our own pride and self-will. But when we, in the sorrow of repentance and the faith of a child, turn to Him, we find life, peace, and the joy of reconciliation. We are forgiven! We are restored! We are new creations! All our sin is wiped away and we stand complete in Christ! There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).  Woohoo!

May we show the joy of our reconciliation and carry the message of reconciliation today.

¹ For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. ² Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, ³ because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. ⁴ For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. ⁵ Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (2 Corinthians 5:1-5)

“While we are in this tent [our present physical bodies], we groan and are burdened.”

“Groan” (Greek, stenazo) has the idea of being confined in a tight place. It is the groaning that comes from feeling trapped and unable to move freely.

“Burdened” (Greek, bareo) has the idea of carrying a large, heavy weight. It is being loaded down or feeling depressed.

Paul says that in this life, in our present physical bodies, we struggle with frustration and depression, with feeling trapped and feeling overwhelmed. Ever feel like that? If so, then, you are human. You are normal. You are struggling with life on this sin-impacted earth with a body riddled with sin and with death. Welcome to life on earth.

What are we longing for? We are longing for real life, for a new body, for freedom from sin. Our search for peace, our desire for good health, our sorrow over death, our hunger for satisfaction, our sense that there must be something more in this life, are all evidence that we were created for paradise, for perfect relationship with God and with others, for abundant life in Christ.

C.S. Lewis once said, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

We were made for Eden. We live in the wasteland.

Yes, there is evidence of God’s beauty all around us. There is much that we can enjoy on this earth. And His image abides in us still. But like a jewel lying in a landfill, the glory is there but it is surrounded by the refuse and corruption of sin.

So where is our joy? Where is our hope? It is not in this world. It is not in politics, or in our health, or in our possessions, or in our job, or even in in our family. It must ultimately be in God. We look to Him alone. He is our light, our song, our salvation. He has promised us “an eternal house in heaven,” a new body, a resurrected body fashioned after the resurrection body of Jesus Christ, unaffected by sin, fatigue, disease, or death. This is our hope.

And He has given us His Holy Spirit, a taste of heaven on earth. The Spirit is our strength, comfort, counselor while we walk this earth. He is our deposit from God. He is our source of joy.

So in the midst of our frustration and depression, we look forward with hope and we move forward with joy. Because we know that this tent is not our home. We are camping out until we reach Paradise.

Lord, thank You for Your promise. Thank You for Your Spirit. Fill me now so that I can live in love, peace, and joy today.