Buried Treasure

Buried Treasure

Matthew 25:14-30

            I love plays on words.  I guess I inherit the interest from my father.  He was a great punster.  I knew I had joined the right church when I learned that several members celebrate “Punny Wednesday”—although they are not above punning on other days of the week.

            I loved it when our seminary professors would reveal some of the word plays in the Bible.  It seems Hebrew is a great language for puns, and the Jewish writers enjoyed creating them.

            Here’s a pun I read recently:  “Anyone who buries his or her talents is making a grave mistake.”  (I added italics for those to whom puns don’t make sense.) 

When I read this statement my mind went right to Jesus’ parable of the talents.  If you remember, the master divided at least a portionof his wealth among his servants while he went on a long journey.  He knew his men well, and so gave them amounts he thought they could handle.  One received five talents.  Another was given two.  The third got one.

A talent was worth about twenty years’ wages for a laborer.  This tells us two things about the master.  First, he was really rich.  Second, he trusted these three servants to not simply care for his money, but to use it as he would.

I’m sure you remember what happened.  The first one invested his five talents and made five more.  The second also doubled his master’s money.  These two servants rewarded their master’s trust and were therefore rewarded in return.  They received huge promotions.

Ah, but the third servant!  He wasn’t much of a risk-taker.  He buried his talent in the ground to keep it safe until the master’s return. 

But that wasn’t what the master wanted him to do.  He had been given the talent to use.  I suspect that if he had made a bad investment and lost the talent, or only made a little money, the master would have been more forgiving.  Instead the servant incurred his master’s wrath.  He was called “wicked and slothful,” two epithets no one wants to hear.  Surely this servant made a grave mistake.

I also read recently that God doesn’t give people talents that God doesn’t want them to use.  Of course, we know that the master in this story is God.  It is God who gives each of us talents—abilities we are to make use of for the good of others, for the good of the community, and for the building up of the kingdom of heaven.  When we refuse to make use of them—when we bury them in the ground—we are making a grave mistake.

It’s easy to say, “I only have one little talent.  Surely God isn’t expecting me to use it!  The people around me are so much more talented.  I look hopeless and helpless next to them.  I’ll just bury myself in the corner.  Perhaps no one will notice me and I can slide through life without attracting attention.”

Not likely.  God knows what each of us has been given, and God has expectations for each of us.  Perhaps our one talent, small and insignificant as it may seem in the grand scheme of things, is the very ability our family, our community, or our church needs to grow and succeed.  If we bury that talent, if we refuse to use it, we may be responsible for those around us not growing, not succeeding as they should.

I find it interesting that in Matthew’s gospel this parable comes right before the passage on the Final Judgment.  Perhaps all we can do is give a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name, or give someone a warm coat for the winter, or visit someone in the hospital.  Jesus says if we don’t do what we can we are making a grave mistake.