[Machine transcription]
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, the text comes from the Gospel reading, that parable we heard. You may be seated.
Christianity as a faith, unfortunately, has been misused as only being a religion of “don’t do this.” Now that is true. When you think about the Ten Commandments on First Blush, it is a statement of things you shall not do. But if you think back to learning the commandments and their meanings from Luther’s small catechism, you remember Luther gave us an insight into those commandments that not only talked about the sins you should not do, but flipped it upside down and on its head and talked about doing the good things that God has given you to do. So sin is not just doing an evil deed. Sin is also avoiding to do the right thing or the good thing, the holy thing. The obvious is going to be don’t do the bad thing to avoid evil. But as baptized children of God, it is also a part of being a baptized child of God to serve our neighbor, not to avoid serving our neighbor. To avoid serving our neighbor is to sin against God.
Now, when we look at the commandments from those two perspectives, that leaves you and it leaves me no wiggle room. We may be able to pat ourselves on the back and say, “Well, I haven’t done that evil,” but have I served my neighbor at every turn? That’s why we confess what we confess. I have not loved my neighbor as I ought.
The Master in this morning’s text bestows upon His three servants, not three because He only has three, three because it is the perfect number. It is symbolic of all of humanity. The Master is symbolic of whom? Jesus. Jesus bestows talents, not abilities, talents, which is another word for God’s gift of grace. Jesus Christ died for all. So in dying for all, He gave all the gift of grace. Not everybody receives the gift of grace in the same way, do they? And that’s what this parable is really all about.
And notice this important point: When Jesus bestows the gift of those talents, He doesn’t say any expectations. He doesn’t give them the talent and go, “Now let’s see what you’re going to do with it.” He just gives them the talent, doesn’t He? And that’s important to remember. Because this parable is not about law. It’s about grace. It’s about grace. He gives them the talent and the only desire that he has, which two of the three fulfill, is just that they use the talent. Use the grace. Embrace the grace. Let it be what sustains you and use it. That’s all.
Now these talents of grace or these gifts of grace don’t belong to the servants. It’s very clear. They’re the master’s gifts. And he alone gives them and he gives them to the servants for them to use. Right? Now the differentiation among these three servants is this: Did they use it or did they not use it? That’s it. Don’t let one earning five and one earning two make you think, “Well, God is kind of like comparing.” What happens to the one who only gets back two and the one that only gets back five? What’s their inheritance? Heaven. It’s the same. The one who does not use it but buries it, what’s his inheritance? Hell.
So the differentiation among these two groups is not how much they earned, but whether or not they used it. This is a parable of grace, not of law or legalism. Now the one who buried the talent, this is important, did not believe in the grace. How did he view the master? He did not view the master as merciful, did he? Out of his own mouth, to the Master did these words flow, “Master, I knew you to be a hard man.” He did not say, “Master, I know you to be a merciful man,” but “I know you to be a hard man.”
So he only viewed the Master through the lens of law, which will always drive us to despair. We’ll never do enough. “I was afraid,” he said. Funny, the other two, the one who had the five talents and the one who had the two talents, were they afraid? Not like this. This fear was not born out of faith. This fear was born out of viewing the Master as a hard man. And yet the other two also feared God, but that fear was born out of grace and mercy.
When God called you to faith and gave you the talent of grace at your baptism, He never baptized you saying, “You better get out there and do something because if not, I’m not going to let you come into heaven.” No, He just gave it to you. Why? Because He knows the power of grace. Grace doesn’t sit there as an impotent thing. Grace is powerful and potent, and it works. The work of grace works in you. It creates faith. It produces fruit. It does the work of serving the neighbor.
And the other two, the one who had the five and the one who had the two, relied upon the potency of that grace. It was what undergirded their lives. They looked to and depended upon totally the talent or the grace given to them by the master. But the one did not, did he? The one wanted nothing to do with it because he only saw the master as a hard man. And he was afraid of him.
And so when he comes back, he just gives it back. “I don’t want it. I don’t want it.” Did you notice how long the master stayed away? He stayed away a long time, it said, because the master is long-suffering, slow to anger, patient, and wanting all to repent. He gave that last servant lots of time so that that last servant would not resist the grace given to him. But you know the rest of the story. He did.
Last Sunday, when we had all the new adults coming into the church here, it’s the same service that we use when our youth are confirmed in the spring. And in that service, as you remember, there was a quote from Jesus that goes like this, encouraging us to use the gift of grace. It goes like this: Jesus said, “‘If you confess me before men, I will confess you before my Father in heaven.'” If you deny me before men, I will also deny you before my Father in heaven.
Now, if you think that those words mean one shot, one kill, will there be anybody in heaven? The answer is no. And we know that one person whom we know to be in heaven, St. Peter himself, did he not deny Jesus not just once, not just twice, but three times? And that’s not the only time that he denied Jesus. Remember when Jesus said, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter confessed Him and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And then Jesus told Peter, “Peter, in order for me to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, in order for me to have given you that talent of grace which enables you to believe, I’ve got to die, I’ve got to be rejected, and I’ve got to rise again.”
Amen. And then Peter went from confessing Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, to saying, “No, never let it happen, Lord.” And what did Jesus say to Peter after he said that? He said, “Get behind me, Satan.”
So understanding if you confess me before men implies if you continually keep confessing, repenting and confessing, repenting and confessing. Because then it also implies if you deny me, that means you’ve got to keep unpenitently denying God as your Savior and Lord. You’ve got to know that the twelve struggled with the gift of grace, just like you struggle with the gift of grace.
One insight into this parable that we don’t get to see is that we don’t get to see what each of those, primarily the one that had the five and the one that had the two, went through. It looks like it was as easy as pie. You tell me how easy it is to live out your faith in this world. How easy it is to confess the Lord by your actions and by your words. It’s hard. And the apostles struggled with it. The same Peter, thinking that, “Lord, you’ve got to look at us. We’ve given up everything for you.” Peter himself said, “See, Jesus, we have left our homes and followed you.”
As if to say, “Look, look, we’re faithful.” Listen to what Jesus said to Peter after Peter said that. He said, “Truly I say to you, there is not any of you who has left house, wife or brothers, parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive many times more now, in this time, and to come eternal life.”
Jesus said it another way, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Then all these things will be added to you.” Yes, brothers and sisters, we need to repent and turn back to that talent or that gift of grace given to us at our baptism when we came to faith because He freely gave it to you with no strings attached and He revealed it to you as being potent and powerful to perform works within you.
He desires you to repent so that you love and serve one another. Not just avoid the evil, but to do the good and the right. And it’s God’s grace or that talent that produces it within you. Not your will, not your desire. You and I have had to be kicked in the rear far more often than we wish to admit to serve. Thanks be to God, Lord, or nothing would get done in this world.
And about yourself, remember these two sides of the same coin. You’re not poorer than the widow who could only give the two mites. You’ve been given the gift of grace, and that gift of grace is powerful. Secondly, you’re not less than St. Peter or St. John because you have been enlightened by the same Holy Spirit and been brought to all truth as they are. So you’re no less than they either.
You have heard and you have received His limitless grace. You know by faith that he is not a hard man. You know by faith he is a merciful man. That’s what separates the two from the one. They looked and knew that their master is merciful and received the gift of grace as such. And that’s a gift.
And so we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, come.” Because our ears yearn to hear your voice say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Master, your merciful Master.”
In the name of your merciful Lord Jesus, Amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.