Do you ever watch the show Fear Factor?  It is a TV show about people who do things like jump from the tops of buildings or off speeding boats and try to hit targets with their bodies or climb into glass cages of bees or eat live crunchy critters and take real physical risks. People are eliminated when they can’t accomplish the feats.  Mind you, this is not like the newer show about people who are really trying to get over their fears.  On Fear Factor they are trying to not be eliminated from the show in order that they might win the prize, a large sum of money.  I think fear can motivate and in the parable that Jesus tells, fear appears to be a motivation for the third servant. 

Money can also motivate, but money doesn’t seem to be the motivation for the first two servants.  They end up with no financial gain; they simply have the good will of the master when all is said and done.  So this parable, often used to motivate during stewardship season, isn’t necessarily about what we do with our money, although it could be.  This parable seems to have something to do with how we view the master.  This master is extremely generous throwing his wealth around, all of it presumably, to his servants to use wisely while he is away.  If we understand the master as the third servant did, to be harsh and unfair, someone to be feared, then we might fear what will happen if we don’t ‘do it right’ whatever ‘it’ might be.  We might feel it safer to avoid our responsibility to the master.  Perhaps we think it not such a big deal if what we have gets used or not.  On the other hand, if we see the master as generous and what is available as abundant, we might not wonder about the risk of using what we’re given. 

It might help us to know that even the sum given the third servant was a huge amount of money.  Some say it was 6000 days labor. Some say it was 15 years wages.  Either way it’s a chunk of change, literally more than one person could carry!  Hard to imagine burying that in the back yard.   In that day it was the safe thing to do with so much money at stake. The master got his money back. But in the parable judgment comes to those who are carefully guarding not recklessly risking.  Better to take a risk with what little we think we might have than play it safe.  But we often ‘play small’ as Marianne Williamson says, preferring to believe that we are worth less rather than powerful beyond our imaginations. 

It is clear that at least one expectation the parable implies, the expectation that we take a risk and use our gifts or our talents or our resources or our power or the love that God gives for God’s purposes.

Matthew is writing most specifically to the Jews of his day.  He seeks to help them understand who Jesus was and what it means to follow Jesus.  In this case, it seems clear that he is addressing the issues related to the fear the people had about living in the in-between time; the time between when Jesus left and when he might come again.  During this time those who followed Jesus were being persecuted, hunted down.  It was a time of great anxiety.  Should they pullback, stick their heads in the sand, hide out and play it safe, bury their talents/resources in the ground and wait?  Or should they do something else? 

Matthew places Jesus in a very anxious time when he tells this story.  His future is not secure.  He has perhaps little time before his ministry will end. And he tells this story about a master, (a teacher perhaps?)  who leaves his disciples behind and how they should use what the master gives.   The followers of Jesus were faced with a life threatening decision. They could proclaim their loyalty to Jesus and risk death or they could bury their new found freedom and awareness in the ground and do the safe thing.  They could live the love that Jesus showed them or they could go back to the old ways of being exclusive in their care and outreach.   The parable indicates the master’s pleasure with the ones who choose to take the risk and seems to promise that if they do, they will reap rewards.  Notice that there is no one in the parable who risks their gift who loses it. 

One day in a church not very different from this one, a woman stopped by the pastor's office and delivered a check for $5,000 "to further the congregation's ministry."  Wanting to be prudent, the governing board put the money in the bank to save it for a rainy day.  Several months later, the woman stopped by to see the pastor and to ask what the congregation did with her gift.  When the pastor told her that the council put it in the bank to save for the future, the woman responded, "I'm sorry to hear that.  I wanted that money to make a difference, and I was going to give you another check.  But I can keep my own money in the bank."  And the woman went away disappointed.

In a former congregation of mine, we would often discuss the value of money in the bank.  A question that one of the Board members would regularly ask is “If Jesus came back tomorrow, would he be happy with us having money in the bank?”  Now I don’t think that having money in the bank is the same as burying it in the ground in the early second century, and I can see the value, on the other hand, of creating an endowment for a church to use as a resource.  And, I’m not sure what it might mean that Jesus is coming back… But I can also see value of having the question on the table.  It’s a question that reminds us that the gift was given to be used and that there is an urgency and priority we ought to consider about its use. 

During this interim time of transition it is a particularly appropriate question.  We have an opportunity to look again at what we do with our resources, as individuals in our giving and using our time and talents, but also as a community of faith.  What do we do with the love that we experience here?  Do we hoard it, hide it, or do we extend it lavishly as though there is more than enough to go around?  It seems to me that parable invites us to take a risk with our resources whatever that may mean.   

There once was a village chief with three daughters each with a special ability.  One daughter was very good with olive trees.  The second daughter was a shepherd.  The third daughter was a dancer.  The chief had to go on a long journey so he called his daughters together and left them in charge of keeping the village prosperous while he was gone. 

The winter came and it was the bitterest winter anyone could remember.  The snow fell and the wind blew and pretty soon there was a shortage of firewood.  The oldest daughter had to make a decision.  Should she let the villagers use some of the olive trees for firewood?  But they wouldn’t survive if they didn’t have heat.  When she saw the villagers shivering with cold she decided to let them. 

The second daughter also had to make a decision about letting the villagers kill and eat some of the sheep.   When she saw the children crying with hunger she decided to let them. 

But as the winter dragged on, the villager’s spirits were broken. They began to see things as worse than they were. Eventually some of them left the village to find another home. 

When the chief came home he saw that some of the villagers had left the village and some of them were anxious about the future.  He called his daughters together to see what had happened.  The first daughter said “I hope you are not angry, father, but I allowed the people to cut down some of the olive trees. The people needed firewood to stay warm.” The second daughter said, “I had to let the people kill and eat some of the sheep to stay alive. I hope you are not angry, father.”

The chief, far from being angry, said “I am so proud of you. But what has happened that some of the villagers moved away?”  The daughters turned to their sister. 

The third daughter said, “I hope you are not angry father.  There was so much suffering with the cold and the hunger it hardly felt right to dance.  Besides I wanted to welcome you home with my dance.” 

“Child,” the chief said, “my heart is sad and the people are despondent, you must dance.”  She got up to dance but her legs were so stiff and sore from disuse they no longer could support her dancing.  She fell to the ground.

With so much sadness and disappointment in his heart, the chief embraced his third daughter and said, “The village could have survived for want of food or warmth but not without hope.  And because you failed to use your talent wisely and well, there is little hope left.  Now the village is deserted and you are crippled. You have received your punishment.”  With these words he embraced his daughters and wept. 

This rewriting of the parable by Thomas Davis III perhaps addresses our modern day sensibilities about the harsh master who throws the third servant out into the darkness we so often associate with hell, never to be redeemed.  It also helps us think about the talents as talents, as gifts we have been given by God to use, and takes away the emotion we have connected with money.  It also deals with the rather unrealistic expectation that we might somehow double the gift if we are faithful. 

It helps us focus on the one implication of the reign or reality of God which is that we each have been given a gift to use and when we don’t, not only is the world worse off but God is disappointed.It also helps us focus on the risk involved in using our gifts.  We may have to think out of the box.  We imagine each having a gift that has value and purpose that can be used in a creative way even under dire circumstances. It makes me wonder about problems as gifts that can be used in the service of God’s reign. Maybe when we least expect to use our gifts is when they will be called into service. Maybe the ways we are hurt or experience pain will be the impetus for our service for humanity.  Maybe the things that we hold most dear could be used in ways we could never imagine.

It is clear that at least one expectation the parable implies is that even in times of anxiety and stress, Jesus’ expectation is that we recognize all that we have been given and use our gifts; not bury them and wait for the circumstances to pass and perhaps waste them. 

In fact, it would appear that we ought to become rather risky in our thinking about the future that we might hear these words “Well done, good and faithful servant.”