Matthew
25:14-30
I
find this parable of Jesus troubling because I know that I have a lot in common
with the third servant, the one who gets into trouble with his Master because
he wants to get things right.
We’ve
heard the story. There’s the servant
with a lot, who uses it to make a lot more for his Master. There’s the one with a little less who makes
a little less, but the Master is okay with that, and welcomes his work as much
as the first servant’s. Then there’s the
third servant, who takes what was given to him and protects it to make sure
that nothing is lost or stolen. When the
Master returns he presents it all to him intact, every last bit. Not a coin is missing and the whole sum is
intact. Yet the Master is definitely not
pleased.
The third servant explains,
“Master, I knew that you were a harsh man,
reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid
your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.” [Matthew 25:24-25]
He
completely misread and misunderstood the Master. He knew that his Master somehow always did
well but overlooked the fact that it takes risk to do that. The Master had risked his wealth by
distributing it among his servants in the first place. The Master took a chance on each of
them. He was alright with that. He chose to do it. What he had difficulty with was a servant who
wasn’t ready to do the same, and to understand that it is okay to fail, as long
as you try.
The two servants who were able to
succeed were the two who also took a chance, the way the Master was taking a
chance on them. That understanding
allowed them the freedom that it takes to do anything challenging or
worthwhile, which is the freedom to fail.
There was always the possibility, in their buying and selling, that they
might take a loss. Who knows? Maybe they did lose on a few deals. As it turned out, in the long run they
succeeded.
“The one who had received
the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more
talents. In the same way, the one
who had the two talents made two more talents.” [Matthew
25:16-17]
If
it had all fallen apart, however, they still would have been able to face the
Master upon his return and say, “I’m sorry.
I tried.” They would not have had
to say, like the third servant, “I’m sorry that I didn’t try.”
There’s a scene in The Karate Kid where Pat Morita has
begun to teach a student about the discipline involved in the sport. They’re sitting at a table, eating, and a fly
is buzzing around. Pat Morita jabs at it
in midair with his chopsticks. The
student asks, “Wouldn’t a flyswatter be easier?” and he answers, “Man who catch
fly with chopstick accomplish anything.”
The student says, “You ever catch one?” and he answers, “Not yet.”[1]
To try and fail in the process is
part of success. Edison went through a
ridiculous number of materials when he was trying to find the best filament
that he could for the incandescent light bulb.
For a while, it looked like the best material was going to be
bamboo. Even after he went with
tungsten, in the process, he had discovered it wasn’t just a matter of getting
the material right. He found that the
bulbs gave the most light when the filament was glowing in a vacuum, so he had
to make bulbs that were the right shape and strength. It took thousands of trials to get it
right. No matter what we do as human
beings, we are going to make mistakes and get things wrong. One of the biggest mistakes of all, though,
is not to try because of that.
I assure you that anytime you or I
try to do anything worthwhile, there’s a good chance of failure. I also assure you that it is alright to fail. I know that because of what I read in the
gospels. Do you remember the story of
the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and said,
“Master,
what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” [Matthew 19:16]
They
had a discussion about the importance of keeping the commandments and at the
end of it Jesus told him,
“If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your
possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in
heaven; then come, follow me.” [Matthew
19:21]
At
that, the man went away, grieving. He
did not just go and follow Jesus. Still,
Jesus had tried. Again, Mark finishes
his account of Jesus’ time in his hometown of Nazareth with the words:
“And he could do no deed of power there”. [Mark 6:5]
John
says that it was not long after Jesus had fed five thousand people with five loaves
of bread and two fish that almost everybody who had been following him suddenly
grew disillusioned. He had taken a
chance and used that miraculous moment as an opportunity to explain that he
himself was the bread sent from heaven for the life of the world, and it
backfired on him.
“Because of this many of his disciples turned
back and no longer went about with him. So
Jesus asked the twelve, ‘Do you also wish to go away?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to
whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that
you are the Holy One of God.’ Jesus
answered them, ‘Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.’ He was speaking of Judas son of Simon
Iscariot, - for
he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him.” [John 6:66-71]
If you look at Jesus’ experience,
which is the experience of human life in its fullness, including (especially)
that of our troubles. Isaiah [53:3] had
said of the Suffering Servant that he would be one who
“was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity”.
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity”.
The
thing is that, because Jesus willingly accepted that role, his moment of
greatest failure, his death on a cross, in fact became the moment of
completion, when he cried out,
“It
is finished!”
[John 19:30]
And
it was. The moment of his loss was the
moment that he successfully redeemed us from our own failure, wiping out not
only our mistakes and our shortcomings but also our sins.
Now we are free. We are free to live, not in terms of success
as the world defines it, but in terms of faithfulness as God defines it. That is a freedom worth having, and a freedom
worth using. Let faithfulness alone be
your goal, and the day will come when you hear the final summation on what you
do:
“Well done, good and faithful servant;
you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many
things; enter into the joy of your master.” [Matthew
25:21]
[1] The Karate Kid (1984) Directed by John G. Avildsen (Noriyuki “Pat” Morita as Mr.
Kesuke Miyagi and Ralph Macchio as Daniel Larusso).
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