Our parable today talks about a distribution of money. A Talent= a year’s wages, or even 15 years’ wages at minimum wage, so around 15,000 to 225,000. Here, we do not see equality, either in what they offer or what they receive. Please note that everyone starts with a good bit. We tend to feel so sorry for the person who got but one talent, but it sounds different when it is a decent sum of money. Most people would be very happy walking out of the casino on Fairland road with that much money.

They are judged by how they use what we have. The first two double their money. It’s easy to blow right past the second person in the story, but he does just as well as the much more talented person who has been given much more. What allows him to exceed expectations? I would suggest that the second servant has learned from previous successes, and maybe learned from mistakes as well. My guess is that he hadn’t taken down times to heart, so as to define him. He reflected on his attributes and appreciated them: his ability, interest, and willingness to take a risk.

What prevents the third servant from employing the gifts at all and induces him to bury his talent? Maybe it is fear of losing what we have-fear, or the risk/fear of getting hurt/ or thinking we are not worth the trouble. The people with more to lose were willing to take a risk. The last person hunkered down. Better to stick with what you have rather than risk it. The third servant has a hard time grasping generosity.

Similar attitudes hit us when we regard our spiritual lives. We act as if we have to put it away until it’s needed, like canned goods for the rainy day. I get a sense that god looks at how we fail to deploy our spiritual gifts in a way similar to seeing someone fail to use their abundant talents in other areas of life,

Join in your master’s happiness. Paul says to encourage and build one another up We all need to encourage seeing what we have and how to employ those gifts. Paul audience, earlier than Matthew’s, is also quite concerned about what to do in the interim period for the church. We all have spiritual talents. Spiritual gifts, but we let them lie fallow much of the time

I’m not going to emphasize the use of our talents, but limit it to the use of spiritual gifts. All of us receive a fair share of spiritual talent. We all receive the measure of grace we could use. For all of us, it is more than we could use in a few days. The master days: come share in my happiness, in my joy. I sense the feeling si like the vicarious pleasure we get out of a family member doing well. When Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven it seems to have a quality of a present gift and future drive. Just as the servants have a fairly large amount of money, they are still going to work with it for the future. This is not the advice to wait for a supposed gathering in the heaven during the dark times. Paul insists that we are not created for dark times. After all, we are children of the light, so we don’t have to hide away our spiritual gifts. It does us no good to tuck away our spiritual gifts until we think we need them. That does not give them time to breathe and flourish in the light, so that they are stronger when they are felt to be needed. It does others no good for us to hide away our spiritual gifts like misers, as if they are in a vault like Jack Benny’s. Spiritual gifts are made to grow; we won’t lose them.