It’s Thanksgiving Week. If you love food, this is your holiday! Our family will have the traditional Thanksgiving food: Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie. I’ll be honest: while I enjoy turkey on Thanksgiving, I get pretty excited thinking about the other options some families have for their Thanksgiving meal. The day’s importance is to give thanks for the blessings that God has placed in our lives. Christians should cultivate a lifestyle where gratitude is infused into our daily lives. 

Earlier this Fall, we completed a series and study called ALL IN. In the book of the same name, author and pastor Mark Batterson writes,

You take approximately 23,000 breaths daily, but when was the last time you thanked God for one of them? The process of inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide is a complicated respiratory task that requires physiological precision. We tend to thank God for the things that take our breath away. And that’s fine. But maybe we should thank him for every other breath, too!

Batterson’s point is that we have much to be thankful for, including the fact that we woke up this morning and our lungs filled with oxygen. 

This morning, we want to consider the blessings God has placed in our lives as resources we have been called to be stewards of. 

[Pray at 10:30 a.m.]

Tell The Story

Jesus tells a parable about a landowner who is rich beyond the average person’s imagination. He is preparing to go away on a trip and handing over responsibilities to her servants based on their abilities (capabilities). To one servant, he gives five talents; to another three talents, and the final servant, he gives one talent. The landowner went away on his trip with no timeline for his return. 

We need to talk about talent for a minute. It’s hard to come up with an accurate idea of how much money a talent is in today’s world. Talent was a form of weight, not an amount of money. So five talents would have been an amount of gold weighing five talents. I have read that a talent of gold was equal to 6,000 denarii. One denarii was equivalent to a day’s pay for the average day laborer. With that in mind, one talent would be worth 20 years’ wages for an ordinary worker. Five talents would be 100 years of income. Someone making $15/hour working 40 hours a week would make a yearly income of $31,000. On that number, five talents are $3.1 million by our American standards. This is no small sum of money.

We are not told how long the landowner is away, but we are told that the servant with five talents immediately went to work and made another five talents for a total of ten. The second servant turned his three talents into six. These servants invested and took the necessary risks to do the work of their Master. The final servant buried his talent in the ground, which was a common way to keep money safe from disasters or thieves. This method left no possibility for loss and no potential for gain.

When the Master returned and saw that the two servants were industrious, risk-taking, and prosperous, they were rewarded and praised. The third servant was not only scolded; he had his talent taken away from him and given to the first servant. The final servant was punished by being cast out to the outer darkness where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 

Explain the Text

What can we learn from our parable today?

Let’s consider a talent in the modern sense. Talent today refers to the natural endowments of a person. Some people have talents from a young age. We’ve all seen it. On the other hand, Scripture tells us that some talents are supernaturally given. As we operate with the Holy Spirit, we are given Spiritual Gifts for the common good. We do not all have the same gifts or abilities, but we are all called to be industrious and to use our talents to advance the Kingdom of God. The parable challenges believers to emulate Jesus by using all that God has given us for the sake of the Kingdom. God is pleased and joyful when disciples use all their gifts for the Kingdom. When we take risks and lay down our lives for the Kingdom, God says, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Likewise, there are consequences for us when we fail to use what God has given us.

Perhaps we should consider ourselves spiritual venture capitalists. A venture capitalist invests private equity into a start-up with high growth potential. A venture capitalist assumes a lot of risk by investing their money. The payoff, for them, is a stake in the equity of the start-up. Not every investment pans out. Some investments provide a considerable return.

Another example could be KICKSTARTER. This is a web-based crowdfunding site where artist and musicians will share their dreams and goals, and you, the fan, can invest your own money in the project. The return on your investment is the album or something else developed by the artist. 

A venture capitalist and a Kickstarter supporter use their resources to invest in projects with the long-term goal of a particular reward. 

Disciples of Jesus Christ are called to be risk-takers who use all their resources for the goals of the Kingdom.

The parable’s point is not about financial return but encouraging disciples to live out their giftedness and potential for the Kingdom fully. We are to take risks by sharing our faith, proclaiming the good news, and using our resources to do Kingdom work. This risk-taking should emulate Jesus: To care for the poor, feed the hungry, seek justice for the oppressed, and point others to salvation through the cross.

If disciples are called to be risk-taking followers of Jesus Christ who use all their resources for the Kingdom, how much more true is that for a church- a collection of disciples? As a church, we cannot settle for the status quo. We cannot settle for safety. We cannot settle for tried and true. We cannot settle for “we always did it this way.” Why? The stakes are too high.

The church landscape in our nation is changing rapidly, and the church is struggling to keep up. 74% of the Silent Generation was either Protestant or Catholic. 19% of that generation are “nones,” meaning they claim no religious affiliation. 38% of Generation Z (born) are Protestant or Catholic, while 51% are nones. Each day, we lose more folks from the Silent Generation. Every day, more members of Generation Z become adults. [1]

Likewise, when we think about the shift in church attendance over the last 10-20 years, there are many reasons you might hear. The church is too political. The church is not welcoming. People are deconstructing the faith. In the book The Great DeChurching- the biggest reason for someone to stop attending church is that they moved. Think about that. They didn’t quit- they slowly slid to where they stopped coming.

Church, what are we going to do about this?? What resources has God given us to invest in the call to make disciples of all nations- and all generations? How has God gifted you and us to call and inspire people to follow Jesus? 

The parable has an actual warning to us as believers and the church. The risk-averse servant buried in talent in the sand, who committed to keeping the status quo, was cast out into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. This language is used throughout the Bible as a language of punishment and deep grief. This servant committed no crime. No heinous sin. If the servant is guilty of anything, they are guilty of failing to take the same risk that his Master took. They steadfastly refused to use their resources in a way that reflects the Kingdom of God.

John Wesley wrote, “The possessor of heaven and earth placed you here, not as a proprietor, but as a steward.”

Brothers and sisters, we cannot act like the third servant and bury our gifts, hoping that the status quo will somehow come back in vogue. If we are to do the work that God has called us to, we must take risks and try new things for the sake of the Kingdom. Not everything we do will have a return, but not doing anything will get the same results. God has placed blessings and resources in your life for Kingdom work. How are you being good stewards of these resources to reach and disciple others?

As we give thanks for the numerous blessings in our lives, let us invite the Holy Spirit to inspire us with dreams and visions of using our gifts to impact our world for the Kingdom. Let us take risks so that we might win some to Christ. May we never be guilty of burying our gifts in the sand.

  [1] Ryan Burge in a tweet made on 10/26/23 on x.com.