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Congratulations! You're in Management!
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
David C. Wright
Matt. 25:14 - 30
November 8, 2009
Once upon
a time two men were shipwrecked on an island. One started
screaming and yelling, “We’re going to die! We’re
going to die! There’s no food or water here. We’re
going to die!”
The second man was lazily
propped up against a palm tree, the picture of serenity. “Don’t
you understand?” the first man insisted. “We’re going
to die!”
The second man responded, “You
don’t understand. I make $100,000 a week.”
The first man was dumbfounded. “What
possible difference does your income make? We’re on a remote island
without food and water. We’re going to die!”
The second answered, “You
just don’t get it. I make $100,000 a week and I give 10% of that
income to the church. My pastor will find me!”
Yes, it’s that time
of the year again, the time when we look at stewardship and giving. Jesus
had quite a lot to say on this topic, and I’ve selected a very familiar
parable with this theme. It’s found in Matt. 25 and I’ll be
using the New Living Translation to give us a fresh approach to a well-known
text. We begin in verse 14.
14 "Again,
the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long
trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he
was gone.
15 He
gave five bags of silver* to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag
of silver to the last—dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He
then left on his trip.
16 "The
servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned
five more.
17 The
servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more.
18 But
the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid
the master's money.
19 "After
a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account
of how they had used his money.
20 The servant to whom he had entrusted the five
bags of silver came forward with five more and said, 'Master, you gave me five
bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.'
21 "The
master was full of praise. 'Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have
been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more
responsibilities. Let's celebrate together!*'
22 "The
servant who had received the two bags of silver came forward and said, 'Master,
you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more.'
23 "The
master said, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful
in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities.
Let's celebrate together!'
24 "Then
the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, 'Master, I knew you were
a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn't plant and gathering crops you didn't
cultivate.
25 I
was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your
money back.'
26 "But
the master replied, 'You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops
I didn't plant and gathered crops I didn't cultivate,
27 why didn't you deposit my money
in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.'
28 "Then
he ordered, 'Take the money from this servant, and give it to the one with the
ten bags of silver.
29 To
those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will
have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have
will be taken away.
30 Now
throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.'
Although this story is
often used to talk about giving to the church, money is only one application
of it. Let’s begin by looking at the two major truths that this parable
teaches.
First, God owns all that
we have and enjoy. In the story, the master owned the property that was
entrusted to the servants. There was no doubt about who the real and rightful
owner was. The servants were clear about that. But sometimes we lose
sight of this, believing that we are the owners of what really belongs to God! We
think our lives are our own, but they really belong to Someone else. They
all belong to God. Everything belongs to God!
The second point of the
parable is that God makes us managers over all he has given us. In ancient
times it was not uncommon for household servants to be entrusted with the responsibility
to manage property for their owners. In fact, they could even earn bonuses
for doing a good job of it. However, in the story you’ll notice that
the property was not distributed evenly. One slave received five bags of
silver, another two, and a third, one. We are told that the master distributed
them “to each according to his ability.” In other words,
each servant was entrusted with an amount the master believed he could handle. They
weren’t all expected to make the same amount of profit, but they were each
expected to work hard to maximize what had been entrusted to them.
Likewise, God gives us
talents and abilities and financial resources to manage. We each receive
different amounts, but the Master knows what we can handle. We are in management! We
are stewards, to use the biblical word, of all that God has entrusted to us.
What are the implications
of this? They are far-ranging. For example, the earth itself has
been entrusted to us. That’s a teaching that goes all the way back
to Genesis 1. We are responsible to develop and care for the earth and
its environment, so we applaud efforts to save various species of God’s
creation from extinction. We are concerned when coal companies pollute the water
in Appalachia, or when power companies pollute the air. We ought to be
frugal in our use of natural resources like water and gasoline and natural gas. We
pay attention to the fuel efficiency of the vehicles we buy, not just because
the cost of gas is high, but because we recognize our responsibility to be good
stewards of limited fossil fuels. We are stewards of the earth itself and
responsible for its care.
We are stewards of our
bodies, too, so we should be careful about how we eat, and our weight, the amount
of exercise and rest we get, and anything else which might harm or strengthen
our bodies. God has entrusted them to us so we can carry out his work,
so we need to take care of them.
We have also been given
talents and spiritual gifts and the time to use them. These gifts can
be used for selfish ends, to make us feel more comfortable or powerful or secure. Or,
they can be used in service of the Master. Now, we obviously need to use
some of our time and abilities to secure the things we need to live- shelter,
and food, and clothing. But it’s very easy to slide into spending
all of our time and talent on our security and comfort. And that’s
not why the master has entrusted these abilities to us.
We have also been given
financial resources. Again, we must evaluate how we are using those resources. The
biblical pattern is that a portion of all we earn must be returned to God. That
amount was fixed at 10% early in the Old Testament and the biblical writers said
that amount rightfully belongs to the Lord. It is pretty easy to evaluate
how we’re doing in proportionate giving. Just check last year’s
tax return and see what percentage of your income you gave to God’s work. All
of our income should be at the disposal of the Master, but he claims 10% of it. And
some of us can and should do far more than that. A friend of ours owns
a business that has done pretty well. I recently learned that he and his
wife regularly give 50% of their income to helping others!
Are you getting the picture? The
parable teaches that every part of our lives belongs to the Lord and is entrusted
to us to be developed and used for his service. Our lives ought to count
for something.
I suspect most of us would
agree with the teaching of this parable in theory, but living it out is another
matter. Why is it so hard to invest our lives in the service of the Master?
Let me quickly outline
three factors that impact our ability to be good stewards of the lives that God
has entrusted to us.
First, is the fear factor. That
was a major factor in the parable, wasn’t it? “Then the
servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Sir, I know you are
a hard man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t
cultivate. I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth
and here it is.” (Matt. 25:24,25) Fear kept this servant from
developing what had been entrusted to him. And fear was not regarded as
a valid excuse by the master!
Fear often keeps us from
being good stewards of what we have. Standing up for environmental matters
may cost us friends or cause some to ridicule us as “tree huggers.” Refusing
to engage in things that harm our bodies may cause some to make fun of us, because
they want to do those things. Expending our talents and gifts for the Kingdom
of God may cause misunderstanding or resentment by others.
When I was a youth director,
one of my former students graduated from MIT with a degree in aeronautical engineering. He
landed a lucrative job with a defense contractor. But after several years
of this work, he felt called to mission service. His decision to resign
from his high-paying, secure job and depend on a low missionary salary to support
himself and his family was met with great skepticism by his parents. They
urged him to reconsider. But this young man and his wife took that step
and ended up as PCUSA missionaries in Tajikistan, where they encouraged new Christians
to grow in their faith in a hostile environment. They didn’t let
fear- their own or that their family- keep them from using the gifts God had
entrusted to them for the service of the Master.
Fear also affects us when
it comes to money, to giving generously. The current economic downturn
has caused some people to scale back their giving. They worry that some
catastrophe may occur and they’ll need that money. I’ll admit
that those thoughts have crossed my mind! But that fear tells us something
important about our faith. Money is becoming the source of our security,
rather than the God who entrusted our money to us in the first place! The
fear factor can keep us from being good stewards.
Countering fear is the
faith factor. William Barclay once said “There is no religion without
adventure.” In faith we risk things for God. That doesn’t
mean being reckless, but it means we risk using what God has given us for his
service. We invest significant time in teaching Sunday School or serving
as an elder or deacon or going on a mission trip or singing in the choir or the
band. The risk is that all our work may have no effect. But in faith,
we trust God to use our efforts and multiply their effectiveness. We risk
taking in a foster child, or becoming a tutor for a needy student, or taking
a homeless person out for lunch. There is no guarantee that these actions
will produce a positive result, but we do it anyway as good stewards of what
God has given us.
Next Sunday, I hope you’ll “Come
Aboard the Stewardship” and risk making a generous pledge to GPC. Again,
there is no guarantee that the money will accomplish what you hope it will. And
there is no guarantee that you won’t want it back later! But, unlike
that third servant, we don’t need to allow fear to keep us from doing what
is right. We trust that God will use our gift and supply what we need.
The fear factor keeps
us from using what God has entrusted to us. The faith factor helps us take
the necessary risks. And finally, we come to the accountability factor. In
the parable the master returned one day and demanded an accounting from the servants. Likewise,
Jesus is going to return one day and demand an accounting for how we have used
all the resources that he has entrusted to us. That may be a time for celebration,
like it was for two of the servants, or a time of loss and sorrow, like it was
for the lazy, fearful servant. I know that this is a sobering part of the
story and it is a part of the Christian gospel that we don’t like to talk
much about, but nonetheless, it is true. At some point we will give account
for how we have spent these lives that have been entrusted to us. How are
you doing in using all that God has entrusted to you?
Retired Presbyterian minister,
Tom Currie is up every morning at 5:45AM, making his rounds- not to hospital
patients, but to the goats he has been raising for the past 20 years. Tom
has been raising these goats and donating them to the Heifer Project, a nonprofit
group which supplies livestock and training to impoverished rural families in
the U.S. and around the world.
He started this goat project
in 1989 because he thought that his preaching about meeting the needs of the
hungry needed to be accompanied by some kind of action. He figures he has
given away over 140 goats since he started raising them. Those goats currently
supply milk for hundreds of people and since the recipients of the goats promise
to give the goats’ offspring to others in need, hundreds more will benefit. Tom
didn’t have much money, but he knew something about goats and he used what
God had entrusted to him to serve the Master.
There are scores of ways
in which we can use the resources God has entrusted to us to carry out the work
of the Master. What are you doing with all that God has entrusted to you?
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