Pentecost 27 Year A

Matthew 25:14-30

We have all given people gifts, haven’t we? I like giving gifts to people. Actually, it is not so much that I life giving the gift, I like know that the person will get enjoyment out of the gift. Isn’t that why we give gifts? Not just to hand a wrapped box to someone: No, we give a gift because we want the person who is receiving the gift to have more enjoyment out of life. We hope that our gift will make the person’s life more enjoyable than it would be without the gift.
I think most of you know that I make stained glass. I enjoy giving pieces to people as gifts. It is always my hope that those who receive the gifts will hang them up and enjoy them. It is always my hope that my will bring joy to those who see it.
What would sadden me is if I gave a piece of glass to someone and they just threw it and broke it. It would sadden me to think that I put effort into creating something for a person of enjoy and that person purposely destroyed the gift. It would also sadden me to think that I gave someone a piece of glass and they just placed it into a brawer and never brought it out. Part of the enjoyment of the glass is in looking at it and using it, not just hiding it away.
I would be less saddened if a piece of glass I made was broken because it fell or the suction cup malfunctioned while the person was using it. It would make me very sad if the person intentionally broke it into pieces. But given the choice, I would rather have the piece break because it fell while in use than to have it sit in a drawer, never to be seen.
In today’s gospel, we hear a story about gifts and what we do with our gifts. From the reading I think we can draw some conclusion about God: God seems to want us to take our gifts and talents and put them out there in the world. God doesn’t want us hading our gifts away. What we have been given, we are to use and invest. What we have been given, we are to share with the world.
In the gospel reading, we see that the master gave various amounts of talents to the three servants. Each servant receives an amount of talents according to his abilities. We hear about these talents and may feel sorry for the poor servant that only got one talent. But we need to remember that these talents are no little thing. Each talent that the master gave to the servants is actually a very large amount of money; it is equivalent to the amount of money a day laborer would make in 15 years. So if we take this into consideration, even the servant that is given only one talent is given the monetary equivalent of 15 years of work. If we were to look at a pay rate of $20,000 a year, that would be $300,000! That is a lot of money!
A little factoid: It is from this story that the word “talent” came into the English language meaning a “God given ability or gift.”
Usually, priests like to talk about the large amounts of money that was entrusted to each of the servants. They also like to talk about the large amounts of money that God entrusts to us. And, of course, priests like to talk about how we, as good servants, should use our money in the service of God. And, our course, being a priest, I want to talk about these things too! You should have received a letter in the mail asking you to consider you pledge to the church. I know that the financial difficulties in the world have hit most of us, and that our paychecks do not seem to go as far as they used to. But the financial difficulties have hit the church, also.
Actually, talking about money is one of my least favorite things to do, but what we do with our talents is something that the Bible never backs away from. Actually, in the Bible, Jesus talks about our relationship with money over 400 times. So what we do with our gifts and our talents is of great importance to Jesus.
But lets move away from the monetary understanding of talents and think more in line with the “God given ability” understanding. God gives us each skills and talents. And if we think about it, there is no one who is left untalented. In the gospel story, even the servant that received the least received one talent -- $300,00 dollars worth! So if we translate that amount into skills and abilities, then even the least talented of us has a whole lot to offer!
Sometimes I think we hide away our talents because we do not think that what we have is good enough, or we are afraid that we will not do something right. Sometimes we may bury our talents because we do not realize that we even have these talents to contribute. But we see in the gospel reading that ALL of the servants were given something, even if it was just one talent. And I don’t care who you are; you have at least ONE talent! But even if you have only one talent, that talent is important and valuable. Even one talent is not something to be buried away and hidden from the world. The servant that was given one talent was expected, just as much as the other servants, to take that talent and us if for God’s glory!
However, most of us have all kinds of talents. Yes, we speak of money, but we also can give other gifts to being glory to God. We can give the gift of time. We can give the gift of our physical abilities. Some of us have the gift of creativity and can use that for God’s glory. Others have the gift of care and nurturing. Granted, we may not have been given all of these gifts, but we each have some. And the one thing that we all have been given is the gift of time. So even though we may not have been given all things, we all have been given the gift of time.
But you know, we can bury our gift of time just as easily as we can bury our other talents. Actually we can probably bury our time easier than we bury our other talents. Sometimes we become so busy in the trials of life that we allow our time to get buried. Or we may take on things because we are afraid that if we do not do them, the task will not get done correctly. In either case, we don’t wisely invest our time into the work that God has for us in the world. Our time gets lost in the multitude of things that the world tells us are important.
But what God asks of us is that we use our gifts and talents wisely. That we truly invest what we have. And this is not just on the personal level, but this is on a congregational level too! God asks that we do not bury the great talents that we have as a people together. God asks us to share our blessings with each other, and with the community and the world. God asks us to use our talents to bring greater glory to God. God does not want us to hide these talents away, God wants us to bring these talents out into the light!
We have been given the ultimate gift in Christ. We are called to share not only our talents but to share THE gift we have in Christ. We do not need to hide away the life we have been given and no need to be afraid. The gifts we have been given will be multiplied if we just trust and share. I invite you today to consider how the wonderful talents you have been given can be unearthed and shared. I invite you to take careful consideration of how Christ may be asking you to share the love that you have been given through Christ’s own death and resurrection. I invite you to consider how God may be calling the congregation of St. Augustine’s to be a beacon of light and hope in a world that need directions. Our talents have been given to us to enjoy, here and now! But I also invite you to present you talents before God and see what wonders God has in store!