SPECIAL DAYS: Stewardship Sunday

November 8, 1998 - LESSON: Matthew 25:14-30

SERMON TITLE: What do I do with my talents?

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. Michael Scrogin, in his Practical Guide to Christian Living(1) discloses that William Shirer, the great author and journalist, wrote in his autobiography, 20th Century Journey, a conversation he had with his friend Grant Wood.
    1. "At the time of the conversation, 1926, both men were living in Paris and neither had made a name for himself.
    2. Shirer was working as a journalist but had not yet published anything of consequence. (He would later gain world acclaim for his huge work, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.)
    3. "Wood was painting but had not yet found the theme and style that would make him famous and change the direction of American art. (Grant Wood is best known for American Gothic.)
    4. "The two men had long been friends. They'd both grown up in small towns in Iowa and had known each other in school. Shirer records the conversation this way:
      1. "Everything that I've done up to now was wrong," he [Wood] said, "and, my God, I'm halfway through my life."
      2. "You're only 35," I [Shirer] said.
      3. "All those landscapes of mine of the French countryside and the familiar places in Paris. There's not a one that the French Impressionists didn't do a hundred times better!...All these years wasted because I thought you couldn't get started as a painter unless you went to Paris, and studied and painted like a Frenchman.
      4. "I used to go back to Iowa and think how ugly it all was. Nothing to paint. And all I could think of was getting back here so I could find something to paint -- these pretty landscapes that I should have known--Cäzanne and Renoir and Monet and the others had done once and for all."

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    5. "Shirer offered some lukewarm encouragement: Maybe Wood will do well someday in Paris.
    6. "But Wood plunges on: "Listen, Bill. I think...at last...I've learned something. At least, about myself. I think you have to paint...what you know. And despite the years in Europe--all I really know is home. Iowa. The farm at Anamosa. Milking cows. Cedar Rapids. The typical small town, all right. Everything commonplace. Your neighbors, the quiet streets, the clapboard homes, the drab clothes, the dried-up lives, the hypocritical talk, the silly boosters, the poverty of culture. Bill, I'm going home for good. And I'm going to paint those cows and barns and barnyards and cornfields and little red schoolhouses and all those pinched faces and the women in their aprons and the men in their overalls and the storefronts and the look of a field or a street in the heat of summer or when it's ten below and the snow is piled six feet high. I'm going to do it."
    7. "Do it he did. Grant Wood found that his past changed from problem to promise, from burden to resource. We are all immensely richer for that discovery."
  2. There are times in our lives when movement needs to take place.
    1. It may or may not be like Grant Wood moving from Paris to Iowa.
    2. It may simply making better decisions to lead a more constructive and productive life.
  3. All movement in life may be more productive if it involves our willingness to say, "yes," to God.
    1. Jesus parable of the talents illustrates the results of saying yes and no to God.
      1. The kingdom of (Matthew 25:1 NRSV) "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this.
        1. Then Jesus tells the story of the Ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.
        2. To emphasize the need for watchfulness, Jesus then tells the story, the parable, of the talents.

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      2. 14 "For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them;
      3. 15 to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.
      4. 16 The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents.
      5. 17 In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents.
      6. 18 But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.
      7. 19 After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.
      8. 20 Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, 'Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.'
      9. 21 His master said to him, 'Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.'
      10. 22 And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, 'Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.'
      11. 23 His master said to him, 'Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.'
      12. 24 Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed;
      13. 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.'
      14. 26 But his master replied, 'You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter?
        1. We need to exercise some caution here.
        2. Jesus is not saying that God is like this.\This is the current concept of God.
        3. Is this is what the individual really believes, and this was so, then the individual out to have taken much more seriously the consequences of the action.

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      15. 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.
      16. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents.
      17. 29 For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
      18. 30 As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
    2. We all have talents and skills and abilities.
      1. Perhaps we need to take the time to identify them
      2. Perhaps we need to take the time to develop them.
      3. Perhaps we need to make a decision to use them.
        1. Not alone for ourselves.
        2. For the good of the community.
        3. We use them for God, for Christ, and the church.
      4. In 1950, I was a student at a boarding school in Ohio.
        1. I could sing. I was asked to lead some congregational singing.
          1. I was afraid
          2. I tried but allowed my fear to strangle me.
      5. In 1957, I decided to become a minister.
        1. I could still sing.
        2. I was asked to lead congregational singing.
        3. I was still afraid.
        4. This time I worked trough my fear and became a leader of congregational singing.

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    3. We can use the parable of the talents as an inspiration to help us use our talents.
      1. In the story two people said yes.
        1. Their lives were richer for it.
        2. It was not only in the processes learned which lead to growth.
        3. It was in the rewards received for creating something of value.
      2. In the story one person said no.
        1. That individual's life was poorer because of this response.
        2. Life was not only poorer because it remained restricted and narrow.
        3. There was no reward, at least of a positive kind.
        4. The reward was negative.
          1. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
          2. To be denied a heavenly reward.
          3. To be lost in darkness, fear and regret.
  4. We can, with God's help say yes to god and what is desired for us.
    1. We can say yes to developing a greater understanding of the principles that God is revealing to us.
    2. We can say yes to the application of God's principles to ourselves and our relationships.
    3. Dag Hammarskjold(2) once said:
      1. You dare your Yes--and experience a meaning.
      2. You repeat your Yes--and all things acquire meaning.
      3. When everything has meaning, how can you live anything but a Yes?
  5. Grant Wood discovered that by saying yes, his life changed.
    1. He learned to fulfill his promise
    2. He became a famous American artist.

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  6. We can say yes. And know this life-changing experience.
    1. We may not Grant Wood's kind of fame.
    2. We will have fame with God and with the Community of God's faithful people.

1. Michael Scrogin, Practical Guide to Christian Living (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1985), 62-63.

2. Dag Hammarskjold, quoted in Frank T. Birtel, ed., Reasoned Faith (New York: Crossroad, 1993), 157.

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