Weekly Devotion: Starving at the Banquet
(Matthew 25:14-30) Do we believe in the goodness of God?
“Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!”
Those words come from the character Mame Dennis in the 1958 movie Auntie Mame. I love the movie and I love this quote because it’s so true. There are people who sometimes let life pass them by and allow themselves to not enjoy the life they are given. The quote best describes Mame, an eccentric who lived life to its fullest. Even when she lost most of her fortune in the stock market crash of 1929, her spirit was still indomitable. She also had a generosity of heart, offering her home to misfits and oddballs and caring for those who were shunned by the wider society because they didn’t fit the WASP society of the day.
We now look at a parable that many of us know well, but always leaves us scratching our heads. We get hung up on the word “talents” and we don’t understand why the master is so angry at the third servant. So he buried the money. What’s the big deal here?
But this story really isn’t about money. Many a stewardship sermon has been preached using this passage, but money isn’t really discussed. This story is similar to the Ten Bridesmaids in that it is about what we do as we wait for Christ to return. In particular, this story is about faith and trust. Do we believe in the goodness of God? Do we believe God loves us? Do we have faith that God can take what we have and turn it into abundance?
The master gives each of his servants some talents or money. He then goes away. We don’t know how long he is gone, but it’s probably a good amount of time. The first two servants put their talents to work. To put it another way, they took the teachings of Jesus Christ and sought to live them out in their lives. They trust God was good and that through God whatever they had would become fruitful. They were faithful to their master. The master returns and hears what they did, he is quite pleased. “Well done good and faithful servant,” the master says to his two servants. “Enter into the joy of your master.”
Now this third servant takes his talent and buries it. It would be bad enough if we think of the talent as money, but he is burying the gospel of Jesus.
Why? Because he is afraid of the master. He doesn’t trust the master. He doesn’t have faith that the master will treat him with kindness. He views the master as a harsh man and buries the talent in the ground. This servant has a warped view of master and because he has his distorted view, he becomes afraid and does nothing with the talent. He couldn’t see his talent as a gift. Instead, the talent became a burden, something he wanted to get rid of as soon as possible. He had this view of the master that wasn’t true. Ironically, When he returns his unused talent he gets the harsh master that he was afraid of. Enraged, the master calls the third servant “wicked” and “evil.” That servant had been given a gift from a gracious God.
You and I have been given the gift of grace, through Jesus Christ. As we wait for Christ’s return, what do we do now? We can choose to enter into God’s grace. With the grace given to us, we go and care for others, feeding the hungry and welcoming the stranger. What does that mean for a church? It means being generous, taking the gifts given by God, and living out the gospel in our care for others. It means stepping out in faith, believing that God will take what we have and provide abundance. The other choice is to become stingy and fearful, to become a congregation hanging on for sheer survival. It all depends on how we see God. It all depends on faith.
That third servant reminds me of Auntie Mame’s quote. The servant is at this wonderful banquet filled with delicious foods and the servant sits at the table not eating and starving. He missed out on experiencing the joy of the master. Fear became his own prison, keeping him from living in joy.
God is calling us to enter into God’s goodness and live a life full of joy. We are to come to God’s table and take part in the big banquet of life. It is waiting there for us. We just have to have faith to accept it.