Judges 4:1-7 • Matthew 25:14-30
The Rev. Dr. Israel Ahimbisibwe
Let us pray. O God, You have loved us through Your son Jesus Christ, even when we did not deserve it. You came to a world broken by evil and its people guilty of sin, yet You taught that if people receive You wholeheartedly they will be like seeds that fall on rich soils and that they would bear much fruit to the glory of Your kingdom. Help us to recognize that the talents You have entrusted each one of us is to bear the fruits of your kingdom. We ask this in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
In today’s gospel, some of you may hear Jesus speaking to you personally about the talents you have and how you might increase them. Some of you may be thinking that you have no idea what talent you might have or how you can increase it. Some of you might be thinking about money and how we use it, but money is only a small portion of the talents that God has entrusted to us.
It is clear from the start that Jesus used money or talents as a figure of speech and that the real issue for Him was about having talents that people can increase for the kingdom of heaven. That is why He opened His teaching with, “Again, the kingdom of heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man who invested his money…”
Jesus brought the kingdom of heaven to a world that is broken by evil and its people guilty of sin.
But on the mind of Jesus there was this unusual but generous gesture: that broken and guilty people, if they accept Him wholeheartedly and live lives that are completely based on the Word of God, they would be like seeds that fell on good soil, sprouted, grew and produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted.
God is so generous that when He looks at a person and sees guilt and brokenness, He quickly sees the potential and opportunity for this person to belong to the kingdom of heaven—and after this person accepts Jesus wholeheartedly, this is most valuable treasure that is invested in this person. You will read some scriptures comparing this to a hidden treasure that someone learned about and sold everything he had in order to buy it. Other scriptures call it an expensive pearl, while others call it the revealed secret of heaven.
The reason why this parable of the talents is attached to this portion in Judges 4 where the Israelites again sinned and did evil before God is not that God likes people to do evil. Instead, it is that when evil has oppressed people, and especially after they cry out for help, He sees an opportunity to show up and introduce his Word.
When God lives in us and we live for him, we recognize that our time, our abilities, and our money are not for us—that we are just caretakers and not owners.
We use everything we have to build the kingdom of God, and God rewards those efforts very faithfully.
When we ignore what has been entrusted, it is the same as hiding the talent in the soil.
In actual practice, we need to ask this: How can we use our time, our treasures and our ability in building the kingdom of heaven in these areas: Have we fed the hungry? Have we given shelter to the homeless? Have we looked after the sick? Are we actual believers who uphold the values of the kingdom, or pretenders and unbelievers?