Sermon Sampler: November 13, 2005

The third servant [in the Parable of the Talents] doesn’t fare so well; he’s gone and buried the money for some reason, and the only gain he’s able to give his master is the dirt clods falling on the lord’s floor. He makes some excuses about his master’s reputation for being a tough, ornery son of a gun – as if that’s going to help – but he makes no apologies. It’s all there, not a penny missing. He’s done no wrong.

This servant gets no reward from his master beyond the print of the lord’s boot on his behind, as he’s kicked off the estate and into the dark night to wonder what he did wrong.

Let’s answer his question for him, shall we? What was it about those first two servants that pleased their master so much? What was so good about them, which was lacking in Servant #3?

First of all, those two servants knew who the goods belonged to. It was a fortune they were sitting on, yes…but it was the master’s fortune. They didn’t dare squander that money or blow it on themselves, because the master would demand his fortune from them when he returned. If he’d wanted to give them a gift, he would have given them a gift; he had not. Instead he trusted his wealth to them. All that money was in their hands, but it would be dangerous to think that it was theirs. No matter what they did, the good servants remembered that the money remained their master’s money.

That third servant, though, seems to have had other ideas. What sort of person buries money? A pirate. A thief. A man with something to hide. A cautious man would put his money in the bank where it is safe, and even earning a tiny bit of interest. A dishonest man – a man who chose to forget whose money it was – might just dig a hole.

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