Pentecost 22: The Urgency of Risk

Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18
Psalm 90:1-8, 12
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30

We are coming to the end of things, and today’s parable presents us with a recurring theme in the Gospels, that of “the departing and returning master”; a theme which, as the members of the Jesus Seminar observed, “was dear to the early Christian community because it was analogous to Jesus’ departure and expected return.” A slightly different version of the parable appears also in Luke, and there are intimations of it in the Gospel of Mark also. Many of us may remember this parable as one of the first we felt we could really get a handle on, even as children. This is, in part, because of the double meaning of the word “talent” in English. In the New Testament world a “talent” was a unit of measurement, but also of money. The conservative estimate gives them the modern value of $6,000 each, and one lone talent would represent 20 years wages for a common laborer. It is in the Middle Ages that the word came into the meaning we usually associate with it today, namely a special, natural ability or aptitude. In fact, this arose out of the communal encounter with this text in Matthew. Talents came to be understood not as money, but as the unique gifts God gives to each person. As a child at parochial school, I remember reading this parable and being asked by the sisters whether I was making the best of my talents – that is, my abilities.

Now, while that may be a wonderful reading of the parable for children, it does not take into account the sense of utter urgency the parable seeks to convey, both in its words and its place in the Gospel of Matthew itself. It is grouped with several other parables centred round Jesus’ eventual return and the consummation of the present age. And it precedes directly the beginning of the passion narrative: one final prediction by Jesus of his crucifixion, Judas’ betrayal and it all begins to unravel from there. We are indeed coming to the end of things. We are coming to the crunch. The parable’s urgency is emphasised by the large amounts of money considered, but perhaps more so by Jesus’ harsh words and the sentence meted out to the slave who played it safe: “Take the talent from [this worthless slave] and give to the one with ten talents….[Then] throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:30) We can see, that what the parable attempts to highlight is something far more serious than simply, say a young woman who goes into banking instead of making a career of a natural talent for the piano. Rather, it presents us with the sobering, disturbing and even frightening thought, that “safety” is not a Gospel virtue.

Sit with that for a moment; that the hope of joy and fulfilment promised by the Good News can rarely be realised – if at all – when we hedge our bets, play it safe, when our decisions are based merely on fear of loss, when we act out of desperation in order to preserve a particular status quo or self-image. The entire sweep of salvation history seems to be grounded in this deep, deep truth. Even in the beginning, God could have merrily gone on with a literally divine existence, but instead risked the creation and risked the making of human beings in God’s own image and with free will. In just a few weeks we will again be celebrating Christmas, that great event of divine risk-taking when God goes so far as to empty God’s own self and take “the form of slave”, (cf. Philippians 26-8) as Paul writes to the Philippians. And for those first Christians, and for many still today, to become a Christian was an act fraught with risk. At the very least it could mean being ostracised from one’s family and accustomed social circle; for many it meant death. But they had internalized the reality that any profit that can come without risk is no profit at all: “For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?” (Matthew 16:26) And Jesus’ enigmatic words in today's parable, words which disturb our sense of fairness and justice – “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” (Matthew 25:29) – these words speak to the truth that those who risk nothing, end up with less than they bargained for, even less than they started with.

All this talk of risk, yet we mustn’t confuse risk with recklessness, neither with impetuous actions or a cavalier attitude. Instead the sort of risk enjoined is one which dislodges fear and disturbs complacency. Indeed, no enterprise loses its luster more quickly than when it is governed by fear – fear of loss, fear of disappointment, always with an eye to an unimaginative bottom line; no enterprise loses its energy more quickly than when it becomes complacent – complacent with a limited vision, complacent with good enough, complacent with safe fellowship, complacent – as the prophet Zephaniah alludes – with merely the dregs (cf. Zephaniah 1:2) Genuine risk is at that the heart of anything really worth having, it is at the heart of all creative enterprises and of all change for the good, as uncomfortable or scary as that may be. It’s not that the first two slaves made a return on their master’s money that earns for them the accolade of “trustworthy”, it is that they thought creatively about the possibilities and they took a risk; while their fellow did the least creative thing he could have done. He put his master’s talent in a hole. His fear prevented him from taking even the most minimal of actions, as the master subsequently pointed out: “You ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.” (Matthew 25:27) The slave acted out of fear and desperation, and whenever we do that we blind ourselves to possibility and always sell ourselves short.

When the crunch-times come in our lives, the response should never really be safety, but risk. And in one sense, as Paul reminds the Thessalonians, it is always crunch-time: “Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” (1 Thessalonians 2:1-2) The crunch-time is the ever present reality and we live always in its shadow. It is ever distant, yet ever nigh. And therefore, there should be an urgency to our lives, an urgency that asks some serious questions: What am I risking today, right now? Has my faith, my Christianity, my life become a mere exercise in measured complacency? When the master comes to settle accounts what will I offer as evidence of joyful, faithful risk? Or will he find me safely and fearfully tucked in, my talent in hole?