"Talents" thoughts, Part 2

The parable of the talents in Matthew 25 raises a question for me.  Every sermon I have heard preached on it covers one aspect of it the same way. 
 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

The master is always viewed as God.  Numerous are the references that I've heard to us wanting to be the "...good and faithful servant..." who gets to share in his master's happiness.  But....does this analogy really work?  The part that bothers me (on a couple of levels) is

 “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? ²⁷ Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
²⁸ “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. ²⁹ For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. ³⁰ And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

The master is a hard master, who invokes fear in the heart of the servant.  When the servant doesn't improve his master's wealth, he is punished not just by having the small amount in his possession removed from him, he is thrown out into the darkness as well.

If the master is indeed God, does this mean that if we fail to improve His wealth (in some way, whether it be improving funds, or gathering souls) that we will be cast out into darkness and abandoned?  This doesn't seem to jive with the perspective of  Romans 8:38-39 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."   While that doesn't explicitly say that God Himself isn't able to separate us, it would surely seem that His Grace and Mercy would not condemn us for a failure to perform.  Ah.  Failure to perform.

At the heart of my struggle, here and in general, is the failure to perform.  A failure to live up to the standards, to be less than perfect.  I have struggled for years to believe the precept of grace, that Christ's death covers my sins, and that nothing I do can bring me closer to God that what Christ has done.  I found a note in some old musings this weekend, that reminded me that God does not love me any less than He loves Christ Himself (not because of anything I have done, but because " If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Rom 10:9)  If I believe that Christ is God, that should mean that my vacillations in prayer life, in Bible study, in the application of His Word to my life....none of those cause me to be condemned anymore than any of them cause me to be justified in His eyes.  

Maybe there's a difference in the attitude of the three servants.  Perhaps the third one isn't acting out of love, but out of fear.  Maybe the other two gave themselves whole heartedly to their master, in a desire (rather than an obligation) to improve the master's lot.  But ...does being fearful constitute a condition that would separate us from God?  Perfect love casts out fear (I John 4:18) (but is that His love casting out my fear, or my accepting His love casting out my fears)?  If I'm a servant but still fearful does that mean I'm too flawed to be saved?

Perhaps I read too much into the parable.  Maybe the understanding trails back to the end of Matthew 24.  There, the disobedient servant is hypocritical (as well as lazy) and abuses the master's materials while He is away. ⁴⁸ But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ ⁴⁹ and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. ⁵⁰ The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. ⁵¹ He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That would seem to be consistent, the failure of the servant with one talent was his hypocrisy.  He abuses the power and responsibility.....abuses grace by willingly sinning and figuring that there is no need to obey the master.  But if that, then are there an awful lot of Christians who would be cast out because they are not living up to the life God desires for us?  Or does that go back to work and performance?

Maybe reading ahead into Matthew 26, the answer is tied to the audience.  It was after these teachings that the religious leaders began to plot to kill Jesus.  Was it because THEY were the hypocrites that Jesus was talking about, the chosen people who were squandering the blessings of God?  The ones who lay burdens on the people and drove them away from the Law of God into their own Law of regulations?

<Sigh>.  These are some of the reasons I struggle. God, please open my heart to Your Love, to Your Spirit.  Grant me wisdom enough....no, grant me faith enough...to love You and listen to You when my spirit leads astray.  Thank you Father that in some aspects of my life, I am doing better at doing Your will.

"Talents" thoughts, Part 1

During a recent sermon, my pastor made a reference to the parable of the talents in a way with which I had not previously connected.  I have always viewed the story from the standpoint of the ending, of how many talents each was able to earn for the Master.  But I got a different insight when the minister emphasized the start of the story:
" To one he gave five talents of gold, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability" (Matt 25:15).  

I hadn't seen it before.  They started off differently.  It was a decision of the Master to give differing amounts to each servant.  Maybe the importance for me is not in what they ended with but what they started with.  I have struggled with my faith for years now, coming up on at least a decade.  I have looked at those in church who sing and lift arms to Him in praise, those who sway to the music; these are things that don't come to me.  I have looked at those for whom faith has been solid, firm, straightforward, clear and compelling; for me it has always been full of questions, sidebars, ambiguity, and doubts in my journey.  I've always wondered why there are those who can clearly show and experience the love of God, the Joy of the Lord, and ....then there's me, an Eeyore in the Hundred Faithful Woods.

I suspect that I have talents in varying degrees in different areas of my life (some would say "well d-u-h" but they aren't clear to me).  Some of them may be 5 talents sized skills and abilities, some of them one talent sized.  Maybe in the area of faith, I've been given one talent...or a penny (for which two sparrows are sold). A single talent.  Maybe it has just been my allotment to have a smaller starter amount than most others.  The amount of talents given were not determined by the servants, and not based on any feature we can discern, but given by Him based on abilities as determined by the Master.   

So perhaps I should learn to rest with the single talent size of faith that I have. Perhaps I should just acknowledge that the I AM who made me, granted to me the life long challenge of dealing with my Thomas faith, my Jonah attitude, my Gideon courage.  

I just....I just feel so poor sometimes.