What do you think of the master in the parable? What impression of him are you left with after reading or hearing Jesus’ story? Is he the kind of guy you respect, the kind you could see yourself wanting to spend time with, perhaps getting to know him a bit over a cup of coffee? Or does he rub you the wrong way in how he comes across in the parable? Is he a little too uptight and overly focused on the financials? Do you see him being concerned more about profit than he is about people?
Since the master in the parable represents the Lord, let’s just cut right to the chase and be a little more direct: what do you think about God? What is your view of him? How do you personally see God? When you pray to him, what is the image in your mind of God as you are speaking to him? When you call to mind the promises he speaks to you, what does he look like to you as you are hearing him speak those promises to you? What feelings do thoughts of God evoke in you? How do you describe what he means to you when you’re talking about him with others?
What you make of the Master matters. Why? Because what you make of the Master determines your service to him.
Think about your current job and all of the past jobs you’ve ever held. Didn’t the way you felt about your manager or boss impact your work? If you thought the world of your boss, then you also didn’t think twice about making sure you always did your best and even went above and beyond. But if you couldn’t stand your boss, you were less concerned about wowing anyone with your work and just cared about completing the bare minimum required to keep him off your back. The way we feel about our boss has bearing on the work we do.
What you make of the Master matters. How you see God impacts how you serve him. If you view him as the third servant did, then what you do with the talents he entrusted to you will be tainted. Fear or guilt will either lead to begrudging toil or burying talents. Either way, it won’t produce the kind of return that God the Giver desires.
So then, how do you view God? Is it possible that you… resent him? Do you hold any sense of spite toward God because you reason that he finds some twisted joy in punishing wrong-doers? If so, where might that perception possibly come from? Might it be driven by our own guilty conscience? Could such a view of God stem from our awareness of our own shameful sins, which at times we carry out so casually? Do we attempt to make God the bad guy for punishing the sins we want to commit, imagining we can somehow shift the blame onto him? Is that how you see him?
Do you perhaps view God as the hard Master who demands far too much of you? Does he place impossible expectations on you? Do you think of him as distant and far off, like the man in the parable going on the journey? Is he out of touch? Do you suppose he cares only about results while being disinterested in you personally?
Friend, if any of those apply, while I don’t know where those perceptions ever came from in the first place, I do know this: you’ve got the wrong guy. Such views of God don’t line up with how God is portrayed in Scripture. Think about it – would the master really have entrusted his personal property to his servants if he did not care about them, trust them, and yes, even love them? After all, he wasn’t passing along his personal property to strangers, but to his own servants.
Know this about the God who desires grace to be his calling card: his delight in you isn’t dependent upon your faithful service to him, but rather his faithful service to you. He called you to faith. He keeps you in faith. His forgiveness – and all the wealth of spiritual blessings that accompany it – are not extended to you on the basis of how faithfully you manage what he gives you; his forgiveness is extended to you on the basis of how faithfully his Son served by obediently carrying out everything necessary for your salvation. His faithfulness was flawless. That is your Master.
But your Master is even more! He’s also the Suffering Servant. Jesus not only explained the wicked servant’s sentence; he also experienced it. “And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (v.30). Jesus was the one who was thrown into the darkness of hell. Jesus was the one who experienced the weeping and gnashing of teeth in the place of eternal separation from his Father. Though his obedient service was flawlessly faithful, he suffered the punishment of the wicked, lazy servant. He suffered our punishment. The Master and Suffering Servant are one and the same – our Substitute and Savior.
Two of the three servants clearly viewed him that right way. We can tell by the quality of their service to him. They set out to put to work what the Master had entrusted to them and their efforts yielded a very nice return – who wouldn’t take a 100% return on any investment? They had faithfully utilized what had been given them, and the Master was delighted, showering them not only with praise, but also entrusting them with greater responsibility. “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!’” (v.23).
Then there was the third servant. He chose to manage what had been given to him differently. Rather than put it to work, he was concerned about losing it and facing his Master’s wrath.
He was playing not to lose. You know when that expression is typically used of a team in any sporting event? It’s most often directed at a team that either is losing or has just lost, because rather than focusing on putting in the work to score more points to either take the lead or keep the lead, they were more focused only on keeping the other team from scoring. It rarely works out well for the team that finds itself playing not to lose.
It didn’t work out well for the third servant, either. And the Master wasn’t buying his excuses. He didn’t hold back in calling him out bluntly. “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? 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’” (v.26-27). So while the servant supposed his misguided view of the Master would let him off the hook, it did the very opposite. His Master pointed out that if that truly was how he saw him, then he had even less reason to bury his talent and more reason to put the talent to work in an effort to avoid the Master’s wrath!
As we consider this parable in this time in between Jesus’ first and second coming, it is obvious to us that Jesus would have us live not like the third servant, but like the first two servants. So what does the faithful servant look like today?
Assuming we long to please the Master as the faithful servants did, what is required of us? Sometimes this parable has been used to highlight that God gifts us differently. We notice that he didn’t give the same talents to each of the servants. This is true. We do have different gifts and abilities from God. Some can organize and coordinate. Others have musical gifts. Some build and fix with their hands, some find joy in serving and/or cleaning up. The list goes on and the point is stressed that whichever unique gifts we have been given, we are to put them to use faithfully and not bury them. This application definitely has its place as we understand how God has uniquely gifted us.
But it isn’t the only way to consider the faithful service God calls us to carry out. It might also be helpful for us to think of the talents/bags of gold in terms of the responsibilities we have in our lives. Since we have numerous responsibilities across the board in our lives, whatever those responsibilities may be, God expects us to be faithful in carrying them out.
You have a job – do it well with all the strength and ability God provides. You have a house and a vehicle – take good care of them it and maintain them well. You have volunteered your time for this or that cause – follow through with your commitments and see them to completion. You have a spouse to love and serve – do so sacrificially. You are single – use it to your advantage to serve the Lord in that season of life. You have children – raise them to be grace-filled, Jesus-loving Christians who embrace the privilege of serving in Christ’s kingdom. You have neighbors – befriend and help them whenever possible. And we all share responsibilities to the poor, the hungry, the homeless, those treated unjustly, and so on. Some of us have more responsibilities than others, just as the servants had different amounts of talents. Whatever those responsibilities are, faithful service means we don’t avoid them, we don’t wait for others to carry them out for us, we don’t neglect them, and we don’t carry them out half-heartedly.
No, because we know the Master, and what we make of the Master matters. It makes our heart sing to do a job well for him. It delights us to delight him. It fills us with joy to know that every single responsibility we have is an opportunity for us to worship him with our whole lives, to give him our best as he did for us. We think so highly of the Master who thought so highly of us as to give us the greatest gift possible in Jesus.
What a wonder that our Master should respond to our faithfulness as he does, and that we are both the source of his happiness as well as the ones with whom he wishes to share his happiness. Your faithful service makes the Master happy. Doesn’t it make you happy to know that? Go then and put smiles on God’s face with your faithful service.