Sermon: The Responsibility of Talent.

In our scripture sentences from Zephaniah at the beginning of the service we are exhorted that the day of the Lord is near, near and coming quickly. Paul in Thessalonians reminds the people that the day of the Lord will come unexpectedly and in today's parable for the Kingdom season we hear how we are trusted by the king, to do something with our lives, and not just waste them. Each of us is expected to work according to our ability and talents. When the day of the Lord comes we must be ready to justify what we have done with what he has given us.

Let me tell you this short story as an illustration:
Millie was now quite old but she always had a strange attitude to gifts. If she was given a present, she would thank the person profusely and say how kind it was of them to give her a gift. She said she would treasure it. Then without unwrapping it she put it away in a drawer for another day. When a niece came to help her to move, she discovered many unused gifts, still wrapped. There were biscuits and cakes that had moulded away, there were jars of things that had long passed their sell by date, and there were clothes that now would no longer fit Millie. Drawer after drawer of gifts were put out in the bin. Because she did not use them she lost them, she never had the benefit of them

Have you come across someone like Millie, I know I have, maybe not to quite the same extent but very similar. So sad, gifts given with love to be used and in some cases shared made useless by not being used.

In today's parable we are introduced to a man who entrusts his property to his servants while he is abroad he gives them varying quantities of resources, to one he gives five talents, to another two and to another one. They are not all the same; each has different gifts. They are not equal in talent but they all need to make an effort with what they have. It is not how many talents you have but how you use them.

The servant's master is taking quite a risk, perhaps he has a flair for business himself and hopes and expect that this will have rubbed off on his servants and they will rise to the challenge he has given them.

He doesn't tell them what to do with the talents; he trusts them to use their own initiative and imagination and hopes that the trust he has placed in them will bear dividends.

When the master returns two of the slaves show a profit, however it is not about money, but about not wasting or failing to use what we are given. If we do not use our God given talents, we are in danger of losing them. I have several friends who as they grow older have become great fans of crosswords and Suduko.They make sure they tackle one at least daily and frequently, to use the phrase, "use it or lose it". I have to tackle something else to keep my brain active as crosswords just leave me frustrated. My grandchildren think I should attempt one of the many games that can be accessed online or reuse my husband's Nintendo!!

In the parable the servant who did not use his gift, lost it and was rejected by his master he had failed in his relationship with his master. it was not the lack of achievement which displeased the master but the lack of love. The servant had not wanted to do his best for his master- even if his best had been to deposit the money at the bank. Would we have acted any differently I wonder. In the parable we have already seen that the master took a risk in the trust he put in his servants. When we look at our mission are we perhaps guilty as the man with one talent of burying it. Do we try to keep things exactly as they are, resist change, become wary of any new developments and if things are fine as they are, why change them? This year change has come, unasked for, unwanted, and very unwelcome so what do we do? Are we in danger of our attitude to God's mission becoming stale, just like Millie's gifts?

In this parable, Jesus tells us that here can be no faith without risks, no faith without adventure, no faith without enterprise. Willingness to take a risk is an essential part of our faith.

Throughout this story we can imagine a God who bestows gifts on all of us-and so we are gifted. Cast your minds back to when you first used one of your gifts for God. In my case it was very simple. I was a very shy youngster but I liked people I knew. At the mission hall I attended there was a Saturday night tea meeting and I was asked to be responsible for following the teapot round with the milk jug and sugar basin. Not much risk there you might say, but I liked to keep in the background, I was afraid of spilling the milk, of tipping out the sugar and of having to speak to people I didn't know. I did it, not very happily at first but it got easier, from those beginnings I found I had a gift for talking to people I didn't know and guess what I eventually progressed to the teapot!

When we think of using our talents, so often we imagine we are being asked to do something far beyond our capability. God never urges us to do something we can't do. It doesn't matter what people's talents are but how they are used in his service. God is forever taking risks in entrusting us with his gifts. He has no guarantee that we will invest them wisely, but that is the risk. He dares us to share in his vision; he trusts us to do it in our own way, knowing that if we succeed both his will and ours will be done.

Because we are all unique human beings, we all have something to offer that no one else can offer-even if that offering is of our self and our time. No one is without something to offer. Yet we all know that if our gifts or talents are not used they atrophy and die or become mouldy and useless like Millie's gifts.

For talent to grow and develop we need to use it. As the extent of God's love dawns on us, and his ways of truth and love attract us more and more, so our relationship with him develops. In giving us Jesus he gave us the greatest gift of all. in giving us this great gift God expects us to make the most of all we have been given, rather than hiding our talents away. All the gifts we have been provided with can be used and enjoyed both for the encouragement of others and the building up of the Church and in the service we have been called to give to the world.

We can do anything if we are wearing the breastplate of Faith and love and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation. We must be wary of storing our talents away in a drawer until they are useless instead we must use our lives and our talents for the benefit of our King and his kingdom and strive towards hearing at the end of life's journey well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful with a few things, come and share your master's happiness.

 
Next week's service will be by Harry Bunting