Just a Jar…
11.03.24
During the Covid-19 pandemic, my wife felt compelled to open our front porch to be a small neighborhood food pantry. We lived in a community that was considered a “food desert” where access to healthy and fresh food was low without transportation. What started as a spot for leftover garden produce turned into a relatively large operation for that year. There were many people that would thank us, but although it was a sacrifice of time and comforts for us, we didn’t do it alone. It took many people willing to collect items and deliver them each week to refill the tables and coolers of dairy products, cereals, canned/boxed goods, and more to provide families with what they needed.
I was reminded of this experience as I reflected on the parable of the talents. The reality of the situation was not that the third servant needed to out-earn the other two, it was that they didn’t do anything with what they were given. Even so, if we see the story as our relationship with God, the root of the servant’s issue was not what they did with the talent, it was how they viewed their master. The master was not asking for a goal to be met. The master did not force a competition between the three. The servant implies that he didn’t trust the master and thought the master was unjust. If we falsely apply this parable to our lives it can sound like God just looks at us as stockbrokers that are fired if God doesn’t get a return on investment. But we know from other stories in scripture (like the prodigal son) that God values who we are first and what we do comes from that relationship. See, if the third servant trusted the master, any activity (even working with “bankers” who in this context would have been crooks) the talent would have doubled like the others.
Later in Matthew 25 Jesus clarifies the work to be done with these “talents” God invests in us, and it’s not improving our portfolios. The final parable in this discourse is the sheep and goats where Jesus revealed the work of his servants (who are not “slaves” but brothers and sisters) is compassion. Feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, caring for the unwell, visiting the imprisoned. Our life is our “talent.” We do not get to predict how our lives will play out whether it be years, net-worth, opportunities, etc. One thing Jesus tells us we can predict is that God desires us to take what we have been given and use it for good. When we do this, in God’s economy, our investments will always produce the fruits of Jesus’ Kingdom. Whether we are rich or poor (in health, finances, or relationships) we are invited to submit that to the compassionate work of God that blesses both the served and the servant.
I am reminded of the story in 2 Kings with Elisha and the widow’s oil. A poor widow was at risk of losing her children and all she had was a jar of oil. Elisha commanded that she faithfully asked her neighbors for empty jars and then fill those gifted jars from her own. Miraculously her one jar filled all the jars that were given to her, enabling her to pay off the debts and live with her sons in freedom. An empty jar doesn’t pay off her debt, but the collective faith that surrendered that jar to God’s will did.
For a season, our front porch was our empty jar. The extra bag of groceries was someone else’s “talent.” The most impactful experience from the many we had during that time was a letter sent directly from a prison cell. The person that wrote the letter never got food from our porch, but they read an article about it in the local paper, cut it out, and wrote a note with these words about the collective compassion we tried to embody to “care for the least of these” …
“I don’t know if I will ever meet you… but thank you for doing what you do for people… You inspire me to do what I can where I am… seeing stories like yours gives me hope.” To me, a prisoner having their hope restored means far more to our God than the money spent on those groceries. That is the God we serve. So, we don’t need to fear or distrust our God, or worry that someone else might be able to do or be more. We can be prisoners of hope in all our circumstances knowing that our home is with a good God that is faithful to us.