The parable of the talents is always a bit of a head scratcher (Mt 25:14-30). Jesus so often asserts the value of the weak, the poor, the inadequate, and wants us to recognize that the typical values in any society which glorifies wealth and strength and power are not the values that will bring us closer to God.
But here he is saying “For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” What happened to “the last will be first” and “blessed are the poor”?
I guess the first lesson we should take from this is that any attempt to turn Jesus’s teachings into some kind of formula is doomed to failure. Just when we think we’ve got our heads around being turned upside down, Jesus flips us round again!
But there is more specific guidance in this parable also. Why is Jesus is so harsh on the poor guy who was so scared and witless he just went and buried his talent? Beyond his interactions with the Pharisees and the merchants outside the temple we don’t usually see him behaving like this.
The reason is this servant should have known better. He admits that he knew God is a demanding master, he knows that God asks for something back even in places where he hasn’t been active himself. But isn’t this unreasonable? How or why would God behave this way? And why take it out on the least capable person, who really wasn’t up to it?
But that’s really the point. This servant was capable of doing what God expected. Which was? – To use the talent he had been given.
We could spend a lot of time speculating on what talent it might have been, and discussing how we should really be sure to use whatever those talents are that we’ve been given. But I think that would miss the main point. The talent we’ve been given, and we (like that servant) know this, so we can’t plead ignorance, is the love of God. Because God has given us his love, or to put it another way, “we’ve been saved”, we have the power to love others. That’s the talent we are required to use. If we’re so confused or scared or distracted that we fail to do so then it will not go well for us. Saying I can’t do that, I don’t have that talent, I daren’t make that effort, is untrue and unworthy of what we have been given.
Take that talent, work with the power of that love, and play it back to the people around us. God doesn’t care how, but he won’t be pleased if we try to bury it.