Investment returns
Pentecost 25, Proper 28
November 19, 2023
Fr. Tim Nunez
May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today’s parable teaching about the Kingdom of God is rooted in economics. Economy is an interesting word. It comes from the Greek word oikonomia. Oikos means house. Oikonomia is the management of the household. That means someone somehow is generating income and providing for the needs of the entire household including the servants if there are any. It includes the cooking, cleaning, laundry and general care for the land, buildings, people, livestock and pets.
In other words, it encompasses the fullness of everything involved with living together. We cannot control everything, but we are to manage our households as best we can, whatever our circumstances.
There are two primary ways people view economies.
An economy of scarcity would say that there is a finite amount of goods and resources available and we need to take measures to see to it that the pie is measured and divided up so that everyone gets their fair share.
An economy of abundance says that through investing resources, hard work, innovation and industry we can make the pie bigger so that everyone’s slice gets bigger.
That is obviously very simplified and we tend to live in a mixture of both. There must be some balance to it, and a social safety net, and we wind up in various ebbs and flows of how much and how best to slice the pie while making sure the pie grows.
Today’s parable is about God inviting us to help him grow his Kingdom. The talents that are discussed here are a lot – perhaps 70 or so pounds of gold. Think millions.
Economically, we have lots of examples. Of how growing the pie can look. In 1975 our nation was mired in a lousy economy, the worst since the Great Depression. We had just lost our first war in Viet Nam. We felt at risk in the Cold War with the Soviet Union and Communist China, though President Nixon had made some historic overtures to each country. But then he had resigned in disgrace.
And a bright young kid dropped out of college to start a company that worked with the very new industry of computer programs. A few years later, Microsoft won the opportunity to develop the Disc Operating System or DOS to run IBM’s new personal computers.
In less than 20 years, not only did Microsoft go from not existing to becoming the largest company in the world, employing over 80,000 people, Bill Gates became the richest person in the world.
More importantly, this transformed the US and world economies. The PC enabled quantum leaps in productivity in almost every industry and opened the door for entirely new industries – like the Internet. No Microsoft, no Google, no Amazon, no Netflix, and on and on. They created countless jobs, and all those employees shop and save and invest. Think of all the taxes those companies and employees pay at every level. The pie grows and grows.
Microsoft and Bill Gates certainly have their flaws and that was a very broad summary, but we can see that aspect of their success as an illustration of how the economy can work well. Now imagine if Bill Gates and people like him had buried their talents.
Jesus uses this parable of the talents – people either putting them to work or not – as an analogy for the Kingdom of God. God’s economy of salvation, his economy of grace, his economy of care and concern for his people works on very similar principles. Every day in every place people get up and make decisions about using their talents – or not.
We can look at God’s economy on a grand scale. Jesus started with 12. The early church was quickly rejected and ejected from the synagogues. It was illegal for almost three centuries and suffered persecutions. Still, because God invested in people and they in turn invested their time, talents and treasure, the church continued to grow exponentially and it has ever since, from 12 to over two billion today. And it’s growing faster today than it ever has.
We have examples in our era. Think for a moment about Mother Theresa, living in poverty herself while tending to the sick and dying “untouchables” on the cruel streets of Calcutta. She inspired millions. Think for a moment about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. bravely leading nonviolent marches while enduring violence. People getting hit and refusing to hit back, just marching forward for justice. He inspired millions. Think for a moment about Billy Graham going all over the world for decades leading revivals to bring people to Jesus. He inspired millions.
None of them was perfect. Each had flaws, but how were they rich? And how did they work what God invested in them? How many people did just those three people touch for Jesus? And how many lives did the people they touched touch? What if Mother Teresa had buried her talents, and just led a normal life? What if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had buried his talents and just gone along with the status quo? What if Billy Graham had buried his talents and took a regular job?
The Lord asks and expects us to put our talent, what he has invested in us, to work for him to advance his Kingdom right here, right now. I can’t project how that will take life for you, but it’s clear that the Lord wants each of us to invest what he has given us. Our skills and talents, yes, but the talents in the parables are crazy amounts of money. They point to the real treasure, which is Christ himself. Invest him, invest in him, grow in him and share him and the Kingdom explodes with unmeasurable blessings.
Our giving of time, talent and treasure to advance the Kingdom of God is primarily about our relationship with the living God. The greatest treasure we have is the gift of Jesus. Growing in him and sharing him is our primary focus, that is the way to grow the Kingdom.
AMEN