Well Done Good and Faithful Servant: Use it or Lose It

Well Done Good and Faithful Servant: Use it or Lose It

Reflections based on Matthew 25:14-30

When we use the gifts and talents we have received from God we get better at them and they increase. We learn more, we gain confidence, and our abilities and skills grow and deepen. I believe this is the primary point of Jesus’ parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30. Two of the servants took the time and energy to invest the money in a way that it doubled in value. The third did not. He simply buried it in the ground. Not only did his money not grow, but what he had disappeared.

The Greek word translated as talent means “a measurement of mass and weight and its equivalent value.” In Jesus’ parable I believe the English word talent can be taken both in its literal meaning as well as “a measurement of economic value.” I really don’t believe that God takes our talents away from us. I believe that when we don’t use them they simply shrivel like unused muscles shrivel up and become useless.

This past weekend I attended a photography workshop in which I began to use some of my unused talents. I have a good eye, I take decent photos and I have a good camera, but my “photographic” muscles were shriveling up from lack of use. I had not studied the guide book for my camera or practiced new or different skills. I had not increased the gifts God had given me. As I read the instructions and practiced new skills I become curious about the camera’s potential and my potential. I ask questions of the instructor and the other participants and I learned new things from them. “If we don’t use it we lose it.” If we use our gifts and talents we get better and contribute more to our world and to God’s Kingdom. Whatever our gifts and talents, the more we use them, the more God can and will use us to change the world, to make it better. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “I will work and improve myself and be ready and perhaps one day, my chance will come.”

So, what is our responsibility to our Master, to each other, to creation, to this planet? What are we called to be and to do in God’s Kingdom.

Today we are the faithful servants who hear God’s call, receive the gifts and talents, invest them and double them for the building up of God’s Kingdom. We hear Jesus’ call and follow him. God calls us to be what we were created and baptized to be: children of light, children of the day, co-creators of the Kingdom. God has a message, a word for our day, but—no one will hear or see it unless we invest our talents, unless we use our spiritual muscles and strengthen them.

When we hear, “well done good and faithful servant—we will know that God’s Kingdom is near!