There is an epidemic.
A cure is found, a wonderful treasure that is beyond measure.
The medicine has to be shipped out to save the lives of those afflicted.
One person is put in charge of five trucks of the medicine. He sees to it that the medicine quickly finds its way to those in need. Thousands of people are saved.
Another person is put in charge of two trucks of medicine. She sees to it that the medicine quickly finds its way to those in need. Thousands of people are saved.
Another person is put in charge of one truck of medicine. He finds a safe place to hide the medicine in case it runs out. He keeps it safe. He watches over it. It is precious. It is life itself.
The Center for Disease Control commended and thanked the first two people for saving the lives of thousands. They were given even more medicine to deliver and they were invited to a great big celebration.
Eventually they found the one person who had hidden the one truck load and was guarding it. They took the medicine back and put it to work saving lives and then they arrested the one person, threw him in jail and convicted him of crimes against humanity and he was cast into the outer darkness where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The parable of the talents.
The talent is a denomination of currency worth 15 years of wages. About a million dollars.
A tremendous treasure was entrusted to three slaves, one is given five million dollars, another three million and another one million.
Two are entrepreneurs, they put their money to work and make a return.
One is afraid to lose it, and he hides it and returns the money in full with nothing more.
And he is cast out.
This is a parable of God’s kingdom and of judgment, of the final accounting.
We are approaching the end of the Christian year and the Gospel lessons for the next several Sundays take on an apocalyptic theme. Apocalypse means unveiling or revealing. So as we come to the end of the year, we hear about the end of time, not end as in the ending, but end as in the goal and purpose of time. The ultimate purpose of time is being revealed and it is all about the arrival, the breaking in, the invasion of God’s kingdom, of God’s empire.
God’s Judgment is about the arrival of God’s Kingdom. It is ultimately about our greatest hope.
So what are the consequences of carrying this tremendous hope? How do we live in response to this hope?
Do we hide it? Bury it? Guard it? Do we live in fear of losing this great treasure that has been given to us?
Or are we inspired to be entrepreneurs? To carry this hope out and spread it and multiply it in a world that is in desperate need for the cure?
The word entrepreneur means a wild spirit, a fiery Soul. They are those who can see beyond the familiar and accepted and see how to make something new happen. They see how all the pieces can be arranged into a new possibility and they have gumption and initiative.
The parable today tells us that part of that apocalyptic hope that we carry is to have a fiery and wild initiative in finding ways to proclaim the Gospel in word and in action and to bring this medicine to those in need.
We have been given an amazing treasure, the medicine of life, and to carry it out into the world is to receive it faithfully. But to hide and bury this treasure is to reject it and to commit a horrible crime of not bringing the medicine of hope to those in need.
So what is our ministry?
How do we proclaim the Gospel?
What are the words we use to share this hope?
What are the actions, the deeds with which we share and express this hope?
We are those who have seen the revealing of the purpose and goal of time itself, we are those who can see how all the pieces can be arranged into new possibilities, into hope.
The person of Jesus is the beginning of the arrival, the purpose and goal of history. In Christ all things are being restored and fulfilled and healed. That is the treasure we have been given to carry with us and to spread, this hope that God is acting, that God is arriving, and that the epidemic of sin and death is being cured.
Will we take the medicine to where it is needed?
Or will we bury it out of fear?
The medicine of life is here!
How will our life proclaim that?
What are the words?
What are the actions?
What is our ministry?
Are we wild spirits? Fiery Souls? Will we see the new possibilities?
Will we be entrepreneurs of fear?
Or will we be entrepreneurs of hope?
The parable of the revealing of the end and purpose of time bids us to take action.
To take the medicine and make sure it gets to where it is needed.