Jesus once told a provocative little parable about a master who, in leaving town, left his possessions in the hands of three servants. To one servant the master gave five talents, to another he gave two talents, and to the last he gave one talent.
Now a talent was no insignificant sum. Each talent was equivalent to roughly fifteen years of earnings for an average laborer of the day. So the master was placing truly significant wealth into the hands of his servants and asking them to invest it and increase it.
Two of the servants did invest well. In fact, they doubled their master’s money. But the third servant buried his master’s money in the ground in order to be sure to preserve it. In the end, the master returns and rewards the industrious servants and rebukes the one who simply buried the treasure given him.
We’ve always wondered what would have happened if the two industrious servants who invested their master’s money had invested poorly and lost it all. Would the master have been angry? The parable doesn’t tell us that, but judging from the master’s frustration with the servant who did nothing with his wealth, it seems that the master cared more about the effort than the result.
Of course, most of the world sees things differently; outcome is everything. We care more about our team’s success on the field than about how hard it practiced. We care more about students’ grades than about hours spent doing homework. We care more about whether the plumber can actually unclog the pipes than if he tried his best. From our perspective, results matter.
But if the master in Jesus’ little parable about the servants and their talents is really telling us about God and God’s expectations for the gifts given to us all, then the “results only” philosophy is not one that God has adopted. Instead, it seems God expects us to use the gifts or talents we’ve been offered and to put them to work in ways that are aimed at benefiting God’s plans and God’s purposes. We may be wildly successful or then again we may not. But the expectation is that we try. Perhaps the effort will yield more than we could have imagined.
Not long ago we ran across the story of a little ten year old girl named Annie who in 1876 was placed in a poor house for children. She was nearly blind and her relatives found the little girl too hard to handle. Alone and friendless, Annie would have been said to have possessed next to nothing. No “talents” had been lavished upon her.
Eventually, however, when Annie was sent to the Perkins School for the Blind, she developed a goal she determined was worth investing every bit of her life and her energy in. Annie wanted to work with blind and difficult children. A position was found for her. Anne Sullivan went to Tuscumbia, Alabama to help care for and instruct a little girl named Helen Keller.
Was Anne Sullivan’s investment successful? Well, you might say she more than doubled her investment. Helen Keller was the first blind and deaf person to graduate from college. She wrote twelve books, traveled widely and lectured extensively in support of significant causes. Anne Sullivan invested all she had, and the result was extraordinary.
How have you invested your assets – not just your financial assets, but the less tangible assets that have been entrusted to you? Have you invested your energy, enthusiasm, kindness, love, compassion, wisdom, insight, and faithfulness in ways that matter? In places where there is need? In people whom only you might influence for good? If so, then your stash of “talents” must be earning a tremendous dividend.