Matthew 25:14-30
Being Faithful with Only Two Talents

"For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.

"After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, 'Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.' His master said to him, 'Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, 'Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.' His master said to him, 'Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' But his master replied, 'You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'"

New Revised Standard Version

Jesus was a master story teller. His tales were engaging, memorable, and every part of them carried life-changing messages. Jesus never wasted words, and God inspired the gospel writers to remember and record all those details and nuances.

The story of the talents illustrates this mastery in so many levels. A "talent" was a measure of weight, which we believe to be about 75 pounds or 34 kilograms in today's terms. Since it doesn't say what was measured, the implication was these were gold and silver coins -- so each "talent" was easily worth many thousands of dollars. The master was clearly very trusting of these three slaves to trust them with such riches.

One other story twist that has been lost over the centuries was the moral tone of the story. Jesus' listeners would have known the master was clearly a sleazy character, both because one of his servants calls him on it, and because the work that he intended his servants to do, invest his money, was most disreputable at that time. The banking transactions we consider commonplace today were labeled as the sin of usury during biblical times and up through the middle ages. Today, we consider it a crime and a sin to exploit someone's financial condition with exorbitant interest rates and harsh terms. In the Old Testament (see Exodus 22:25), charging interest or receiving interest at all within the nation of Israel was considered wrong and exploitive.

There's also the interesting contrast between the "good" servants and the "bad" servant -- the ones who did what the master wanted, and the one who decided for himself what was right and proper. Surprisingly to us, the act of the one servant, burying the money in the ground, was commonplace and would have been understood by Jesus' listeners as the prudent action to take with one's savings.

We're so conditioned to see the contrast between good and evil, as in many of Jesus' stories, like the Pharisee and the tax collector in the temple to pray, and like the men who built houses on rock and on sand. However, there are three slaves in this story for a reason. Consider the differences between those two servants in the story -- and you'll find there are none, except the amount of money. Both were obedient, both doubled their funds, and both received exactly the same praise and reward from the master.

We would have made a distinction if we were the master! He praised both slaves for being faithful "in a few things," but shouldn't he have acknowledged that the slave given two talents had fewer things than the other? Surely the master knew it would take more work to double five talents worth of coins than to double two talents worth of coins!

But, even as sleazy a character as we thought this master was, he wasn't concerned about the money at all. This master was concerned only about the obedience and faithfulness of his slaves. Jesus was teaching them and us that God wants us to be just as faithful in little things as we are in big things. There are no small jobs in the Kingdom of God! We may consider a task as trivial, or find some work menial and dull. We may not think our offerings are much, or our skills and abilities important, and we usually come to those conclusions by focusing on the results. When God considers results, however, God is measuring how our souls have grown, and how the souls of others have grown, not the outcome of our work, skills, or gifts.

In all that God puts in front of us to do, no matter how small, how obscure, or how unseen, we have the opportunity to praise God in our efforts, and to hear our Master say, "Well done, good and trustworthy slave."