Five Talents

Todays sermon was from Matthew 25 about the servant who was given five talents. He went out and traded and doubled the gift to ten talents. Another servant was given two talents and also went out and traded and doubled his gift. But the third servant was fearful of his master as he knew he never sowed where he reaped and buried his gift in the ground. He was "tossed to the wolves" where there is weeping and gnashing or grinding of teeth.

The pastor said there were two kinds of people in this story, risk takers and care takers. He asked us which are we?

I have always been a risk taker and I think every farmer is. I took a risk planting those 4.1 soybeans July 2 thinking they would be mature enough to cut by now. They aren't. So I have tried my own patience taking this risk and have to wait a little longer, even risking the entire crop on that farm.

We dare not reap where we have not sown though in a literal sense as we can always do better with what we have and what we plant. I see I could have this year. But nothing ventured is nothing gained. I have gained much by taking calculated risks but risked failure when my calculations were wrong or I just went a did it without thining it through first.

There is much to think about in this parable as there is throughout the Bible. We all bury something in the ground for retirement but what do we have to show for it? If it was stocks or mutual funds, we took a big loss 3 years ago. So is our real God given talents. We dare not hide them under a rock or bury them for no one to see.

The moral of the story for me today is we are all in this together and we can only make it by helping each other. It's almost Thanksgiving and we have much to be thankful for. Our church has barrels at the back of the building to put canned goods and non perishable items in for those less fortunate than us. Most churches have done that in one way or another since their inception and it was never more needed than it is today.

We take risks and the harvest bears its fruit. Some harvests are better than others but we all have something and if we don't, we need to go find it.

I hope we both find ours today and give thanks for it.

Ed