2020.11.15 | Go Big or Go Home!
“Go Big or Go Home”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
On the face of it, the Parable of the Talents seems to be all about money. Because, as New Testament scholar Fred Craddock explains in his exegesis on Mathew 25, “A talent was...a large sum of money, approximately the amount a laborer would receive for fifteen years of hard work.”
By today’s standards, eight talents would be equal to $750,000. The master in the story didn’t acquire that amount of money by accident. He was accustomed to putting his money to work. So the master entrusted great sums of it to three of his servants, expecting a substantial Return on Investment (ROI).
The three servants were not given equal shares to invest, nor did they reap equal gain. According to Matthew:
…to one the master gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, 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.
When the master returned and called his servant to report their results, the one who had been given five talents and the other who had been given two reported a 100% ROI. The master was pleased with their results, so he doubled the amount that he entrusted to each of them including the earned interest, and told them to reinvest the proceeds.
When the third servant who had been given the single talent was called to give his investment report, he prefaced his presentation by explaining that he had buried his master’s money in the ground and had neither gained nor lost as a result.
The master was not impressed. He wanted to know why the servant had not invested his talent? The servant explained, “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.”
The master was upset and refused to accept the servant’s logic. He said, Since you thought I was a conservative investor, why didn’t you at least put my money in a CD, or in government bonds?
The servant was stymied by the question and did not reply.
Then the master took the servant’s talent and entrusted it to the one whom he had originally given the five talents.
End of story.
II
I don’t know about you, but the Parable of the Talents has always been a bit unsettling for me.
I have empathy for the guy who buried his money in the ground. I was taught to be very careful with money, and even more careful with someone else's money. In addition, I was taught that being careful meant being conservative and that being conservative was synonymous with being faithful.
But, then, I was told this Parable of the Talents and its lesson seems to fly in the face of what I was taught. Rather than teaching the value of conservatism, and that conservatism is next to godliness, I hear Jesus teaching that we should “Go big or go home!” That’s right, Jesus teaches us to take bold, strategic risks. And, that, my friends, is a good thing, and it’s good news!
The Parable of the Talents invites us to ground ourselves in the knowledge that we worship a generous God who offers abundant blessings, rather than a stingy God who withholds favor.
Making this shift from a conservative approach to investing that fosters stinginess to a strategic approach to investing that leads to abundance requires that we accept more risk.
Professor Craddock, whom I referenced earlier, explains in his exegesis of Matthew 25 that: “The major themes of the Christian faith—caring, giving, witnessing, trusting, loving, hoping—cannot be understood or lived without risk.”
Doing so is not always easy for us. Why? Because some of us did not (or do not) have all of our basic needs met. And, because others of us did have our basic needs met, but who were taught to believe that there was no such thing as having enough.
So, our tolerance for risk likely varies, depending on what we were taught and/or our life experiences.
I wonder, what is your risk tolerance, and how has your risk tolerance shaped your faith?
III
Risk tolerance is something that we rarely explore in spiritual and theological conversations. It more often comes up as a topic of conversation in financial conversations. Nevertheless, I think the concept is helpful in reflecting on our spiritual dispositions and exploring ways that God may be calling us to grow and evolve.
Twenty years ago or so when Stephanie and I first sat down to talk with a financial advisor about our retirement plans, our advisor asked us to each complete a risk assessment survey. He explained that the results would help him better understand how to provide advice for our financial future. Our advisor and the company he worked for understood that investing wasn’t just about how much money a person or a family had to invest; it was also about a person or family’s risk tolerance.
The risk assessment that we completed included several questions to which we were asked to respond, by ranking our responses on a scale of 1 to 4, with one equalling very uncomfortable and 4 equalling very comfortable.
Our financial advisor entered our composite score into an algorithm that he used for graphing our financial goals and choosing investment vehicles that aligned with our combined degree of risk tolerance.
Our financial advisor noted that risk tolerance wasn’t just a matter of our individual or collective dispositions. He explained that risk tolerance also correlates with a person or couple’s age. For example, it’s reasonable for people in their 20s and 30s to take more risks with their investments, because they have more time to recover from losses, while it’s not a good idea for people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s to take similar risks, because they usually need to protect the principle of their investments in order to provide monthly supplemental income to meet their living expenses and/or to pay large expenses like real estate taxes.
No view about risk is de facto right or wrong. One can imagine a variety of situations in which various approaches or tolerances to risk are more or less reasonable, and why a diversity of views often exists within families and organizations.
Noticing these differences, developing vocabulary and comprehension of these differences, and conducting respectful conversations about these differences are ways that can help us manage our risk, ROI, and respect for differences in our families, churches, and other organizations of which we are members.
IV
Let’s apply this risk analysis language to the Parable of the Talents for further insight. The man who buried his single talent was the most “risk averse,” while the man who received the two talents was the most “risk tolerant,” and the man who received the five talents was “somewhat risk tolerant.”
If the servant who had been given five talents had been bolder and more strategic with his investments, he could have more than doubled the master’s money, because he had more money to invest, and more ways to hedge his losses and improve his gains then the man who was given two talents.
It’s interesting to note, then, that the master did not give the one talent that he took from the under performing investor, and give it to the steward who performed the best with what was given. Instead, the master gave the one talent to the man who was well positioned to more than double his money, but who did not, on the first attempt, do so. Why?
I think that the master gave the extra talent to the man who he thought had the greatest potential to learn and improve. I think the master thought that this steward could learn from the man who was given two talents how to be a bolder and more strategic investor.
I think that Jesus was not teaching that the one who has more would be given extra. No, I think he was teaching us that we worship a generous God who entrusts us with the gifts and gives us second chances to strategically and boldly invest what we have been given--not just for ourselves, but for the sake of all whom God has entrusted to our care.
My prayer for us this week is that we will reground ourselves in this knowledge that we were created by a generous and gracious God who encourages us to GO BIG, so that one and all may enjoy the abundant life that God has intended for every home and family. Amen.