This is one of the hard ones, one of what are called the hard sayings of Jesus. I don’t know about you, but during my darker moments anyway, when I hear this parable, or the variation on it in Luke, I tend at first to identify with the slave who receives the one talent — at least, up to the point where he buries the talent in the ground. No, I am definitely not some Five-Talent Phenom, or even a Two-Talent Trendsetter. I cannot with any honesty say that my investments have doubled — not through any shrewdness on my part, anyway.

            No, I am not confessing that I have “buried my talent” — or my half-talent or quarter-talent, whatever the case may be. I have used it, made my half-baked attempts at investing it. But if the “Master” who gave me the talent were to return tomorrow and demand an accounting, I would probably have to say something like, “Well ... Here’s your talent — half-talent, quarter-talent, whatever. Yes, I used it, I ‘invested’ it. But it certainly didn’t double in value on my watch. I don’t know that it did any meaningful, measurable good at all. But here it is! I’ve still got it — a little dented, a bit scraped — you know, used looking. But I’ve still got it. You want it back? Maybe you want to give it to the go-getter with the five talents — the one who started out with a church with a membership consisting of a homeless family, a retired postal worker and a three-legged cocker spaniel, and under that pastor’s wise, principled, radical, passionate and excellent tutelage, it has grown so that now worship attendance averages half the population west of the Mississippi River.”

      &nb

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