Sisters & brothers, grace to you and peace from our generous God, the coming Christ, and the gift-giving Spirit. Amen.

At first glance, a well-meaning and genuinely-enthusiastic preacher might very well see a text like this morning’s Gospel as the perfectly-opportune moment to preach a barn-burner of a stewardship sermon, especially if it happens to be (ahem) Commitment Sunday in the parish where she (or he!) is serving.

Licking her (or his) homiletical chops, the preacher could absolutely wax eloquent on the parable of the talents and finally make the finish line of a successful stewardship campaign by asking, “And what, my sisters and brothers, are you doing with the talents God has given you? Why here, I just happen to have this handy dandy ‘Time AND TALENT form’ for you to complete. Well, and here just happens to also be a PLEDGE form as well.”

As enticing as such a take on this text might be for a pastor eager to see a generous response on Commitment Sunday, it would — in fact and in deed — be an opportunistic interpretation of St, Matthew’s parable at best.

It’s certainly an ironic parable in terms of the timing of its appearance given the nature of banking and finance in the world economy today. And considering what we know about bailouts and financial misappropriation, we may hear the master’s advice to the third slave with no small degree of suspicion. “You ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.” These days, maybe that third slave is looking rather wise and judicious. But we better not go down that path this morning.

One thing is certain. We get hung up on the word “talent” in this parable, because we think of it in terms of our English equivalent: talent as ability, skill, or performance capacity. The talents that are entrusted to these 3 slaves as their master is about to embark on a long journey are, in fact, enormous amounts of money. A “talent” was, in fact, a monetary unit representing an average of 15-20 years of work. So what we have in this parable is Jesus’ use of hyperbole, of extreme exaggeration, to get his point across.

To the first servant, the master gives 5 talents — the equivalent of nearly-100 years of salary. To the second servant, the master gives 2 talents — the equivalent of nearly-40 years of salary. And to the third servant, the master gives 1 talent — the equivalent of nearly-20 years of salary. The parable reads that each one was given a different amount “according to his ability.” A better word for ability, from the Greek word dunamis, might be power, so that we read that each servant was given a particular amount of talents according to the servant’s “power.”

The fact remains: each servant was entrusted with a tremendous amount of money over which to be a manager until the master returned. The master knew his servants well enough to know that the first one would more than likely have the “power” to trade and invest and thereby double his portion. The master perceived that the second servant also would be “empowered” to respond favorably with the amount entrusted. The master also knew the third enough to know that 5 talents would be too many, as would 2, but one would about match his level of personal “power” or ability.

Each had been given a staggeringly gracious gift from their master, but it was the one who played it safe who ended up having his portion taken away from him.

It would seem this parable is less a gentle tale about what Christians do with their individual gifts and talents, as helpful as that may be for our purposes here on Commitment Sunday, and more a disturbing story about what Christians do or do not do with the gospel as they wait for the coming dominion of God. For God has entrusted the amazing news of the Gospel to each one of us: the message of eternal reconciliation between God and humanity in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The disturbing point Jesus seems to be making in this parable is that the worst thing we can do is nothing.

As we await the day described by the prophet Zephaniah, the great day of the Lord which is “near and hastening fast” and a day when “neither our silver nor our gold will be able to save us” the question for us is how will we live in the meantime?

Once again we have seen this weekend as wildfires have raged in Montecito and Sylmar and Anaheim Hills how quickly what we have can quite literally go up in smoke. On Friday I was heartsick to learn of the total destruction of Mt. Calvary Monastery and Retreat Center in Santa Barbara, where for the past 20 years I have found spiritual refuge and a true home-away-from-home for my soul’s rest.

As I thought of that holy place high atop the hills above the Santa Barbara mission, the gentle community of monks whose Benedictine hospitality mirrored the gospel’s welcome of every shadowy corner of my identity, and the journey to greater self-understanding and acceptance which was so nurtured on that holy ground, to hear of it burning to the ground as the fires raged through the darkness of the night on Thursday was nearly more than I could bear. I told someone it was like losing a friend whom I had wished I would have spent more time with, regretting the trips I did not make and wishing for more time on that holy ground, now smoldering in ruin and devastation.

But the psalmist’s song today reminds us amid our fears and our sorrows, “Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to another.” This heritage of the gospel we have been given, that has been passed down from one generation to the next, is the gift of grace and salvation that cannot be destroyed and which has been entrusted to our care and keeping. “For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past and like a watch in the night; you sweep them away like a dream, they fade away suddenly like the grass; in the morning it is green and flourishes; in the evening it is dried up and withered.”

Sisters and brothers, on this Commitment Sunday, we remember first and foremost what has been committed and entrusted to us: the eternal treasures of the Gospel, the endless riches of grace in Jesus Christ, the priceless promises of the Word of God revealed in scripture and proclamation, and the limitless resources of the sacraments of God’s house: for in baptism we are washed, named, and claimed for all eternity and in the supper we are fed, nourished, and strengthened to be God’s people sent to serve a world in need.

As we consider what it means to live fully with these gifts which know no ending, may we rightly cast an eye to the ending that will one day take us all, and to the hope that eternity rings with God’s gladness over all who took the trustful risk, for the sake of the Gospel.

Amen.