Of Workers and Talents: Two Classic Parables With a Christmas Lesson

My two favorite parables are The Parable of the Talents (Mt 25:14-30) and The Vineyard Owner and His Workers (Mt 20:1-16).  In God’s Will, Our Initiative by Dale S. Schultz (2009) and Stories Jesus Still Tells by John Claypool (1993), I found a wonderful bridge between these two classic parables that has a distinctly Christmas flavor.

The First Parable: Talents

The Evolution of a Word

In the days of Jesus, a talent was a measure of weight or monetary currency.  That meaning, and the word associated with it, would have likely disappeared in the winds of time and use if not for the use and meaning of that term in the context of this famous parable (Schultz, 2). Incredible as it may seem, our use of the word talent to describe individual skills can be traced to this parable!

The Story

As the story goes, a master departing for a journey gave his three servants five, three, and one talent to see how they would grow his investment in them over time. Each of the first two servants immediately put their talents to use and doubled that investment. The third servant merely hid the one talent he was given.

When the master returned he rewarded the first two industrious servants for their resourcefulness and initiative. The third servant, who could only return the single talent he was given, was   punished for his laziness and lack of industriousness.

The Themes

Schultz suggests that this wonderful parable gives us five major themes with sure implications for our journey and destiny toward God.  These themes are:

1) Destiny – the servants were held accountable by a master they knew would return seeking interest on his investment;
2) Master’s Will – the servants clearly knew that the master wanted them to do something with the talents given them;
3) Providence – the servants were given the resources needed to fulfill that application of their talent,
4) Wisdom – the servants had to be wise and thoughtful in how best to apply their talents to please the master, and
5) Initiative – the servants were not given specific instructions, so the master gave them the opportunity and privilege to devise a way to apply their talents.

The Meaning for Us Today

Like the servants, we have each been given talents by a loving and wise God who wants to see what we do with those talents.  In order to cultivate and apply our talents for the glory of God, we must first realize that we are nothing without God.  We owe everything we are and have to God.  Our life purpose reaches its greatest fulfillment in loving, obeying, and serving God.

Next, we must each figure out what are our God-given talents.  Then we must deduce how to best apply those talents to serve God.  Along the way, we must also realize that there will be setbacks.  There will certainly be unexpected turns, apparent failures, and seeming frustrations to our plans.

However, the stronger our desire to serve God over ourselves, the more likely we will be better equipped to overcome, surpass, and transcend those falls that come our way. Ultimately, it will be our ability to “keep our eyes on the prize” that determines how far we will take the talents God has given each of us.

We should all remember the lesson of Cain and Abel (Gen 4:1-12).  Abel offered God his very best but Cain did not. God was pleased with Abel’s offering but not with Cain’s.  But instead of improving himself, Cain foolishly destroyed his competition as if that would get him anywhere in the eyes of God.

God has given each of us wonderful gifts.  He expects us to offer the very best of those gifts back in service to Him and His Divine Will.

The Second Parable: Standards

The Evolution of Our Standards

The setting for the Parable of the Vineyard Owner would be very familiar to listeners in the days of Jesus.  It takes place in the harvest season for a grape crop.

Owners would go out seeking and selecting workers for their fields.  Some workers would be chosen early, others later, others still later, and some nearly when the day was done. Still others might not be chosen at all. It is all about the tough life that we have on this earth.  Things don’t always go our way, and injustice sometimes seems to rule the day.  Merit does not always get immediately rewarded.

The Story

In this parable we are told that the master goes out and selects workers at dawn, nine o’clock, noon, three o’clock, and five o’clock.  Unbeknownst to each group, he promises each group the same amount of pay.

At the end of the day, when he pays the last group a full day’s work, they are overjoyed with their luck.  But when he pays each earlier group that same pay, each group becomes more and more indignant and begins to protest. The owner ends up confronting the indignant earlier workers.  He questions whether they are really protesting his fairness to them or his generosity to others.

The Theme

There are really only two themes in this powerful parable. The first is that sin begins when we take our eyes off of God and begin to look around at our perceived place among others.  Jealousy, envy, greed, ingratitude, and all manner of sins are grounded in how we insist on comparing ourselves to others instead of being grateful for what God has given each of us.

The second theme is that we must be persistent and patient.  We need to be always faithful and trusting that a just God has our back.  The last group of workers, who had every reason turn down the offer of work so late in the day, worked diligently instead, hoping for the chance to earn a fair wage.

The Meaning for Us Today

We are living in an age dripping with comparison and have forgotten to value what is truly important.  We have become obsessed with being better, having more, and appearing superior to others.

The media and our warped societal values also push us to value ourselves and everything around us. We are told our worth lies in what we possess, how we are viewed, and how we fare compared to others.  Inundated with such twisted values and perspectives, we cannot help but lose the sense of what really matters to our destiny and salvation.

Even a cursory review of the saints reveals that they all possessed two great assets.  The first is a strong desire to melt their will into the Will of God.  The second is to look only to God and the needs of others over themselves.

To the extent that we are self-obsessed, we begin to lose humility, docility, obedience, and a desire to please God.  But these are the foundations of the holiness to which we should all aspire and to which we have all been called.

Bridging the Themes with Christmas Tones

The two wonderful parables above have much to teach us about the gifts God has given us.  They tell us what He expects us to do with these gifts, and how we should view these gifts in the context of our purpose and salvation.

When we were children, we tended to measure our Christmas by how many of our desired toys we received.  Christmas was more about what we received than what we gave or how happy we made others.

One presumes, however, that as we grew older, wiser, and more mature, our Christmas joy should have shifted away from ourselves.  It should have shifted toward giving others joy.  Hopefully, at some point, we even realized that Christmas is more about God’s gifts to us in the form of His Son.  It is about the priceless opportunity to someday share in God’s Kingdom.

Christmas 2021

As we approach yet another Christmas, and especially after such a difficult and still difficult time, we might do well to pause and reflect.

Let us see ourselves as recipients of so many blessings and gifts from God.  And let us take some time to consider our talents and, for that matter, everything we have and are, as belonging to God and in His service and the service of others.

Let us see our God-given talents as investments God has made in us.  And let us seek to give our loving Master our best return on that investment.

Let us trust that God will help us grow our talents and gifts in His service and the service of others.

And finally, let us keep our eyes on the true God before us instead of the false gods we have created around us in this world.

With these thoughts in mind, I wish you a very Merry and Blessed Christmas and a Holy and Peaceful New Year.