Rate of Return

My pastor preached this Sunday on the parable of the talents (Luke 19:12-27). It has long been one of my favorite parables, and it is oh so very convicting! Throughout my life I have felt this weight on my shoulders, a responsibility to be faithful with the immensity of all I have been given: Life, breath, health, time. I have been born in the west, under conditions historically and globally affluent. My upbringing is particularly precious to me as I have been raised by two godly parents in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They both taught and modeled to me what it means to love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ. I have been immersed in Christian teaching from day one, and truly few have what I have received. I have been given much and much will be required of me.  

The parable of the talents, however, goes beyond visible externals and early childhood experiences. When Jesus mentions talents he is including all the resources the master has entrusted to his earthly servants. This includes the visible and the monetary, certainly, but also the internal and the spiritual. It even includes giftings and abilities which may lie latent and untapped throughout the whole of a person’s life. Not everything is so easily discernable to the human eye. And this should be both a great comfort and caution to us!

The Comfort 

God does not dispense of His gifts equally. It is God who makes men what they are, He gives time and money and gifts and mental acuity. To some he gives the gift of teaching, to others encouragement and hospitality. He also provides opportunities to put these to use. To some He gives contexts, locals, eras in which the fields are ripe and the right application of resources results in the salvation of many. To others He calls to more anonymous work in seemingly barren times which proves unnoticed in the span human history.

We are unable to view spiritual output clearly. On that day when our works are laid bare, there will be some whom we expect to receive great reward, yet what appeared so magnificent to our human sight proved only to be wood and straw against heaven’s test. Either the work we observed from that person did not have the true spiritual impact we assumed it to have, or the fruit was not a product of his efforts. Perhaps it was in spite of him or due to someone else entirely. Perhaps there was someone unseen who labored in prayer for years, and the success was all due to that hidden work and not the flashy preaching or lofty arguments. This is the work of the all-seeing Judge to discern, not ours, and we will not know the real effect of any person’s labors until that day comes.

Additionally, we do not know the original investment given to others. We do not know what others have been entrusted with by God. It is easy to look at the great men of the past: to read about John Paton, or Martin Luther, or Charles Spurgeon, or Billy Graham—and be astonished at how mightily God used them in their generations. It is easy to self-reflect, “I have done nothing in comparison!” But the comfort of the parable of the talents is that God dispenses giftings and resources unequally. The servant who had an output of two talents could have looked at the servant with five talents and thought himself a failure to his master: “he had an output two and a half times my own! I could never have come up with five talents!” But that, of course, would be a mistake because the first servant started with five talents, and the second started with two. They were both equally faithful stewards because they both doubled what they received. Their rate of return was the same 100% and that is what the master valued: the rate of return.

In the same way, it is wrong for us to compare our output with another’s output because we do not know what anyone has started with. Some Christians, there is no doubt in my mind, have been blessed with a unique set of gifts and abilities for a very specific purpose. No one can do what they can do. Some have intellects and abilities that are prodigious, and no amount of practice or study from another could achieve their level of quality. I also have been given something, and while it is significant, it is not the same as what others have been given. Any attempt at measuring my output against those around me fails because I am not privy to the information of what I have received versus what they have received. The Christian’s duty is to be faithful with what he has been given, and what a simple and freeing task that is!

The Caution

On the other hand, it can be easy to look at other Christians and wonder what on earth are they doing? Where is their output? I obviously have produced these 2 talents, but from what I can tell that person has only produced 1. They should be better servants to their master. But again this comparison game fails because we do not know what raw material that person may have been given to work with. We do not know what challenges or what past struggles they have had to overcome to produce the 1 talent they produced. C. S. Lewis used the image of a factory manager in Mere Christianity to describe the same point: 

“To judge the management of a factory, you must consider not only the output but the plant. Considering the plant at Factory A it may be a wonder that it turns out anything at all; considering the first-class outfit at Factor B its output, though high, may be a great deal lower than it ought to be.”  

Maybe that struggling and weak believer has done more with their situation than we have done with ours, and therefore has a higher rate of return than we do. Maybe they actually have produced more total output than we have, only we are seeing the minute visible tip of a vast devout life played out in secret before the Lord. Whatever the case may be, it is obvious that comparing with others is an entirely foolish and fruitless exercise—resulting in either groundless extreme of despair or pride.

Instead, we must focus on ourselves alone and prayerfully ask the Lord what He would have us do. Rather than looking to the right or left, we each have to consider what we have in our hand: what gifting, what ability, what energy, what time we have right now--and seek God that we may get the best return on the investment for Him. He will not ask us what we did with someone else's talents, but what we did with ours. We may wish we had more talents, a greater brain, a more charismatic personality, different opportunities presented to us--but that will not change the facts of what we have received. Focusing on what might have been will only further distract and cause us to squander our present work. 

No, to be faithful servants we must come to terms with the facts and strive to be as effective as possible with what He has given to us. For our time is short and our Master is coming quickly.