session: matthew twenty-five, in bullet points

The Parable of the Talents:

• Jesus is telling the disciples this privately. This is three chapters before the end of the book, the end of this record of the gospel.
• Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God (...how dense were the disciples, I wonder? Did they reason Jesus is the master, and they are the servants?)
• "Master, You entrusted...talents to me" (verse 20). 
• ENTRUSTING: ownership is not yours, but responsibility is.
• The master doesn't leave them with instructions.
• On what basis did the servants act? On the basis of their understanding of who their master is--what he values, what he expects. 
• They live for the wellbeing of their master.
• Investing--the first two servants invested what they were entrusted with 100% return. To get such returns they had to have done some shrewd, risk, nearly illegal investing.
• The talents were "given according to ability"--the third servant only got one.
• That sucks. There must have been so mentality of comparison going on.
• And yet--the reward is the same: "Well done."
• If the third servant isn't doing his master's business (hid his talent), then he's just doing and minding his own business.
• "The Christian position is that there is no such thing as your own business." --the wise Brian Lee

Now, some things I'm asking myself (and you probably should be too):

• What has He entrusted to me? (Education, health, money and the ability to earn it, my own testimony, freedom of religion, startlingly good looks, ability to travel and go on missions, etc. etc...).
• Am I hiding what God has given to me?
• What am I actually investing in? My own life and things to be gained for myself? Or am I investing in eternity?
• I don't get a say of how many talents I get. I only choose what I do with them--so, am I living up to who He wants me to be?
• Do I know the Master well enough to know how to act accordingly?
• Am I minding my own business or His?

The beauty of all this is the sheer freedom of the position He has placed us in: nothing is ours. None of the talents and everything else actually belongs to us--and it never did to begin with. And if it's not ours, and only entrusted--then we can invest and use it all as riskily as we want. We can take chances. I can take chances with my life and what I want to do with it. It's all His anyway--and I'm all His.

And Lord help me, but when we meet in the kingdom, may You say, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Come and share in My happiness." For Your happiness to be mine--and the gift of being able to share in it--that is the greatest reward.