(Josiah Hall)
Matthew 25:1–30 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, 4but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. 6But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. 8And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ 10And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. 11Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ 13Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
14“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ 21His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ 23His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
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In the passage that Matt preached on yesterday, Jesus warned that because we do not know the day or hour in which he will return, we must be watchful and prepared. Jesus clarified that such preparation involves fulfilling the tasks Jesus has given us and treating one another with love (24:45–49). In today’s passage, Jesus provides two additional parables that illustrate what waiting and faithfulness in his absence look like.
The first parable describes a wedding. Unlike modern weddings that take place in churches and where the groom waits for the bride to walk in, ancient Jewish weddings took place in homes. The groom would come to the bride’s home and take her to his home, where the festivities would commence. Again, unlike modern weddings where the focus is on the bride’s preparations, the Jewish groom would have been occupied with making sure his home was ready to receive the bride, and these preparations would often result in delays. While Jesus paints the picture of a significant delay until midnight, the possibility of the groom’s delay was a common expectation, which the virgins should have been anticipating. The virgins’ role was to accompany the bride to the groom’s home and, in an age before electric lights, their lamps (which may have been more similar to torches) were essential to light the path. The burden of responsibility and the high likelihood of the groom’s delay should have motivated the virgins to make doubly sure they were well prepared with sufficient oil to maintain their lamps. The failure of the five to do so represents a truly foolish action.
When confronted with their mistake, however, the foolish virgins seem reluctant to take responsibility for their actions. Instead, they seek to burden those who were prepared and make them all run the risk of running out of oil on the journey to the groom’s house. Even when they finally arrive at the groom’s home, they seem to want the groom simply to overlook their foolishness. There is nothing in their actions that indicates repentance or self-awareness, so we should not interpret the groom’s actions as unnecessarily harsh. As with all parables, Jesus is not predicting the future here but powerfully illustrating a twofold warning: (1) we should expect Jesus’ return to be delayed; (2) we must be prepared to be faithful during that delay.
We might rightly ask what prepared faithfulness while waiting looks like, which brings us to Jesus’ second parable.
The second parable features an incredibly generous master who honors three of his servants by entrusting them to invest very substantial amounts of his money in his absence. For reference, one talent was about 6000 denarii, where a denarii was one day’s pay for a day-laborer. One commentator notes that “Even working every day, it would take 82 years for a day laborer to make five talents.”* Even the servant to whom the master entrusted a single talent was still responsible for between 15-20 years worth of wages. The master’s generosity continues after his return when he rewards his faithful servants.
The parable’s focus lies on the third servant, who buried the master’s money. On the one hand, this servant’s actions could seem prudent, for many people recognized that burying money was the safest way to avoid a loss. Yet like the foolish virgins, the servant does not take responsibility for his actions but instead blames the master, insinuating that he buried the money so that he would not risk losing any of it and be punished for a loss that he could not control.
The master’s generosity reveals that this servant has badly misjudged the master’s character. The servant hesitated to take a positive action out of fear (the word translated as “slothful” in v. 26 has the sense of hesitating out of fear rather than abject laziness). We should not understand the master’s comment in v. 26 as affirmation that he is unjust, but rather as a rebuke. The rebuke exposes that the servant’s decision would have been foolish even if the master were to be as unjust as the servant thought he was.
This parable teaches us two things. First, faithfulness involves using what God has entrusted to us. Second, our faithful stewardship should flow naturally from a deep confidence in our master’s generous character, which enables us even to take risks with the resources he has entrusted to us as we seek to develop them and use them for his sake. Putting the two parables together, we are reminded of our calling in Jesus’ absence. He will return, and so we are called to trust that his delay is for a good purpose. In the meantime, we are called to a faithful stewardship that is joyfully motivated by confidence in his good character and that is sufficiently rooted to be able to endure for the long-run.
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