The Greatest Talent Is the Talent to Use a Talent

There is something unsettling about this parable (Luke 19: 11-28) that we must not rush past. A nobleman goes away to be appointed king, and before leaving, he calls ten servants and gives each of them ten pounds each; and says simply, "Do business with these until I come back." The story unfolds; the man gets appointed as king and returns and calls in the servants to present the account of their business. The first servant has made ten pounds more. The second, five. But the third has wrapped his pound in a cloth and hidden it away, returning it unused, untouched, exactly as it was given.

The greatest talent is the talent to use a talent. The master doesn't give these servants his money to keep safe. He doesn't ask them to guard it, protect it, and preserve it unchanged. The biggest gift is not the money or talent given, but the power and authority to use, to put into circulation, to risk, and to engage with it. The name of that talent is trust, courage, generosity, or faithfulness. A pound kept in a cloth, protected from loss, shielded from risk, and returned in pristine condition is not faithfulness—it is fear; and its consequence is waste. The third servant was afraid of doing the wrong thing, so he did nothing. And nothing—it turns out—is the worst thing of all.

Listen to the third servant's defence: "I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow. So I kept your pound safe in a cloth." He's not lying about his fear. He's not even necessarily wrong about the master's severity. But his fear has led him to the most catastrophic miscalculation possible: he has mistaken preservation for faithfulness. He thought the point was not to lose what he'd been given. He thought safety was the highest virtue. He thought that returning the pound unchanged would prove his reliability, his carefulness, and his respect for what belonged to the master. But the master's response is withering: "You wicked servant! You knew I was severe? Then why didn't you at least put my money in the bank where it could have earned interest?"

The talent that makes all other talents possible is courage, yes. But it's a particular kind of courage: the courage to be generous with yourself. The courage to spend yourself, to pour yourself out, to risk what you have for the sake of what might be. It is being big-hearted—having a heart large enough to give, to risk, to lose, to fail, and to keep giving anyway. It is the refusal to clutch, to hoard, to play it safe. It is the willingness to die to what you have for the sake of what you might become, what you might create, what you might give to the world.

Here come the mathematics of the Kingdom: "I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." This is not punishment so much as consequence. What you don't use, you lose. Not because God is cruel, but because this is how gifts work. This is how life works. This is how we are made.

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