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Summary:

Jesus gives us this parable of the coins (or, Matthew tells us, the talents) right before he enters Jerusalem, because, Luke tells us, the crowd supposed that the Kingdom of God would appear immediately. Well, what do we do with what has been given to us while we wait? What do we do with grace? What do we do with love? What do we do with forgiveness? How do we evaluate the risk of extending these things out into the world? If we invested them into the world do we believe that they will grow? Do we believe we might grow? And what does all of this have to do with what we believe about God? Is he stingy with these things?

Excerpt:

Let me say this again. I would suggest to you that if you can't get around the idea of Jesus as King over all things as the true king that your heart really desires, it may very well be because of His death and His cross. And because of his judgment, those may be the things that really hang you up. But here, it's actually where we see His grace and His kindness. It's an odd paradox in the Christian life. Those are the real reasons why people often think they don't want to follow Jesus. Those are the things that hang us up. And here's what I'm suggesting is that Jesus Himself knows that those will hang you up. That's partly why he tells this story. Jesus is aware of the very things that bring you doubts and questions. Which is to say that no question is too big for Jesus. And no doubt is beyond his sort of engagement and his control. So I wanted you to see the king's reign in this way and his leaving and his return. And I wanted to just acknowledge that these sort of leave this leaving in this return in this passage, and how they're done. Bring up these doubts, but the Jesus still invites us into them. Which is sort of to say, how do we live now? How do we live? What are we live? How do we live in this in between time this already? Not yet time. And let me suggest just a few things that come from this parable. First thing is that we live as stewards, which is to say we live as those who have something that's been entrusted to us. You know, we've been given something and we're supposed to care for it, we're supposed to act responsibly with it. So verse 13, it says this, calling 10 of his servants, he gave them 10 minus and said to them engage in business until I come.

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