November 18th, 2023

​Rev. Shemwell
Matthew 25:14-30
11/19/23

Homily for the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear
brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, faith always produces its
fruits. That is a sure fact of the holy Christian life. Those fruits proper to our faith
always proceed from it. If there is saving faith, then good works, or the fruits of faith,
are sure to be found sooner or later. Those works themselves, however good they may
be, they never save us, of course – only God-given faith and Holy Baptism save. But
as we will hear next weekend in our Gospel text on the Sheep and the Goats, those
fruits suited and belonging to our faith will indeed be, on the Last Day, evidence of
our faith. So yes, good works invariably follow from faith. Whereas useless and futile
works flow out from unbelief. And that is ultimately the message of our Gospel this
morning – that is the Parable of the Talents in a nutshell.
Now friends, I beg you: do not read this lesson today as if it were an economic
instruction or some sort of defense of capitalism or the Protestant work ethic or
whatever other materialistic interpretation. That’s not what our reading is all about.
Instead, it primarily concerns faith and fruits, gifts and growth, as it were. Those who
manage the master’s property and talents—with a talent here being the equivalent of
at least $10,000 or more in today’s dollars—but anyhow, those who manage the
master’s property and talents well in our parable do so because they have faith in the
character and the graciousness of their master. But on the other hand, the one
unfaithful servant who buries his master’s talent deep in the ground does so because
he lacks all faith in his master’s magnanimous identity – in his master’s benevolence –
which is to say, he lacks faith in who his master really is. The faithless servant has no
genuine fear, love, and trust with respect to the one whom he serves, he has no bona
fide belief in his heart, which is finally made evident in that one single talent

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unearthed and proven embarrassingly barren and the source of a disastrous
disappointment. He who has faith has holy works, full stop; and he who has none
works only evil and iniquity from the standpoint of eternity. That’s the message.
But here’s the thing: even the faithful servants in our lesson, their works and
fruits are not actually their own to claim. They did not begin with any talents of their
own or with any of their own property to manage, did they? No, it all belonged to the
master from the very start. It was merely on loan to them – or they were simply
stewards, so to speak, for a period of time. So whatever good they were eventually
able to do while the master was away was only made possible because of what was
first given to them freely before the master ever even left. And that, friends, is where
faith truly begins: with the full acknowledgement that nothing on earth belongs to us
or is ours to claim. Not ourselves, not our lives, not our bodies nor our souls, not our
things, not our faith, and certainly not the fruits of faith, not even our good works. All
these are but gifts from God the Father, given as good and perfect gifts from above
through God the Son, and worked in us patiently by God the Spirit.
Do you want to know what this parable is really all about? It is about what God
has given you and what you then do with what God has given you. Do you recognize,
dear flock, that everything you have and everything you’ve accomplished so far in
your life and everything that you are comes from God alone? It comes not from within
you, but from without you. God is the sole source of all beneficial and valuable things.
At the end of the day, not a solitary thing really belongs inherently to you – but it all
belongs to Him – and it is therefore owed back to Him. Now the question is: do you
accept that reality in humble faith? And does the life you live reflect that indisputable
truth? Do you give back to God what once without question came from Him? Are you
generous with you time, with your resources, with your personal talents? Do you

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render unto God what is rightly His? Or… do you occasionally bury these things deep
in the figurative ground, within the pit of your own pride and the grave of your greed,
as if somehow you are going to be able to take them with you when you are someday
interred there in the earth too? You can’t, by the way. You can’t take out of this life
what you came into it lacking. You cannot carry out of this world what never
belonged to you to begin with. And those aren’t my words of counsel and warning,
but those of St. Paul himself from his first epistle to St. Timothy chapter six. As ever,
Paul pulls no punches. We came with nothing, we bring nothing, we are but beggars,
as Luther says, and we leave with nothing.
You know, one of the most despicable human sentiments in this life is
resentment or envy. When we think that others have been given more than they
deserve – or more honestly and accurately, when we think that they’ve been given
what we have deserved more. Maybe when you first heard this parable you initially
felt a little uneasy about the seeming unequal distribution of talents and
responsibilities and rewards, for that matter. Maybe it didn’t seem fair to you. Maybe
it appeared unjust that more is given to those who have in the end and then taken
away from those who already lack. After all, that is a natural response for sinful,
entitled human beings. But that wicked emotion and frustration only arises from the
wickedest notion of all: which is the thought that anything is ours in the first place –
or that we are owed anything at all other than temporal and eternal punishment. True
faith depends on an inner, spiritual as well as a bodily awareness of utter dependence
and complete vulnerability before our Creator and His grace. Every day, every breath,
every break, every meal, every rest, every love, every reward, every smile, every
moment of peace, every pleasure and profit and measure of progress, it is all a free
gift, given from a gracious heavenly hand to one entirely undeserving. So in light of
all that, let the following reality be your first thought each and every morning,

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beloved: I have earned none of this, I have deserved none of this, and yet my God is
so good and so merciful that He grants it all to me nonetheless. Gratitude is the surest
antidote to envy and covetousness and jealousy and resentment. So why not give it a
shot? Embed that little spoken confession into your morning routine. We are nothing
without and apart from what God has given and made us.
Of course, it must be said here as well that God does not only give blessings in
the form of things and resources. He also gives us skills, talents, abilities. You owe
God your time and resources, your effort and tithe, to be sure, but you moreover owe
Him your unique contribution as a gifted person. Think of those who manage the
property here at Bethlehem, or who play the organ and join in the ensemble and bell
choir, who interpret my lengthy sermons, who handle the financial matters of the
church, who shepherd our youth, who offer up their time to the altar guild, who
themselves assist here at the sacred altar as acolytes and crucifers, lectors and elders,
and who fix pastor’s car, for example – you see, all these are just as much talents
which are to be rendered unto God with and through His holy church.
As such, I encourage more of you to get involved – especially those new to our
church. Every single one of you can help this congregation in some way, shape, or
form. Don’t deceive yourself into thinking you have nothing to contribute. That is not
a sign of humility but of idleness and indifference. No, you have much to add to our
work here – and we desperately need you and your input. Don’t let the same few
dozen parishioners do everything forever. I very much encourage you each one of you
to get involved. And with this encouragement is an important reminder: the talented
help you offer here is not simply a selflessly philanthropic donation from you to the
church and therethrough to God, but it is rather you simply fulfilling a fundamental
responsibility you have as a recipient of the already plenteous gifts of God. Again,

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everything is His. We are His. And not solely on Sundays, but every day. Don’t forget
that.
Now to the surprise of many, I am sure, the takeaway for this twenty-fifth
Sunday after Pentecost is short and sweet and to the point: be a faithful servant and
steward of what God has given you. Be fruitful, be engaged, be openhanded and
charitable. But also, don’t ever lose sight of what this place is all about. When we
gather here together, it is not about what we do in the least, but it is instead a matter of
what God has done and continues to do for us. He has given us so much, and so many
talents at that, yet He further proceeds to give lavishly and ceaselessly and without
respect to our profound unworthiness.
The church year will come to a close a week from today. Hard to believe, but a
new year is nearly upon us. Next weekend on the last Sunday of the church year we
will be reminded once more of our Lord’s imminent return in glory to judge the earth.
However, as St. Paul implies in our epistle today, when it comes to that final return,
we believers have nothing at all to worry about. We belong to the day not the night,
we walk in the light never the darkness, we are presently perfectly prepared. And that
is because we are already here, in the one, holy, Christian and apostolic church. We
assemble weekly to receive that which strengthens our saving faith and sanctifies our
souls for judgment and readies our bodies for the life to come.
God mounted a shameful cross long ago in order that His blood willingly-shed
might cover our sinful nature and our untold transgressions. And so it has. The water
that flowed out of His pierced side bathed you clean in your baptism – what was once
scarlet is now white as now. And insofar as you repent, you remain forgiven. And the
blood that gushed out of that gash in His godly belly still fills the holy chalice right
here, a cup overflowing to quench your thirst for life everlasting. Therefore, come be

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enlivened in this meal once again. Take what you need from this altar rail. Let it fill
you up. And then depart in peace to serve your Master dutifully. He will be here soon
in this divine banquet. And then He’ll be here soon, descending on the clouds in glory
as divine judge at the end of time. Or maybe, should it come first, He’ll be here soon
to carry you home when you breathe your last, to your divine resting place. Either
way and until then, let your faith be full and fruitful. So that when He comes for His
glory or for your own, you might be blessed to hear those heartening, most gladdening
words of all: “Well done, My good and faithful servant.” In the holy name of Jesus.
Amen.