The cost of fear By Frank G. Honeycutt
… so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground (Matthew 25:25).
N
ot long ago one of our church members noticed a sign on her dentist’s wall that asked
patients to please inform the staff if a trip to certain West African coun- tries had occurred in the last couple of months. “Or also Dallas, Texas,” the sign read. “Well, I was in Dallas just a few
days ago,” she confessed to the sur- prised dental hygienist, who quickly leſt the room. Ten minutes passed. Te hygienist returned looking rather grave and said, “Well, we can clean your teeth today, but we can’t
Fear always
gives birth to darkness.
sources ranging from airplane seat 47B to common snot. Dangerous policies can corrupt and weaken the country so we throw the incum- bents (Democrat or Republican) out almost every election cycle to make things seem a little less fearful. Fear affects us all. At 57, I peek
at my retirement holdings far more frequently now. Will I have enough if I live to 95? What if my health doesn’t hold up? Perhaps the fears are a little dif-
ferent for each of us. But I suspect fear is quite present just under the surface in us all. Here’s an important theological question: What is fear doing to your faith these days? In the parable of the talents
do everything we had planned.” She leſt again and returned wear-
ing an outfit that resembled a haz- ardous material suit or something a person might don while stepping onto the lunar surface. We’ve possibly marketed fear
and danger like no other era in the history of humankind. Dangerous people can break into our homes, our country and even into the well- defended White House. Dangerous illnesses can be transmitted, with the
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(Matthew 25:14-30) three people are given various sums of money. One receives five times as much as another, but please don’t feel sorry for the lesser guy. A talent was a wad of cash back then. My New Revised Standard Version Bible reports in a footnote that one talent in the first century was the equivalent of about 15 years of wages. In today’s econ- omy a single talent would be worth more than half a million dollars. Here’s a generous master who gives his servants much more than they need before he departs for “a long time” (25:19). Te master is saying: “Here are
several talents. More than enough resources to tinker around with until I return. I know you’ll do the right thing.” Since Jesus told this story just
before he died, it’s not a stretch to make this case: Te talents given to the servants by a generous master represent the resources any follower of Christ is given while waiting for
The master is the ultimate
judge of how we’ve used our money.
Jesus’ return. Tis idea clashes with the great American dream. Te master (not the bank or the stock market) is the ultimate judge of how we’ve used our money. Some of us may have more moola than others, but at the end of the day the master wants to know what all of us have done with his generosity. Te tal- ents, though parceled out in various sums, remain the master’s. Te pronouns are important
here. Even though the fearful guy who dug the hole receives a tongue- lashing, he does understand true ownership: “I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours” (25:25). Money is a giſt from the Master.
Whether we’ve come by our money through hard work, inheritance or dumb luck, Christian theology assumes it’s not really “ours”—it is God’s. I know what you may be think-
ing: “If he tells that to the IRS, I’ll be visiting him in prison.” But there’s also another kind of prison, right? Te man with the shovel receives
only ire from the returning master. Why was he so cautious? “I was
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