Sermon - Conquering Fear on the Road to Wholeness - Part One

Conquering Fear on the Road to Wholeness – Matthew 25:14-30

I first delivered this sermon at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY

on Sunday,31 January 1993.

Brothers and sisters, fear can be the most significant determining factor in our behavior and lives. 

For many of us, fear belies our most crucial choices.  Fear limits our decisions regarding careers, vocation, education, relationships hobbies, gifts, talents and any number of other interests.  Fear impedes our ability to experience abundant and freedom in daily living.  Because we fear failure, we forego the pursuit of heartfelt dreams and goals.  Conversely, some people actually fear the consequences of success; they therefore falsely reason it is better not to challenge themselves.  Serial monogamy emerges because of the fear of love and vulnerability.  Non-committal encounters, sexual promiscuity and non-affirming behavior toward all participants results.  Anxiety about the possibility of rejection forces many people to refuse invitations for dates and other social activities.  Perhaps, some of these opportunities may have proven relationally beneficial and yielded positive outcomes.  This type of apprehension explains why some people isolate socially.  The consequences of prevalent fear are a self-sabotaging pattern of choices, consciousness and character that practically furthers procrastination, resentment, shame, guild, regret and very low self-esteem.  Summarily, fear can be the sole determining factor in a person’s life.

Sigmund Freud said that life consists mostly of love and work.  Indeed, it does!  We spend most of our time at our respective places of employment.  Who does not long for a genuine, trustworthy and growing love relationship?  Love and work are two essential parts of a happy, serene and whole life.  I pray that we may conquer the fear in our lives that prevents us from enjoying an occupation that complements our experience of a self-confident life and inhibits us from giving and receiving love.  Jesus says, “The thief [fear] comes only to steal [our dreams and goals] and kill [our faith, hope, trust, ambition, motivation and determination] and destroy [gifts, talents, drive and actions]; I have come that [you] may have life, and [more abundantly] and have it to the full.” Brothers and sisters at Emmanuel, may we strive to defeat and resolve any fears that plague our choices.  Wholesale annihilation of timidity enables us to live healthy and holistic lives.  Let’s fully and boundlessly enjoy the precious gift of life!

Today’s text, “The Parable of the Talents,” offers invaluable insight about the debilitating nature of fear.  Interestingly, one biblical commentator refers to this passage as “A Parable on the Use of Capabilities.”   A detailed analysis of this provocative biblical portrait contrasts polar opposite responses to emotional, experiential and existential fear.  In contemporary terms, a wealthy and successful businessman summons three employees and gives them oversight of several major projects.  The first employee receives managerial charge of five divisions.  A second worker is responsible for two departments.  The third middle manager must invest a particular aspect of the company’s portfolio.  The chief executive officer grants the assignments in accordance with his assessment of his subordinates’ abilities and potential to succeed.  Straightforwardly, the text states that each employee receives a single or multiple talents relative to his possibilities of actualizing a profit. 

Fundamentally, the distribution of talents depends upon the employee’s character, historical context and personal circumstances.  Almighty God, however, justly gives talents and gifts to each person.  The businessman’s confidence in his workers reflects God’s investment in each of us.  Absolutely no one can say reliably or honestly that he or she does not possess some type of special ability.  Again, God is just.  Whereas fairness dictates an equitable distribution of gifts in quality and quantity to each worker, God’s justice prevails as He, in His infinite providence and unerring wisdom, gives talents to each person according to his or her interests, passions and wills.  An equality of opportunity exists for each work to utilizes and succeed with what he or she receives.  Life’s complexity and diversity precludes any possibility of an equality of ability.  God through natural selection endows humankind with disparate and diverse abilities.  Jefferson in The Declaration of Independence posits this divine prerogative and will as he insists upon the inalienable rights that God grants each human being chiefly among them being the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  A person enjoys these God given rights to the fullest extent of his or her natural endowments; whereas the endowments are not equal, the right to actualize them is.  Natural endowments could only be equal if human origins were to possess uniformity.  The incongruence in a person’s beginnings such as race, class, language, culture, ethnicity, religion, creed, sex, gender and other social distinctions prevents equality of ability.  Such a superfluous uniformity would rob us of our unique personalities that yield the breadth and depth of human creativity as evidenced in art, music, literature, poetry, drama, dance and the disciplines of the natural and social sciences.  Summarily, Almighty God justly gives each of us a talent or talents according to who we are. 

Incidentally, God’s will for each us is the fulfillment of our heart’s deepest desires and intentions in conjunction with our capabilities.  What do you wish to accomplish in life above anything else?  Are you capable of achieving it?  If your answer is “Yes,” then you have quite possibly stumbled upon God’s will for you. 

For the hearer’s of Jesus’ words, the talent was a unit of money worth approximately $10,000.  Some biblical commentators posit that a talent was a certain weight of gold, silver or copper.  Those three precious metals differ in the value of their worth which depends largely upon the use of these elements.  To reiterate, all of us have been given a gift but some of us may have to mine deeply to find the treasure and talents that lies within us.  Like some pursuers in the California gold rush of 1849, some people immediately discover gold.  Others of us stumble upon silver after digging for a while.  Then, some other persons mine tirelessly and interestingly find coal.  What happens to coal in time?  It becomes diamonds which are rarer and more precious than the other metals.  Whether monetarily or in terms of precious gems and minerals, a talent symbolizes God’s gracious bestowal of innate abilities and endowments within each person.

In the sixteenth verse of this passage, we observe the worker who was given five talents “went at once (immediately) and put his money to work and gained five more.”  This worker seized the moment and momentum.  He resolved to take full advantage of the opportunity which his master gave him.  Was he merely the recipient of good luck?  It is quite possible.  However, I agree with friend of mine who describes luck as a meeting of preparation and opportunity.  Nonetheless, this servant’s industry yielded a dividend of one hundred percent (100%).