His excuse is his reason. He did think hardly of his lord, and, even
though he had His gift in his hand to confute him, he slandered Him
in his heart as harsh and exacting. To many men the requirements of
religion are more prominent than its gifts, and God is thought of as
demanding rather than as 'the giving God.' Such thoughts paralyse
action. Fear is barren, love is fruitful. Nothing grows on the
mountain of curses, which frowns black over against the sunny slopes
of the mountain of blessing with its blushing grapes. The indolence
was illogical, for, if the master was such as was thought, the more
reason for diligence; but fear is a bad reasoner, and the absurd gap
between the premises and the conclusion is matched by one of the
very same width in every life that thinks of God as rigidly
requiring obedience, which, therefore, it does _not_ give!
Still another error is in the indolent servant's words. He flings
down the hoarded talent with 'Lo, thou hast thine own.' He was
mistaken. Talents hid are not, when dug up, as heavy as they were
when buried. This gold does rust, and a life not devoted to God is
never carried back to Him unspoiled.
The lord's answer again falls into three parts, corresponding to
that to the faithful servants. First comes the stern characterisation
of the man. As with the others' goodness, his badness is defined
by the second epithet. It is slothfulness. Is that all? Yes; it does
not need active opposition to pull down destruction on one's head.
Simple indolence is enough, the negative sin of not doing or being
what we ought. Ungirt loins, unlit lamps, unused talents, sink a man
like lead. Doing nothing is enough for ruin.
The remarkable answer to the servant's charge seems to teach us that
timid souls, conscious of slender endowments, and pressed by the
heavy sense of responsibility, and shrinking from Christian
enterprises, for fear of incurring heavier condemnation, may yet
find means of using their little capital. The bankers, who invest
the collective contributions of small capitalists to advantage, may,
or may not, be intended to be translated into the Church; but, at
any rate, the principle of united service is here recommended to
those who feel too weak for independent action. Slim houses in a row
hold each other up; and, if we cannot strike out a path for
ourselves, let us seek strength and safety in numbers.
The fate of the indolent servant has a double horror. It is loss and
suffering. The talent is taken from the slack hands and coward heart
that would not use it, and given to the man who had shown he could
and would. Gifts unemployed for Christ are stripped off a soul
yonder. How much will go from many a richly endowed spirit, which
here flashed with unconsecrated genius and force! We do not need to
wait for eternity to see that true possession, which is use,
increases powers, and that disuse, which is equivalent to not
possessing, robs of them. The blacksmith's arm, the scout's eye, the
craftsman's delicate finger, the student's intellect, the
sensualist's passions, all illustrate the law on its one side; and
the dying out of faculties and tastes, and even of intuitions and
conscience, by reason of simple disuse, are melancholy instances of
it on the other. But the solemn words of this condemnation seem to
point to a far more awful energy in its working in the future, when
everything that has not been consecrated by employment for Jesus
shall be taken away, and the soul, stripped of its garb, shall 'be
found naked.' How far that process of divesting may affect
faculties, without touching the life, who can tell? Enough to see
with awe that a spirit may be cut, as it were, to the quick, and
still exist.
But loss is not all the indolent servant's doom. Once more, like the
slow toll of a funeral bell, we hear the dread sentence of ejection
to the 'mirk midnight' without, where are tears undried and passion
unavailing. There is something very awful in the monotonous
repetition of that sentence so often in these last discourses of
Christ's. The most loving lips that ever spoke, in love, shaped this
form of words, so heart-touching in its wailing, but decisive,
proclamation of blackness, homelessness, and sorrow, and cannot but
toll them over and over again into our ears, in sad knowledge of our
forgetfulness and unbelief,--if perchance we may listen and be
warned, and, having heard the sound thereof, may never know the
reality of that death in life which is the sure end of the indolent
who were blind to His gifts, and therefore would not listen to His
requirements.