It was a pound apiece, which, numismatic authorities tell us, is
somewhat about the same value as some £6 odd of English money;
though, of course, the purchasing power would be considerably
greater. A small amount, and an equal amount to every servant--these
are the two salient points of this parable. They make the broad
distinction between it and the other parable, which is often mixed
up with it, the parable of the talents. There, instead of the amount
being excessively small, it is exceedingly great; for a talent was
worth some £400, and ten talents would be £4000, a fair capital for
a man to start with. The other point of difference between the two
parables, which belongs to the essence of each, is that while the
gift in the one case is identical, in the other case it is graduated
and different.
Now, to suppose that these are but two varying versions of the same
parable, which the Evangelists have manipulated is, in my judgment,
to be blind to the plainest of the lessons to be drawn from them.
There are two sorts of gifts. In one, all Christian men, the
Master's servants, are alike; in another, they differ. Now, what is
the thing in which all Christians are alike? What gift do they all
possess equally; rich and poor, largely endowed or slenderly
equipped; 'talented'--as we use the word from the parable--or not?
The rich man and the poor, the wise man and the foolish, the
cultured man and the ignorant, the Fijian and the Englishman, have
one thing alike--the message of salvation which we call the Gospel
of the blessed Lord. That is the 'pound.' We all stand upon an equal
platform there, however differently we are endowed in respect of
capacities and other matters. All have it; and all have the same.
Now if that is the interpretation of this parable, there are
considerations that flow from that thought, and on which I would
dwell for a moment.
The first of them is the apparent smallness of the gift. You may
feel a difficulty in accepting that explanation, and may have been
saying to yourselves that it cannot be correct, because Jesus Christ
would never compare the unspeakable gift of His message of salvation
through Him, to that paltry sum. But throw yourselves back to the
moment of utterance, and I think you will feel the pathos and power
of the metaphor. Here was that handful of disciples set in the midst
of a hostile world, dead against them, with its banded superstitions,
venerable idolatries, systematised philosophies, the force of the
mightiest instruments of material power that the world had ever seen,
in the organisation and military power of Rome. And there stood twelve
Galilean men, with their simple, unlettered message; one poor 'pound,'
and that was all. 'The foolishness of preaching,' the message which to
'the Jews was a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks was folly,' was all
that they were equipped with. Their Master, who left them to seek a
Kingdom, had so little to bestow, before He received His crown, that
all that He could spare them was that small sum. They had to go into
business in a very poor way. They had to be content to do a very
insignificant retail trade. 'The foolishness of God is wiser than men;
and the weakness of God is stronger than men.' The old experience of
the leather sling and the five stones out of the brook, in the hand of
the stripling, that made short work of the brazen armour of the giant,
and penetrated with a whizz into his thick skull, and laid him
prostrate, was to be repeated. 'He called his servants, and gave
them'--a pound apiece! If you and I, Christian men and women, were
true to the Master's legacy, and believed that we have in it more
wealth than the treasures of wisdom and knowledge or force which the
world has laid up, we should find that our mite was more than they all
have in their possession.
Further, the texts suggest the purpose for which the pound is given.
The servants had to live on it themselves, no doubt. So have we.
They had to trade with it. So have we. Now that means two things.
We get the Gospel, not as some of us lazily suppose, in order to
secure that we shall not be punished for our past sins whilst we
live, and go to heaven when we die. We get it, not only to enjoy its
consolations and its sweetness, but to do business with.
And there are two ways in which this trading is to be done by us.
The main one is the honest application of the principles and powers
of the Gospel to the moulding of our own characters, and the making
us better, purer, gentler, more heavenly-minded, and more
Christlike. That is the first trading that we have to carry on with
the Word. We get it not for an indolent assent, as so many of us
misuse it. We receive it not merely to say, 'Oh I believe it,' and
there an end, but that we may bring it to bear upon all our conduct,
and that it may be the chief formative influence in our characters.
Christian people! is that what you do with your Christianity? Is the
Gospel moulding you, hour by hour, moment by moment? Have you
brought all its great truths to bear upon your daily lives? Have
you inwrought its substance into, not merely your understandings
or your emotions, but your daily conduct? Is it indeed the life of
your lives, and the leaven that is leavening your whole character?
You have it to trade with; see that you do not wrap it in a napkin,
and stow it idly away in some corner.
Then there is the other way of trading and that is, telling it to
others. That is an obligation incumbent on all Christians. There may
be differences in regard to other gifts, which determine the manner
in which each shall use the equal gift which we all possess alike.
But these are of subordinate importance. The main thing is to feel
that the possession of Christian faith, which is our way of
receiving the pound, carries with it indissolubly the obligation of
Christian evangelism. However it may be discharged, discharged it is
to be, by every true servant. I am sometimes half disposed to think
that it would have been better for the Church if there had never
been any men in my position, on whom the mass of unspiritual, idle
because busy, and silent because little-loving, Christian professors
contentedly roll the whole obligation to preach God's Gospel. My
brethren, the world is not going to be evangelised by officials.
Until all Christian people wake up to the sense that they have the
'pound' to trade with, there will be nothing adequate done to bring
the world to the obedience and the love of Jesus Christ. You say you
have the Gospel; if you have it what are you doing with it?
Self-centred Christianity, if such a thing were possible, is a
mistake. It is generally a sham; it is always a crime. A man that
puts away his pound, and never goes out and says, 'Come, share with
me in the wealth that I have found in Jesus Christ' will be like a
miser that puts his hoardings into an old stocking, and hides it in
the ground somewhere. When he goes to dig it up, he is only too
likely to find that all the coins have slipped out. If you want to
keep your Christianity, let the air into it. If you want it to
increase, sow it. There are hosts of you who would be far happier
Christian people, if you came out of your shells and traded with
your pound.