Northern Plains Anglican

“Jesus is coming! Look busy!” (Bumper sticker pinned to a church office bulletin board.)

“When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.” (Army Drill Sergeant, offering gallows humor about his first time under fire.)

Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours. (The “wicked and slothful servant” in Matthew 25:24-25)

It’s not like the servant did nothing at all. He was a servant, so he had daily tasks to carry out, even in the Master’s absence.

After burying the talent, which required the thought and effort to find a secure spot, dig a hole, conceal or camoflage it, and note the hiding place so the talent could be retrieved, the servant probably stayed busy with all kinds of other work until the Master’s return.

The Master’ s fury is pretty much, “Look, you had one job.” The master entrusted the servant with a resource to trade and multiply. This wasn’t mysterious – a couple of other servants were doing just that with seven other talents. This was the priority over any other tasks while the Master was away.

What hit me as I read this Parable of the Talents is my lifelong propensity to be busy with all kinds of stuff – some of it seemingly important – while ignoring something else with which Christ is entrusting me.

Now, this isn’t one of those “Find Your Life’s Purpose!” thingys. Some of our assignments from Christ are indeed lifelong, but he also hands us situations of limited duration or to handle as one-offs. Whatever the duration of the “job,” the Lord supplies us with spiritual gifts to carry it out. That’s the point of the “talent” in the tale. Christ gifts us to expand his presence and influence, and I for one squander plenty of those gifted opportunities by bustling around with other stuff.

This was Jesus’ insight for his friend Martha, when she was busy doing the right thing for her guests, which at that moment was the wrong thing for Martha herself.

Why am I blogging this? Because the uncomfortable reality is that the “talent” the Lord keeps entrusting to me is insight into Bible passages, and the “mulitiplication” of the talent is to share the insight, sometimes by preaching, sometimes by sharing it in conversation, and many times by writing it in a format like this.

Very often I blow off the prompting to write because a voice says, “Oh, that’s not productive. That’s self-indulgent. You just enjoy doing it so it’s probably a way of avoiding chores.”

So I pray that this post about busyness is a help to someone who reads it. I hope it helps someone hear a prompting from the Lord and prioritize that over demands from the world, the flesh and the devil.

Because in this Holy Week we proclaim again that Jesus put aside everything to do one thing — die on the cross for our salvation.