13.02 | The What & the Why
Matthew 25:14-46
“Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Matthew 25:44-46
Why are you telling me this?
It’s a question we should always ask of our best teachers.
It’s a different question to ‘What are you telling me?’
The answer to the what is a list of factual information. It is data. It is content.
It’s not unimportant. But it is often secondary to the primary intention of the teacher.
Most of us have found aspects of the passages of the past few days hard. There’s been language that has made us uncomfortable.
Death. Hell. Outer darkness. Weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Such words quickly lead many of us into complex webs of thought of fire and justice and love and truth; of heaven and hell, and who gets to go where; of faith and works, and which denomination gets it right; of that evangelical who became a heretic, and at the end of it how much we like the sound of the God behind all this anyway.
It’s not that the what is unimportant. It’s unbelievably, eternally, important.
But it is that the content is meant to take us somewhere. The what has a why.
So,
Why is He telling us this?
Five talents. Jesus seems to want His followers to be aware that there will be accountability for the choices that we make. He calls us to take risks and to create, to step out and try. To speak up, share, contribute, and to live expansively. That our belief in Him is meant to lead to activity, and that this activity, however small and insignificant it may appear to us, is measured as greatness in His Kingdom.
Two talents. He wants His followers to live beyond apathy and hiding. That we will never be judged according to the measure of our giftedness or societal privilege (pictured in the number of our talents), but by our faithful stewardship of what we have been entrusted with. Comparison is a futile distraction from the specific call He has placed upon you.
One talent. We see that the fearful man hides what he has, and this fear is seen as a great obstacle to the faithfulness that he was always called to. We see that these who bear fruit view their Master not as an absent critic, but as the loving Lord who trusts them greatly. His character, not their ability, is the foundation for their contribution.
We see that the little things matter more greatly than we could ever know. We see that those times when we visited the sick, cared for the prisoner, clothed the naked, messaged our friend, gave away what we had, and loved in ten thousand little ways, did not go unnoticed, but are viewed by Him as acts of worship. Behind the person we stepped up for, we stepped up for Him.
He wants us to know that the perspective of eternity does not make this life matter less, but that it makes it matter far more. That each and every moment, gift, ability, dream, and opportunity that we have is a precious offering of the Father, placed into our hands, and that our encouragement is that, with eternity before us, we make this very day count.
C.S. Lewis once wrote, “The present is the point at which time touches eternity.”
The vista of the eternal is meant to sharpen our every moment. We can never live in the future, nor in the past, and yet it is possible that the knowledge of the coming future can at once set us free from the mistakes of the past, and mobilise us to fully participate in the present. For it is those who see that Age most clearly now who are most earnest in ushering in its presence.
Why are you telling me this?
Because at the end of our story is Him.
He is the End.
And He, ultimately,
is our why.
Reflect:
What has the Lord placed in my hands today?
What would it look like to bury it?
What would it look like to put it to work?
Pray:
Father,
It’s so easy to view the details of my life as rather small and irrelevant,
Likely overlooked and unseen in the greatness of eternity.
Help me to see the infinite value in the small acts of kindness.
Help me to make less excuses for my limitations and grasp more fully my opportunities;
Help me to know that your love is the arena in which I can create with confidence.
May your Well Done
Become more to me
Than a million accolades of the earth.
And Father,
When I can’t understand all these things,
About judgement and fire and separation,
Would you amplify above all things to me
The knowledge of your endless love
That these questions may be held
Within the truth of your character,
My eyes are on you;
Today,
And into days unending to come.
In Jesus’ Name
Amen.
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Leviticus 1-3 | Proverbs 6:20-35