Proper 28, Year A 2023: Matthew 25:14-30
People love a good buried treasure story. Whether from following a map on an adventure or happening upon unexpected treasure in a new house, it’s exciting to find some unexpected wealth or just something cool. But no one wants to hear a story about the guy who buried the treasure - unless it’s a story about losing the map and how hard it was to then find the treasure. Someone burying treasure, or as it is called in today’s Gospel lesson talents, hanging out for a while, and then digging it up just to be back at square one is kind of lame. So why does Jesus tell this story? To start, what is a talent? Context tells us pretty quickly it isn’t a talent show talent. We can figure out it’s some kind of money. I remember learning about this story in Sunday School and thinking of it pretty comparatively - as in 5:2:1, without really thinking about what that one was worth, just that it was clearly less than what the other two got. And in my head, I viewed it as each one of them getting a