Silliman University Church Reflections

 Matthew 25:14-30 

An ambitious young man told his pastor “I promise God a tithe of my income” if you will pray with me for blessings. They prayed for God to bless his career. At that time he was making P4,000 per month and tithing P4.00. In a few years his income increased and soon he was tithing P5,000.00 per month. He asked the pastor if he could be released from his tithing promise, and go back to his P 4 tithe. The pastor replied, “I don’t think you can be released from your promise, but we can pray and ask God to reduce your income to P4,000.00 a month then you’d have no problem tithing P4.00 once again.“

You’ve heard of IQ and EQ. Now let us talk about SQ. Stewardship quotient. The capacity to give on the basis of the question “who owns what I have” not on “how much should I give.” The Parable of the Talents, teaches us 6 Stewardship Lessons.

1. What we have is not ours. A wealthy man was going on a journey. So he “…called his servants and entrusted His property to them.”

The servants understood that the property and money belonged to the master. They were the possessors, but not the owners. Their job was to manage what they possessed. Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.”  How does this basic principle sound to you? You don’t really own anything. Everything belongs to the Lord. Until we recognize this truth, we will not be good managers of what has been entrusted to us. Our days are in His hands. Our gifts and abilities are on loan from Him. Our money is an “advance” from the Almighty. We really don’t own anything.

2. We’re given what we can handle. In verse 15 we read: “To one he gave five talents, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.”  

One talent would be the equivalent of about P 200 minimum wage x 30days x 12months x 20 years – P 1,440,000.

The Master gave the first servant 5 talents, about $7.22 million. The second guy received 2 talents, or P2.88 million. And the third steward got one talent, or P1.44million. God gives, out of His abundance to us! Your responsibility is tied to your ability.

3. We must invest what we’ve been given. Verse 16 tells us that the man who received five talents went “at once and put his money to work and gained five more.” He didn’t waste any time but immediately went to work on his investment strategy and doubled his master’s portfolio. The guy who got two talents did the same thing; he also doubled his master’s money. The third servant: “dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.” He buried his blessing.

Our potential is God’s gift to us. What we do with it is our gift to Him. Are we investing what we’ve been given, or have we buried our blessing and kept it hidden from others?

4. A day of accounting is coming. We’ll have to give an account for how we’ve used what we’ve been given. Jesus invested something in you, and one day He’s coming back to claim it. Your job may be big or small, but whatever it is, do it to the best of your ability and you’ll be ready for your audit. Ask ourselves “How will my money management, or my service look on the day of accounting?”

5. What we do with what we have reveals our view of God. Notice that the man who had been given five talents was eager to invest. He was excited to show the master what He had done. He’s bubbling with enthusiasm and thoroughly thrilled. He couldn’t wait to present what he had done because he wanted to please the owner.

The man with the two talents did the same. They were faithful and were called good because they had a right view of the master.

The one-talent guy understood the master differently v 24: “…I knew that you were a hard man…” He had a wrong view of the master. What we think about God is the most important thing about us. If we view God as a tyrant then we’ll be angry with God. When we blame God we bury our blessings.

6. What we have we must use or we will lose it.
Because the third guy did not use what had been given to him, he lost everything. It’s the “use it or lose it” principle. A Christian who is not using what God has given him is a contradiction in terms. What is your servanthood quotient, are you bothered by what you give? Or do you truly believe God is the owner of your life? Here are the differences between GS good stewards and BS bad stewards:

Good stewards are determined to make a profit; Bad stewards are determined not to take a loss.
GS are willing to work hard and take risks; BS take no risks.
GS received the gift; the BS refused the gift.
GS want to advance the master’s domain; BS have no interest in what mattered to the master.
GS viewed the money as an opportunity; BS saw it as a problem.
GS allowed the master’s gift to change their lives; BS refused to let the gift touch his life.
GS invested; BS wasted opportunity.
GS saw a blessing; BS saw a burden.
GS knew the master; BS had no clue.

Summary: Stewardship is best defined as the use of God-given resources for the accomplishment of God-given goals. This is not a matter of money. It is a matter of expresing our faith in God.

How faithful are we to God?

(Sermon at 10 am Nov. 16 at the Silliman University church)

Matt.25: 14-30

Once I visited the country of
Oman. We were taken to a building where the lights were on even in daytime. So I asked enviously, is it not a waste of energy to have lights 24 hours a day? The Arab man told me, what are you worried about? We produce all the oil we need in the world. There is no energy crisis in Oman.

Then we were taken to a small lush garden where water was allowed to be sprinkled at time intervals. So I told the Arab man, in my country there are forests with gushing rivers of water 24 hours a day. The Arab man was envious. But he said, so what do you prefer, all the oil in the world, or all the water? I could not answer him.

God blesses every country with abundant talents. The amount of talents is not the issue. How we use those talents is the issue.

There are now over 10 million Filipinos working overseas in over 150 destinations all over the world. They are in war torn countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. They are in developed, wealthy countries US, UK and KSA. They are in poor countries like Bangladesh and Burkina Faso. They are in lowly jobs as entertainers, domestic helpers in Jordan and Singapore. They are also in high skilled work such doctors, neurosurgeons, nurses, medical specialists.

Through their talents, OFWs have helped their economies compete in a global economy. Consider the Filipinos in Korea.

The Korean economy is divided into heavy industry, small and medium enterprises, and household family based production or light manufacturing. In the 1970s, the economy built the foundation for a manufacturing economy. A large part of the resources came from remittances of Korean migrant workers in Germany, many of whom were nurses and construction workers in Saudi Arabia.

Once Pres. Chun Doo Hwan visited Germany and he was met by many Korean nurses at the airport. The first question they asked was: Mr. President, when can we come home? Chun Doo Wan, with tears in his eyes told the women, not yet. But soon. I promise you. And so in the 80s Korean migrants began to return home.

In the early 90s, Korea began to import migrant workers and the economy moved from strength to strength.

Today, we have Koreans coming to our country in droves, not as migrant workers but as short term tourists, businessmen or because they can afford to come.

In the 70s Filipino workers were deployed to the Middle East as construction workers during the oil boom.

In the 90s, Filipinos were among the first migrants to enter Korea. They were under the program of “trainees” of the Korea International Training Cooperation (KITCO) and worked in small and medium enterprises. SMEs were involved in production of parts of machinery and products of the large and heavy industry sector.

The purpose for bringing in Filipino trainees was because they are willing to receive allowances as low as US$ 250-300 a month and they would not join the Korean unions.

The SMEs could not relocate because their capital was not enough, but they could hire trainees, survive and compete. OFWs pushed down production costs and contributed to the competitiveness of Korean products – Hyundai, Daewoo, ships, cellphones, televisions, kitchen appliances and many more.

It is now 2008 and we are still hoping to send OFWs abroad. Remittances to the country have grown to US$ 10 billion a year. Now there is a global financial crisis. Nurses, construction workers, domestic helpers, entertainers, our main exports, are the first to be laid off. OFWs are starting to come home.

How are we doing as stewards of God’s creation. If today the Lord would return, how would we stand in the accounting of the talents given to us?

Some of us may be confused about the talents given to us? What talents? My friends, we have lands, we have seas, we have minerals, we have intelligent and creative people. We are blessed abundantly. But are we using our talents well?

Have we as an institution of learning and as a church been preparing students to a life of stewardship? We need to do three things:

First, we need to discern what our talents are.

Second, we need to know how to develop our talents.

Third, we need to have a plan to make use of our talents for the benefit of our people.

1.        What are our talents? If we cannot recognize the talents given to us, how can we harness them?

The Arab man was amazed at how lush and green our country is. He said that the Gulf states, except a certain part of Oman, is desert, dry and sandy. The Greek island of Rhodes is barren except for small patches of land where olives and oranges grow. In certain areas of India and Africa, it does not rain for 2 years. Nothing grows. In ancient Korea, agricultural production happens only 6 months of a year. The rest of the time, people stay inside because of the snow outside.

But we have 7,000 volcanic islands, with fertile soil, lush vegetation, seas teeming with fish and still undiscovered marine and sea plant resources. We have people endowed with great singing talent, scientists, care givers, doctors, engineers all over the world. We are truly blessed. But do we know it? Do we appreciate what God has given us? Do we treasure these talents? Do we make them productive? Or do we take them for granted?

2.        How do we develop our talents?

If you have been reading the newspapers recently, you would have come across the protest against a system in Davao Oriental where Chinese nationals have leased rice lands from farmers, many of them beneficiaries of CARP areas, for 20 years. The Chinese are growing rice 4 times a year and shipped to China. The fields are sprayed with chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, killing fish in the ricefields and in the nearby sea, Davao gulf.

A week ago, a team of Arab businessmen expressed their intention to grow corn in the provinces of Davao to be shipped to Saudi Arabia.

Koreans are coming to our country to study English, start businesses, open missionary churches. Filipinos are starving for churches.

How have we developed our resources? Have we put in enough investments to develop our farms? Roads? Storage places? Irrigation? Or have we not in fact surrendered our rights to these resources and given them to others. Have we not in fact traveled around the world to give our human resources to the highest bidder in the world?

What values do we teach in school? How do we teach them to appreciate their talents? How do we teach to work hard with their hands? And not to be employees in an air conditioned office? What do we teach in Sunday school? How do children learn to use their resources for the good of their people? What kind of faith do we teach that appreciates God’s blessings and that challenges young minds to offer their talents to God?

3.        What is our plan to make our talents meet our needs?

Our government has for a long time, promoted a laissez faire attitude towards our resources. We take our riches for granted. As long as government officials can get some money from a crooked contract, it does not matter if the resources are taken by foreigners.. But what if the resources are depleted? Such as our forests? What happens then? Lets face it. If we have no plan to develop our resources on a nationwide scale, others will and they will make profit from us.

There is no investment for the development of resources. Our agriculture is a jok jok, full of scams, not agricultural extension programs that make farmers products competitive. Government conducts little research to make farm products competitive. We export OFWs like cattle not minding what happens to them on foreign soil. They are imprisoned, beheaded. Government even apologizes to host countries for their alleged crimes.

If we were to characterize ourselves according to the stewards in the parable of the talents, I do not think we will fit the first and second stewards, who were eager entrepreneurs. We are more like the third servant, who hid the talent in the ground, because he was afraid and did not really know the Master.

We are angry at God. Why? God did not make our land more beautiful than it is already. We want to be like Juan Tamad, who simply waits for the guava to fall to his mouth. Well, the parable of the talents teaches us what happens to Juan Tamads.

The Master called the third servant– “you wicked and lazy servant, so you think I harvest where I do not plant. Why did you not just put my money in the bank where it would have earned interest.  Take his resources away from him and give it to the good steward. For to everyone who has more will be given. And for one who has not, even what little he has, will be taken away from him. Throw this wicked and lazy servant into the darkness outside where there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Are we waiting to be thrown away into the darkness by the foreigners who have come to our country and begun to enjoy the abundant resources we have taken for granted? Let us appreciate our talents now. Develop them and have a plan, or what we little we have will be taken away from us.

 (Sermon delivered by Mrs. Ma. Angela C. Villalba, at the Chapel of the Evangel Fellowship, Silliman University, 16 Nov 08)