{"id":5309,"date":"2026-03-23T07:42:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T11:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5309"},"modified":"2026-03-23T07:42:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T11:42:29","slug":"judge-the-living-and-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/23\/judge-the-living-and-the-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge the Living and the Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a>
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Throughout the season of Lent, we’re taking a close look at the Apostles’ Creed – one of the earliest and most concise summaries of what followers of Jesus believe.<\/em>
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Life is a series of big decisions and little decisions.
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The big ones seem to have an outsized importance: Where will you live and what line of work will you pursue?\u00a0Will you seek higher education, get married, or remain single?\u00a0What groups or associations will you join, and what projects will occupy your time?\u00a0
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Ultimately, you\u2019ll generate a list of \u201cbeen-there-and-done-that\u201d accomplishments which the master of ceremonies will recite if you\u2019re ever invited to speak before the local Rotary club.\u00a0 \u00a0
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The average life, however, features many more little decisions than big decisions.\u00a0
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They hardly ever make headlines.\u00a0But they are the ones that shape your character.\u00a0Roughly speaking, life\u2019s big decisions direct what you do<\/em>.\u00a0Little decisions determine who you are<\/em>.\u00a0
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Every day you get to decide: Will I tell the truth?\u00a0Will I keep my promises?\u00a0Will I overlook an offense or hold a grudge?\u00a0Will I choose the path of love or bitterness? Such little decisions may not show up on your resume, but they will be what everyone\u2019s thinking about at your funeral.\u00a0Character decisions are far more indicative of a life well-lived than the so-called big decisions.\u00a0 \u00a0
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Then there are the crossroads you\u2019re likely to face every day.\u00a0
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What do you do when you\u2019re confronted with a difficult situation?\u00a0Do you face it head-on or hope it goes away?\u00a0Do you take risks and take action, or play it safe and hide in the shadows?
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During the last decades of the 20th<\/sup> century, a great many authors, educators, preachers, and talk show hosts announced that giving children the gift of self-esteem \u2013 through stickers, applause, participation trophies, recognition, and higher grades \u2013 would assure them of happier lives and make the world a better place. \u00a0
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But subsequent research has demonstrated just the opposite.\u00a0Self-esteem cannot be given away like Snickers bars to trick-or-treaters.\u00a0Self-esteem is chiefly a gift that we give to ourselves.
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It\u2019s a gift that becomes ours when we choose to be brave instead of being afraid, when we choose to face problems instead of running in the opposite direction.<\/em>
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A pattern of avoidance gradually crushes our inner sense of esteem.\u00a0Whenever we courageously face a difficult situation head-on, we’re likely to feel a little rush of joy.\u00a0But whenever we back down or back off, something inside us dies.
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Those may seem to be very small deaths. We may even console ourselves by thinking, \u201cI\u2019ll get \u2018em next time.\u201d But over a lifetime, such decisions begin to add up. We gradually become the kind of people who back away from daily life.
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The fascinating thing is that even if things do not work out \u2013 even if the risk doesn\u2019t yield the hoped-for results \u2013 we still end up growing. This is simply the way God has hardwired human hearts.
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That truth is front and center in Jesus\u2019 Parable of the Talents, which appears in Matthew 25:14-30.\u00a0He begins: \u201cAgain, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them.\u00a0To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability.\u00a0Then he went on his journey.\u201d\u00a0
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Jesus is reminding us that we are God\u2019s servants who have been entrusted with God\u2019s property. A \u201ctalent,\u201d in the first century, was in the neighborhood of 75 pounds of gold or silver \u2013 roughly equivalent, in today\u2019s money, to a million dollars.
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The wider teaching of Scripture suggests Jesus isn\u2019t talking just about money. There are also five-talent, two-talent, and one-talent people when it comes to gifts, abilities, energy, and being uniquely positioned to make a difference in some regard.
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Whether it\u2019s the ability to solve differential equations, to work with wood, to be exceptionally patient with young children, or to lead an important strategic initiative, God\u2019s gifts have not been distributed equally.\u00a0That\u2019s one of the realities of belonging to God\u2019s household.
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But even while we don\u2019t receive equal gifts, we are equally responsible for what we do next with what we have.\u00a0<\/em>
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In the story, the servant who has received five talents immediately goes to work \u2013 digging, investing, and risking \u2013 and presents the master with an additional five talents. “Well done, good and faithful servant,\u201d the master (Jesus, that is) responds.\u00a0\u201cYou have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.”
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An identical experience awaits the servant who transforms the two talents that he has been given into two more.\u00a0Significantly, the master doesn’t say, “So why didn’t you <\/em>come up with five talents?”\u00a0 Servants are accountable not for what they don\u2019t<\/em> have, but for what they do<\/em> have.\u00a0Are we willing to step up and step out, for God\u2019s sake, with our gifts?
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Then comes the drama.
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The third servant says to the master, “I know that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.\u00a0So I was afraid<\/em> [those are key words] and went out and hid your talent in the ground.\u00a0See, here is what belongs to you.”\u00a0
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It seems evident at this moment that the third servant expects applause.\u00a0Or at least a participation trophy. His mission is accomplished:\u00a0Despite everything that could possibly have gone wrong, at least he didn’t fail.\u00a0He made sure of that.
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What a shock he receives.\u00a0The master erupts, “Why didn’t you at least put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest?”\u00a0
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Why is the master so disappointed? It\u2019s not because the servant was a management failure. In fact, failure would have been fine.\u00a0Failure would have implied that some action had been taken.\u00a0
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Instead, the third servant is rebuked for attempting nothing<\/em>.\u00a0Because he was afraid of taking a risk, he played it safe.\u00a0He even rationalized that he had done the master a favor by not losing what he had been given \u2013 thereby failing to grasp that the essence of life is to risk the resources, opportunities, gifts, and challenges that God continues to place before us.
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You\u2019d think that God would most value those who play it safe and don\u2019t take chances, who never get carried away by stepping out.\u00a0But it isn\u2019t so.
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There is a Day coming, Jesus announces, when each of us is going to have a conversation with him as to what we did with our lives.\u00a0The Apostles\u2019 Creed puts it like this: \u201cFrom there [from heaven] he will come to judge the living and the dead.\u201d
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In the traditional English rendering, which many of us still recite on Sunday mornings, Jesus is coming to judge \u201cthe quick and the dead.\u201d That\u2019s also thought to be the answer to the question, \u201cWhat are the two groups who attempt to jaywalk across a busy highway?\u201d
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The word \u201cquick\u201d is an antiquated synonym for \u201calive.\u201d Jesus will judge both those who are still alive at his Second Coming and those who have already died.
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The very notion of God\u2019s judgment is exceedingly unpopular. It goes against the grain of contemporary American culture, which asserts that each of us is the author of his or her own identity. We shape our own legacies. We are accountable to no one.\u00a0
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Scripture counters with the declaration that there is a God, and it is not you. We are fully accountable to the One who creates us, sustains us, and redeems us \u2013 none of which we can accomplish in our own wisdom and strength.
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What will be front and center in our judgment conversation with Christ?
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At root, it\u2019s whether we have stepped across the line of faith as expressed in verses like John 6:29: \u201cThis is the work of God, that you believe in him who he has sent.\u201d That takes us all the way back to the opening words of the Creed: \u201cI believe.\u201d
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When Jesus steps into the role of \u201cmaster,\u201d as described in the parable, he won\u2019t be wowed by our resumes. Judgment is not just about the big decisions.\u00a0
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What did we do with the myriad little decisions that comprised every day of our lives \u2013 the ones that even now are shaping our character?\u00a0
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Fear whispers that God isn\u2019t big enough to handle what we have to face today.\u00a0He isn\u2019t going to show up. We\u2019re not really safe in God\u2019s hands.\u00a0
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But \u2013 steadied by a decision to abandon ourselves to Jesus as our ultimate security \u2013 we can choose to be brave.\u00a0<\/em>
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And where does that leave us? Don\u2019t bury your talents. Don\u2019t run from difficult moments.\u00a0Otherwise, you will never find out whether God\u2019s presence and power are all you really need.\u00a0
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When you think about it, that\u2019s the one thing in life truly worth finding out.
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And, \u201cWell done, good and faithful servant,\u201d are the only words ultimately worth hearing. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0


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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0Throughout the season of Lent, we’re taking a close look at the Apostles’ Creed – one of the earliest and most concise summaries of what followers of Jesus believe.\u00a0Life is a series of big decisions and little decisions.\u00a0The big ones seem to have an outsized importance: Where will you live and what… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1080,94,8],"class_list":["post-5309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apostles-creed","tag-courage","tag-judgment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5311,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309\/revisions\/5311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}