That's the usual reading, but it isn't the point. The parable turns on what each servant believed about the master. The one who failed saw him as harsh and hid in fear. It's about trusting a good God, not producing for a demanding one.
The Grace Answer
Almost every sermon on this parable lands in the same place: God gave you gifts, so use them, produce a return, or you are the wicked, lazy servant. It turns into a motivational talk about not wasting your potential, with a threat attached. But a parable is a window, not a mirror. It was told to reveal something about God, not to hand you a performance review.
Watch where the story actually turns. The difference between the servants is not talent or output. It is what each one believed about the master. The two who invested clearly trusted him. The one who buried his talent says why he froze: “Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown.” His problem was never his single talent. His problem was his picture of the master. He believed the boss was harsh and impossible to please, so he hid in fear and did nothing.
What you believe about God shapes everything
That is the warning, and it is aimed at religion, not at underachievers. If you believe God is a hard man scanning for your failures, you will bury your life in self-protective fear, and your very theology will paralyze you. If you know Him as good and generous, the One who handed you the talents in the first place, you will step out freely, without terror of getting it wrong.
So the parable is not mainly about your productivity. It is about your God. The tragedy of the third servant is that he served a master who did not actually exist, a distorted, fearsome version of the real one. Read through the finished work, the invitation is not perform or else. It is know how good He truly is, and live out of that instead of fear. And when you finally see the master rightly, generous, trusting, glad to hand you something real, you stop burying your life and start living it, not to earn His approval but because you already have it.