Parable of the Talents: I Don't Think This Parable Means What You Think It Means
For to all those who have, more will
be given, and they will have an abundance (Matt 25:29a).
(Proper 28A readings here.)
However, I’m going to let you off the
hook today, because I wonder if that traditional interpretation of the parable
of the talents, in the service of church budgeting, is maybe not the right
interpretation.
Let’s start at the beginning: It
says, “the master entrusted his property to his servants”—all his
property and possessions, it means…we might say, “his estate.” A single talent
was worth 6,000 denarii, and a denarius was a day’s wage, so one talent was the
equivalent of 16 years of pay, and five talents were worth 80 years of pay, a
lifetime of pay…it was a fortune for these servants. When the master returned,
the first two servants had doubled his money. In biblical times just as now,
doubling an investment means what they did was probably pretty risky—or very
shady. What would the master have done if their risky scheme had lost all of the
estate?...His response to the third servant makes me wonder if he might be more
concerned with their effort than for the safety of his money…
This third servant buried his money because
he was afraid. This was a good, safe plan, and when the master returned, this
servant dug it up and gave it back. “‘Master,” he said, “I knew that you were a
harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not
scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.
Here you have what is yours.” Now if you remember the story about sowing and
reaping a bit earlier in Matthew, in chapter 13…this third servant got it
completely wrong: The seed was sowed everywhere—good soil, rocky soil, thorny
soil—the reality is exactly the opposite of what this third slave
claimed—the master sows indiscriminately, everywhere,
and, instead of reaping where he didn’t sow, he actually sowed where he
didn’t reap.
So, the master was furious, and called
this servant wicked and lazy! In fact, the master here has some of the harshest
words in Matthew: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will
have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be
taken away.” That doesn’t sound like Gospel Good News, does it? “To all those
who have, more will be given…from those who have nothing, even what they have
will be taken away?” That sounds more like some big investment bank on Wall
Street!
We heard this same phrase from Jesus,
again back in that parable of the sower in chapter 13: “For to those who have,
more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have
nothing, even what they have will be taken away (13:12). And that word
“abundance,”…”they will have an abundance” that we hear in both of these
passages, that same word is used two other places in Matthew, in the stories of
feeding the 5,000 and feeding the 4,000: there was an abundance of
left-over bread and fish in the baskets. Those who have, will have in
abundance…
John Buchanan, editor and publisher
of the magazine Christian Century, says:
The point
here is not really about doubling your money and accumulating wealth. It is
about living. It is about investing. It is about taking risks. It is about
Jesus himself and what he has done and what is about to happen to him [on the
Cross—about the master who gives all for his servants]…It is about what [Jesus]
hopes and expects of [us] while he is [not here]. It is about being a follower
of Jesus and what it means to be faithful to Jesus, and so, finally, it is
about you and me. The greatest risk of all, it turns out, is to not risk anything, to not care deeply and
profoundly enough about anything to invest deeply [and profoundly, to [not] give
your heart away and in the process risk everything. The greatest risk of all,
it turns out, is to play it safe, to live cautiously and prudently.
What happens to those who play it
safe, either because of fear or laziness? Not just in today’s parable, but six
times in Matthew, stories about rejecting abundance and joy and faith end with warnings
about being cast out with “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Six times! This is the last of those times, today, and
with so much repetition, I wonder if there must be something there we’re supposed to pay
attention to:
·
The first time we here it, a Roman centurion came to
Jesus saying his servant was paralyzed at home, and he knew Jesus didn’t need
to come, but “only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.” Jesus
marvels at this man’s faith and says that many will come from far away to feast
in the kingdom of heaven, but those who “should” be there will find darkness, weeping,
and gnashing of teeth (8:12).
·
In the parable of the weeds among the wheat, the weeds
are allowed to grow with the wheat (“the children of the kingdom”), but at
harvest the weeds (those who are not “children of the kingdom”) are thrown in
to the furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (13:42).
·
After the three parables of treasure hidden in a
field, finding a pearl of great value, and the net full of good and bad fish,
the bad will be separated from the good and thrown into the furnace where there
will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (13:50).
·
In the parable of the wedding banquet, those
originally invited by the king never showed up and so the king brought everyone
in from the streets, good and bad. When the king finds someone there who refused
to join the party and put on the festive wedding robes provided, the king says,
“Throw him into darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
(22:13).
·
In the parable of the faithful and unfaithful servant,
the master finds the faithful one hard at work when he returns, but the other
he finds abusing the other servants, and the master says, “put him with the
hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (24:51).
These stories are not about tithing
and pledging; they are about life—abundant life—about receiving abundant life
and giving back by living an abundant life, a life that recognizes the
outpouring and overflowing of God’s gifts. Remember the rich young man who came
to Jesus saying he tithed and kept all the commandments, the one who walked
away sadly because Jesus, loving him, said the one thing he lacked was to give
it all up and follow? Remember the pharisee who tithed and thanked God that he
was not like the sinful tax collector, who actually was the one who went
home justified by God. Remember the rich donors with their loud demonstration
of giving in the temple, who gave nothing compared to the poor widow’s two
pennies? Faithful and abundant living is not about the percent you give to the
church, it is about knowing that everything you’ve been given is a gift,
given by a master who himself gave all, and it is about trusting enough to risk
giving it away yourself, and in losing it, finding even more abundance. “To
those who have, even more will be given.”
These stories are also about a life
lived in wakeful, constant, expectation and effort, tending to the master’s
estate entrusted to our care. We all have real choices to make, every day,
about whether we should play it safe. Every day, every minute,
what we do and what we say shapes our lives and shapes the world around us. In
Thessalonians today St. Paul says we “are all children of light and children of
the day; we are not of the night or of darkness…Let us … put on the breastplate
of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation…Therefore encourage
one another and build up each other” (5:5-11).
So, sure, I hope you filled out your
pledge cards generously—but so much more, I hope you will remember that our
master has given us everything he has, even his life. Our master has invited us
to the wedding feast, to the joyful banquet—we just need to show up. Our master
has sowed the seed of his Word in our hearts—they just need to be watered. The
Good News is that we are all loved abundantly, beyond time and beyond measure.
My prayer for us this week is that we will take the risk with the fortune we’ve
been given, that we will choose to live abundantly and hopefully, that we will trust
enough to be the children of light, to give back all of our selves, and in so doing,
we, to, will find that, “to those who have, even more will be given.”
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