The Parable of the Talents (Mt 25:14-30) &
“To one he gave five talents: to another, two; to a third, one- to each according to his own ability”
“But the man who received one went off and dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money”
“His master said to him in reply, ‘You wicked lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I did not plant and gather where I did not scatter?”
“And throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”
The Parable of the Ten Gold Coins (Lk 19:11-27)
“Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me.”
A teacher gave me a great piece of wisdom regarding the parables one day. He said that parables are not the same as fables. Fables have clear cut and easy to understand lessons. Parables, not so much. When people walked away from one of Jesus’ parables, they wouldn’t be thinking, what a nice clear cut lesson for us today. Rather, they would walk away thinking “What the hell was he talking about”. Or as my teacher said it another way “the parables of Jesus are queer, hard to understand stories, that get people to think”
I keep that lesson close to me whenever I hear the Gospel at Mass about the Parable of the Talents (or its sister story in Luke, the Parable of the Ten Gold Coins)
When I heard Priests preach about the parable of talents, this is what they normally say. “God has given each one of us gifts. To some he gives great gifts. To some he gives small gifts. All we can control is what we do with his gifts. That’s how God will judge us.”
That is universally, 99.9% of the time the lesson that is drawn from this Gospel. It’s a really good lesson and strikes a particular nerve with our good American Protestant work ethic. In fact, I would say that this Gospel is the archetypical American gospel. This is the gospel that Americans like to hear in Church. This is the Gospel that Americans want to hear. If Berkshire Hathaway were to read a gospel at its annual shareholder’s meeting, this would be it. Its very much “Work hard if you want something, if not, its your own damn fault”. In fact I would be shocked if this gospel wasn’t carved on some building somewhere on Wall Street. Because, its even better than “Work hard if you want something”. This gospel is all about, “invest if you want something”. And not just “invest” but “invest in a high yield aggressive stock portfolio”. Amen brother. In fact, as a strategy to get more Americans to come back to Church, Pastors should find a way to sneak this Gospel into the Christmas or Easter liturgies.
And even though on face value, the lesson of “use your talents wisely” and “don’t squander what God has given you” is a good bit of homespun wisdom, I am not so sure that it really is the lesson of those two gospels.
So, for a second, let’s imagine we are in a crowd listening to Jesus. Who are we? Well, we are some of the 99% of the people in Israel who are poor. We are poor, we don’t own land, we don’t have our own king, and much of the very little that we do own is taken every year by the tax collectors. We know some rich people. But they are not good people. The rich people are rich on the backs of us poor people. They didn’t work hard for their wealth. They killed for it. The stole it. The betrayed for it. And now these very few rich people own most of the land and most of the wealth. These rich people don’t spread seed, don’t grow plants, don’t harvest plants. We poor people do that for them. And we remain poor and they remain rich. We are not free.
In other words, the people in the crowds that Jesus was teaching were very, very, very different from 21st century Americans. In America, wealth is often a sign of hard work, discipline, and virtue. In American, poverty is often a sign of laziness, addiction, and criminal behavior. But in 1st Century Palestine, the roles were in many ways reversed. In 1st century Palestine, the good people were the poor and the bad people were the rich. I am not asking you to believe this. I am telling you this was the case.
So to a crowd of poor people, Jesus tells a story about a master who goes on a journey and trusts his possessions to his servants. We all know it. He gave one servant five talents and this servant went out and made five more talents. He gave one servant two talents and he went out and earned another two. Upon learning this, the Master told each of these servants “Well done My good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.”
But one servant only received one talent and this is what he said to the Rich man. “Master, I knew you were a demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter; so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground. Here it is back.” His master said to him in reply, “You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I did not plant and gather where I did not scatter?” He then takes the talent from the servant and gives it to the one with ten and then says “For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
Remember, poor people were poor. They didn’t have anything. Everyday, their day was consumed with getting through the day. There was no such thing as “Wealth building”. And so the Master is telling the servant something that he knows all too well. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And the servants who play along with the Rich?
What I find most fascinating is what the Master admits about himself. “So you knew that I harvest where I did not plant and gather where I did not scatter?” Does that sound like the kind of virtuous rich man you know of? No it does not. This is not a man who says, “so you know about my story of how I picked my self up by my bootstraps and spent many years building my business”. Nope, this is a guy whose wealth is built on the backs of others, and he admits it. And frankly, he seems a little incredulous that this servant who knows this would have the nerve to disappoint him.
And what does the master do in the end? He throws the useless servant into the darkness. The end of Luke’s version of the story is even more viscious. This is what the master says at the end of Luke’s story. “Now as for thos enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me.”
Brutal. Horrible. And not what many of us think about when we think about Jesus, the peaceful donkey riding Messiah.
So, if you were a poor person in the crowd, listening to the story, who is the hero of the story? For Americans today, the hero of the story is always that really industrious servant who made five more talents for his master. But for the poor person of 1st century Palestine, the person who Jesus WAS talking to, who was his hero? The last servant, of course. The servant who stood up to that Bastard of a master. You know the one who harvests where he does not plant and gathers where he does not scatter, that one. The 1% of the population who continues to be rich largely because they cooperate with the Roman occupation of Israel. The Rich people who cooperate with the Roman tax collectors. The rich people, who are largely irreligious, not nearly as faithful to the Torah as the poor. The rich people, who are largely seen by the poor as not being good Jews. This last servant who stood up to the Rich man and refused to make him any more money. He didn’t steal from him. He just stood up to him in a quiet sort of defiance. And for that he was visciously punished. That would have been the hero of the story that day.
Or maybe not. But at the very least, as the people walked away from Jesus that day, they would have talked about the Parable of the Talents. Some may have argued that they needed to make good use of their gifts that God has given them, others may have argued that they needed to stand up to injustice and fight for peace and love. And you know, maybe they both would have been right. And maybe that was the point all along.
