Oh
No! It’s a parable about money. Does it mean that the vicar is going to keep on
about the Parish Share and the state of the Diocesan Finances? Well I’m sorry to
disappoint you, I’m not. I just thought that I’d clear that one up right away, just
to put your minds at rest, so that we can get on with the task of drawing closer
to the word of God, and to be nourished and strengthened by it.
Reading Holy Scripture, the Bible, can be a
strange affair: sometimes it fills us with joy, sometimes it just leaves us confused.
Speaking personally, I find the parable of the talents troubling, mostly because
I tend to feel rather like the slave who was given one talent and who hid it in
the ground. That may well be my own sense of unworthiness informing my reading of
the passage, which reminds me of the need in all things to trust in God, and
for his grace to be at work in me. The judgement thankfully is not my own, but
rather God’s – a loving father who runs to meet his prodigal children. This is a
God we can trust, who wants to see us flourish.
No parable has been more misused than Jesus'
parable of the talents. Once a parable is abstracted from Jesus proclamation of
the kingdom of God, once it is divorced from its apocalyptic context – pointing
to the future, such misreading is inevitable:
speculation begins, for example, about how much talent might be or
whether the Master’s observation that the money could have been put in a bank
might mean that Jesus approves of taking interest. Speculative uses of the
parable have even been employed to justify economic practices that are
antithetical to Jesus’ clear judgement that we cannot serve both God and
mammon. After all, money is a means, and not an end – which is where we and the
world often go wrong.
Jesus is not using this parable to recommend
that we should all work hard, make all that we can, to give all that we can.
Rather, the parable is a clear judgement against those who think they deserve
what they have earned as well as those who do not know how precious is the gift
they have been given.
The slaves have not earned their
five, two, and one talents. They have been given those talents. In the
parable of the Sower, Jesus indicated that those called to the kingdom would produce
different yields. These differences should not be the basis for envy and
jealousy, because our differences are gifts given in service to one another – so
are the talents given to the slaves of a man going on a journey. It is not
unfair that the slaves were given different amounts. Rather what is crucial is
how they regarded what they had been given.
The one who received one talent feared
the giver. He did so because he assumed that the gifts that could only be lost
or used up. In other words the one with one talent assumed that they were part
of a zero-sum game - if someone wins, someone else must lose. Those who assume
that life is a zero-sum game think that if one person receives an honour
someone else is made poorer. The slave who feared losing what he had, he turned
his gifts into a possession – it was a thing, and it was his thing. But by contrast,
the first two slaves recognised that trying to secure the gifts that they had
been given means that the gifts would be lost – so they use the gifts for the glory
of God. The joy of the wedding banquet is the joy into which the Master invites
the slaves who did not try to protect what they had been given is the joy that
comes from learning to receive the gift without regret, without fear – simply
humbly, joyfully and lovingly.
The parable of the talents just like
the parable of the five wise and five foolish bridesmaids are commentaries on
the slaves who continue to work, who
continue to feed their fellow slaves, until their master returns – they are
parables which teach us how to be a church of loving service. Each of these parables
teaches us to wait patiently as those who have received the gift of being
called a disciple of Jesus. Jesus' disciples are not necessarily called to
great things. Rather, Jesus’ disciples are called to do the work that Jesus has
given us to do: our work is simple and it is learning to tell the truth and
love our enemies. Such work is the joy that our Master invites us to share. It
is in doing this work that we are separated – sheep from goats.
It may sound pedestrian, or even
humdrum, but living the Christian life, living the life of the Kingdom, is at a
day to day level about keeping on keeping on – loving, forgiving, praying –
nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ, fed by Him, and with Him, freed from
the fear which is the antithesis of the Kingdom, rejoicing in the gifts which God
gives us, being thankful for them, and using them for God’s glory. It is what each
of us, and indeed all of us together are called to be, in this we can be built up
in love, together, and invite others to enter into the joy of the Kingdom, so that
they may come to believe in and serve God the Father, God the Son, and God the
Holy Spirit, be ascribed this is most right and just all Might, Majesty, Glory, Dominion, and Power now and
for ever...
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