Matthew
25:14-46
“For it is as if a man, going on a
journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; 15 to
one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to
his ability. Then he went away. 16 The one who had received the
five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents.
17 In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two
more talents. 18 But the one who had received the one talent
went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 After
a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 20 Then
the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more
talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made
five more talents.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good
and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put
you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And
the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed
over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ 23 His
master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been
trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter
into the joy of your master.’ 24 Then the one who had received
the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh
man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter
seed; 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the
ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master
replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did
not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? 27 Then you ought
to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have
received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent
from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. 29 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. 30 As
for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will
be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
The
Judgment of the Nations
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels
with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All
the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from
another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and
he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then
the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my
Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for
I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to
drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and
you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and
you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord,
when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you
something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a
stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And
when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And
the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the
least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ 41 Then
he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me
into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for
I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to
drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked
and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw
you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not
take care of you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell
you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it
to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but
the righteous into eternal life.”
Introduction:
As many of you know by now, I’ve been
trying to loosely address topics associated with stewardship this month. To a
large extent this come from very practical concerns about how we manage our
lives, how we manage our money, and even how we use the gifts we are given to
help those around us – particularly those in need. Sometimes it’s important to
be reminded of this. It’s important to be refreshed on how we can better
allocate ourselves to all of life’s demands – how we need to prioritize time
and space for our family and church community.
As I was choosing scriptures for this
month, with this theme of stewardship in mind. The parable of the talents came
to mind. In my mind I thought, “Oh hey, there’s a great story that tells us
that God wants us to invest ourselves wisely.” Unfortunately, it didn’t take me
too long to realize that I had made a bit of an error. You see, I made a
fundamental mistake. My responsibility to layout a nice administrative
framework for the upcoming month led me to make assumptions about the texts I
was going to preach on.
In fact, I made a number of
assumptions about today’s scripture. I had grown up thinking about this passage
in the way I described it a second ago. For years I’ve heard this “Parable of
the Talents” passage preached as a conviction for each of us to use our talents
and gifts, well. Many Christians have approached this scripture allegorically
for a very long time, but as I studied and dug deeper it seemed as though the
message that praises the first two slaves has been used because it’s easier,
not because it’s more accurate or theologically sound.
Sometimes
preaching gets in the way of Interpretation:
To put it simply, sometimes preaching
gets in the way of interpretation. As a preacher, my job is to teach the Gospel
in a way that is both faithful and relevant. And it seems as though Western
Christians have struggled with this passage for a long time. We’ve interpreted
“talents” symbolically
because it’s easy. It’s a way of making the story easily applicable to our
lives. But it’s also an approach that may sweep the real message under the rug.
The Problem:
And it is with that in mind that I
want to bring your attention back to this parable. If you have your Bibles
close at hand, I’d like you to look at this passage again. I think there are
serious problems with taking the Parable of the Talents to be allegorical. And
there are reasons for this. If we’re going to say that the “talents” or money
in this case can be generalized to be the thing we think of when we hear
“talents,” then we’re doing so for a particular end goal. That end goal is an
interpretation that say that God will judge those who don’t use their talents –
so we better do a good job. And this is just where the problems begin for me.
List:
1. I don’t think the descriptions of this Master align
either with Christ or God. Just listen to it. Do you think Matthew wants to
portray God as a, “harsh man, reaping where [he] does not
sow, and gathering where [He] did not scatter seed?” This doesn’t sound like
God. Isn’t this the opposite of the God of
Israel who brought God’s people into a land flowing with milk and honey, drinking from cisterns they did
not dig and reaping harvests that they did not sow. This investor doesn’t sound
like the God who tells harvesters to harvest
2. And this is exactly why I have included the second
passage you heard this morning. Most of the time we separate the Parable of the
Talents away from its context. A context in which you hear Jesus saying that
those who are welcome in the Kingdom of Heaven are those who gave him food,
refuge, clothing, healthcare, or visitation in prison. Does that really sound
like the Master who said “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. As for the worthless slave, throw him into the outer
darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth?” How did we ever
just think, “Oh yeah, that sounds like Jesus!”
3. The moral of this parable is not a happy one, which is
exactly why I think it needs to be read in the context of the passage that
follows. When we hear the master say, "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" one cannot help but hear Ayn Rand more than Jesus Christ. This message directly contradicts what we find elsewhere
in scripture. In Amos, we hear the prophet condemn the landowners for
harvesting the edges of their fields, thus failing to leave some for the poor. Or, to go even further, the message the Master gives contradicts the warnings we hear Jesus give to the wealthy, while
simultaneously proclaiming “good news to the poor.” Not to mention the fact that it would be contradicted by
the living witness of the early church, who sold what they had and pooled their
resources so that everyone would have enough.
4. Finally, I think that the absence we hear about in
this parable is problematic when compared to the rest of the Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew is a Gospel that portrays God as ever-present, even if He is seemingly
absent. To imagine God, as the slave-owner, as absent within this larger context is strange. We even see God's concern and presence in verses that immediately follow this parable!
Alternative:
By now you know that I don’t think
that this parable can be interpreted in the way that I had always thought it
could be – in the way I had always heard. I think at some point preachers may
have just decided that it was easier to turn this passage into something
uncontroversial and relatively harmless, rather than explain the historical
context. But in doing so, they ripped the soul out of this passage.
As most of you probably realized, a
“talent” in this passage is a monetary denomination. It’s a particular amount
of money, and I believe that we need to take that seriously. You see, this is a
story about monetary investment. In 1st century Palestine most
commercial trading or “investing” was done by wealthy people, royalty, and the
priesthood. In a strange twist, to our ears at least, it was the priests who
acted like bankers. They took in and spent investments held in the temple, and
then traded with them for foreign goods and currency.
There were two common ways that someone
could make a profit from investing. The first was by lending to those involved
in the currency exchange business in the Temple. When Jews or others came to
Jerusalem from other parts of the world, they needed to change their
international currency into the local Jewish currency, and the exchange tables
served this purpose. International Jews in particular (and there were many)
needed to make a sacrifice in the Temple, but typically only carried Roman
currency, with the Emperor's picture on it, so they exchanged it for local
currency, which did. A wealthy person's investment in this, from fees and
exchange rates, could be very high.
The second form of investment was in
mortgage loans or bridge loans to small farmer families struggling to stay
afloat in the declining 1st century Palestinian economy. Most loans
made huge returns on their investment because interest rates were so astronomically
high by today's standards – anywhere between twenty-five to fifty percent. The
purpose for these loans, was primarily for the purpose of getting borrowers in
over their heads so they could be
foreclosed
on. These farmers would then either become tenants on what had been their own
property, homeless, or join the ranks of the growing number of bandits or
revolutionary militias.
In a familiar twist, a lot of the
income from these loans was deposited in the Temple so that the rich wouldn’t
have to pay particular taxes on it. But also, if not more, importantly to keep the
owners from being officially known as the holders of the debts they held. This
anonymity was critical because Jewish law called for all debts to be cancelled
in the year of Jubilee.
A law called the "Prosbul" allowed them put their
money in the Temple just before the seventh year, when debts were to be
canceled, so that they could claim that they no longer had the money and were
not able to cancel the debt. And then that money, held in the Temple, was often
invested elsewhere by the priests who were the financial overseers of the
"bank's" holdings. There are a number of ancient inscriptions that
show priests investing in trades and commodities using this
"tax-sheltered" money; much of which was drawn from the mortgages
taken out by the poor families of rural Palestine. That's probably one of the
reasons why Jesus decided to occupy the Temple and set up a temporary boycott
of currency trading there as his first official act in Jerusalem. And it is
clearly the reason why – when the revolution finally came – the angry masses
stormed the temple and burned the mortgage papers that had been held there.
It was also common, as this parable
indicates, for wealthy lenders to pass the dirty tasks of originating the
loans, and collecting on them, and then repossessing the properties, down to
their servants. It was considered dishonorable for nobility to expand their
wealth, and since servants were a class without honor, they were given the job.
That gave the lenders the ability to deny any knowledge of wrong-doing if an
evicted family's misery became too public.
It's also important to add here that
the servants who were entrusted with inflicting this pain on people didn't do
it necessarily for monetary gain, but instead they did it for the power and
prestige they received for successfully managing the company. As today’s
parable says, if they were successful in little, they would be given power and
responsibility over much. The fact that two of the slaves doubled, or tripled,
the initial investment references the returns that these kinds ‘shady’
investments brought.
In this story, slaves one and two
clearly went along with this insidious system and were rewarded handsomely for
their efforts. The first put his money into trading (ergázomai, probably
commodities because they were the most frequently traded at the time), and the
second used interest-bearing investments (kerdainō, like the loans and
currency-trading mentioned above), but both made a healthy profit.
But the third person (often the hero
in three-part tales), followed the Torah which forbade the lending of money at
interest (Exodus 22.20-30). Apparently, he believed that the system was
corrupt, that the leader was evil, that money should not be used as a weapon
against homes and farms and families, and he refused to participate. He accused
the wealthy owner of being a "sklēros," someone who is
violent, rough, offensive, and thoroughly intolerable. He accuses him of not
actually doing anything to get his wealth: he doesn't plant, and he doesn't distribute
(diaskorpízō) his wealth. He just collects interest from the misery of
people who were sucked into a downwardly spiraling system.
So rather than participating he
denounces the crime, buries the money, and in the end gets punished for his
actions. It is telling that he put the money in the ground, which is ultimately
owned by God (Leviticus 25:23-28). It could even seem as though Jesus is saying
that he gave the money back to God, the ultimate owner. That in the midst of
everything that he saw as evil, the third slave just put his hands in the only
place he thought was safe – the very earth that God created.
Conclusion:
So here’s my point, I think there’s a
serious problem with equating God to the Slave-owner of the story or praising
the first two slaves. I think we need to take this story literally. Jesus is
telling us that sometimes when we stand up and denounce an immoral, evil,
system, you may have to pay for it. This story is about stewardship, but it’s a
kind of stewardship that has a lot more teeth than the one we might be more
familiar with.
I think that this parable has more in common with the story
of ‘Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and
the fiery furnace’ than we may realize at first. Sometimes the right thing to
do is to offer up your life as a bulwark against injustice, even if that means
losing that life. If we’re going to talk about stewardship, then it makes sense
to talk about it in the most ultimate of ways. Where do you fall when the chips
fall in the most dramatic and meaningful of ways? Will you place your hands in
the only thing you know is safe? Christ tells us exactly where we need to be
after this parable. Christ says, “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was
thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed
me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you
took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ ‘Truly I
tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my
family, you did it to me.’”
There
is a place for stewardship in the Kingdom of God, but it’s not the kind of
stewardship the slave-owner had. All he cared about was personal gain at the
expense of other people. No! Disciples of Jesus Christ are called to not just
be crafty stewards, but ethical ones. If we’re going to devote our gifts to
something, then it should be something meaningful – and that’s a message to be
thankful for!
This
story about injustice and system that forces slaves to become complicit in the
expropriation of small farms is followed by a vision of messianic judgment. Our
injustice is always followed by God’s justice. Jesus, the parable teller, is
telling us that salvation is at hand for all peoples, despite the corruption of
political-economies and empires. He’s offering hope and bringing them back to
the most important thing of all – love; love of God and love of neighbor. Jesus
says that those who act like the slave-owner of the parable will be punished,
but those who helped the least of all will be given eternal life.
Benediction:
As
we go into the world,
and
leave this place behind,
may
we remember that God is still speaking.
May
the message of Christ
be
in our hearts and our minds,
because
God is still speaking within us.
May
we all be attentive
to
that still small-voice.
Amen.
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