“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five talents, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five talents went at once, put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two talents gained two more. The man who had received one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five talents brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’ “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ “The man with two talents also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two talents, and I have gained two more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
Then the man who had received one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’ His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Then you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. So take the talent and give it to the one who has ten. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. Throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
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Today’s Gospel is one of those ‘hard sayings of Jesus’ which we often avoid preaching. If God is loving and forgiving, if Jesus taught that all people had worth in the eyes of God, then how do we explain this one? It sounds like a vengeful, hard God rather than a loving God. But it’s my contention that Jesus was turning everything around, and the listeners would have known exactly what he was doing.
Looking at Matthew’s original audience provides some clues. Most of Matthew’s congregation were Jewish Christians, steeped in the laws, customs, and justice traditions of the Jewish faith. Even the ‘talent’ itself would be a problem according to this traditionally Jewish audience. A talent was one of the largest values of money in the Hellenistic world. It was a silver coinage weighing between fifty-seven and seventy-four pounds, equal to 6,000 denarii. One denarius was an average subsistence wage for a day's labor, so one talent was worth more than fifteen years wages. In the modern era, we might roughly translate the assets made available for investment at about 2.5 million dollars.
The Old Testament prophet Amos sternly warned against the practice of wealth accumulation. Israel is indicted for the sinful accumulation of wealth on the backs of others - at the expense of slaves - and without honest, ethical labor. In Exodus 16 and Leviticus 25 God strictly prohibits the lending of money at interest. Although there was some interest-based investment and lending, the highest legal - or at least ethical - interest rate was believed to be at 12 percent. Clearly, the heart of Jewish scripture tradition - as revealed in the Old Testament - is for equality and justice, and is opposed to vast concentrations of wealth.
Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, in their Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, tell us that the Greco-Roman world operated according to a principle of "limited good." The Greeks and Romans believed that the amount of capital in the world was finite, and that it was ethically suspect to invest money to earn a profit. To make money on investment - to loan it out at interest - was ultimately to take wealth from someone else. So, what the wealthy did instead was to use knowledgeable slaves to invest the money. "Such behavior could be condoned in slaves," Malina and Rohrbaugh write, "since slaves were without honor anyway".
The original audience would have seen in this parable a portrait of a great household – in our terms, a modern trans-national corporation. The powerful patriarch or CEO would frequently be away on economic or political business. His affairs would be handled by slaves, who in Roman society often rose to prominent positions in the household hierarchy.
To entrust money to slaves sounds strange to our ears, but in fact it was a common enough practice in the first-century Mediterranean world. Many slaves were educated, and demonstrated better management abilities than their masters. For Jesus to tell of slaves who were serving their master as investment counselors would not have sounded strange to his listeners. The sums, however, are staggering and border on hyperbole.
Later rabbinic law declared that burying money was the preferred method of safe-keeping. So safe was this method considered to be, that a person who had buried money could not be held accountable for the loss, if the money should be dug up and stolen.
An article by Ched Myers and Eric DeBode, "Towering Trees and 'Talented' Slaves," offers insight into the parable of the talents. They argue that the parable suggests that we should *resist* the economic system that makes such doubling possible in the first place.
On the surface, this story promotes ruthless business practices and the cynical view that the rich will only get richer while the poor become destitute. It is a severe portrait of a hardhearted, ruthless absentee landlord who cares only for profit.
Might it be that we have imposed upon the parable our capitalist presumptions about the glories of a system that rewards "venture capital," and thus read the story exactly backwards? So we have traditionally read it as a story about ‘good’ vs ‘bad’ stewardship. Myers and Bode argue that it actually isn’t about that at all.
The first two slaves double their master's investment. In fact, this feat would have elicited disgust from the first-century audience. The ideal was stability, not self- advancement. Anyone trying to accumulate inordinate wealth imperiled the equilibrium of society and was understood to be dishonorable. Greed characterized the rich, who extorted and defrauded other members of the community through lucrative trading, tax collecting, and lending money at interest. In fact, usury was understood to be responsible for the destructive cycle of indebtedness and poverty; profiting from commodity trading was explicitly condemned by none other than Aristotle.
The scripturally literate among first-century Christians would recall the warning against stored surplus in Exodus 16, the prohibition against profiteering in Leviticus 25, or Isaiah's condemnation of those who "join house to house and field to field" in their real-estate dealings. Yet the slaves’ doubling of the amounts was likely based in precisely such condemned practices. Large landowners made loans to peasant small holders based on speculations of future crop production. With high interest rates and vulnerability to lean years and famine, farmers often were unable to make their payments, and faced foreclosure. After gaining control of the land, the new owner could continue to make a killing by hiring laborers to farm cash crops.
In fact, this is a process of economic exploitation and wealth accumulation that is still all too characteristic of our own global economy today - and we don’t have to go far to find examples, in the tied-aid programmes of many governments, or the practices of large trans-national corporations.
In the story the master commends the first two slaves: "Well done, good and trustworthy slave--enter into the joy of your master." At the plain level of the parable it is a promotion, but also a reminder that these are still slaves, still dependent on the master’s good mood, and by their actions even more enslaved than ever to the world controlled by their lord.
That the third slave buried the money may seem strange to us at first glance, till we remember the context. And perhaps Jesus is employing some wry peasant humor, since many of his audience were farmers. Those who work the land know that all true wealth comes from God, the source of rain, sunshine, seed, and soil. Remember too, that it was the acceptable practice to bury money. The silver talent, when "sown" in the ground produced no fruit!
Here is the clash between two economic worldviews: the traditional agrarian notion of "use - value" and the elite's currency-based system of "exchange - value." Money cannot grow the natural way like seed - it only grows unnaturally. Is this symbolic act of "planting" the talent a way of revealing that money is not fertile?
The third slave clearly speaks truth to power. "I knew you were a harsh man. You reap where you did not sow, and gather where you did not scatter seed". The third slave unmasks the fact that the master's wealth is derived entirely from the toil of others, profiting from the backbreaking labor of those who work the land. Unwilling to participate in this exploitation, the third slave takes the money out of circulation, where it can no longer be used to dispossess another family farmer. His repudiation of the master is simple and curt: "Here, take back what is rightfully yours". But he admits that through it all "I was afraid." It is instructive that the master does not refute the whistle-blower's analysis of his world, but castigates him as "evil and lazy" (and isn’t this the favorite slur of the rich toward those who don't play their way). He wonders rhetorically why the slave didn't at least seek market-rate return. He then dispossesses him and gives the single talent to the obedient slave, to illustrate how the real world works: "For to those who have, more will be given – but for those who have not, even what they have will be taken away".
To those who buy into the accepted ways of doing things, they will be rewarded. To those who speak the truth to the powerful, even what they have will be taken from them.
This parable reads coherently as a cautionary tale about the world controlled by corporations. To read in it a divine endorsement of mercenary economics and the inevitable polarization of wealth is to miss the point completely – and to perpetuate both dysfunctional theology and complicit economics in our churches. The consequence of the third slave's non-cooperation is banishment to the "outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth".
Perhaps this is the hell on earth experienced by those rejected by the dominant culture: in the shadows where the light of the royal courts never shine, on the mean streets outside the great households, the dwelling place of the outcast poor like Lazarus sitting by the gate, hand outstretched. But is that not where we claim Christ is met - in places of pain and marginality; the "outer darkness."? The whistle- blower's punishment kicks him out of the rich man's system, but brings him closer to God, who dwells with the poor and oppressed.
Jesus used "folksy" stories like these to expose the most entrenched arrangements of power and privilege, whether Roman militarism or Judean elitism. He challenged the "tall trees" of imperial domination with his "mustard seed" movement of Jubilee justice - a tiny seed growing into a great tree which would displace the powerful and dishonest. As we move toward Reign of Christ Sunday next week, it is useful to see how Jesus provoked anger by insisting on naming the truth, speaking to the powerful religious leaders who pretended to uphold the law.
The third slave lost everything - yet the good news of Jesus was that the one willing to lose his life would find it. I don’t claim that there is much good news in this parable, but if there is, it is that the one who risks speaking truth to power will find the realm of God. The one who focuses on saving himself will, in the end, lose the realm of God. Jesus said that himself - the one who would save his life will, in the end lose it; the one who would lose his life will find it.
Sources:
1. Sermon “The Day of God”, by Fran Ota November 13, 2005, Glen Ayr United Church.
2. Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels. Malina, Bruce and Rohrbaugh, Richard.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003; p. 124
3. Towering Trees and ‘Talented’ Slaves. Ched Myers with Eric DeBode. “The Other Side”, May 1999, article.
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