Context is the Key

"For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away" [Matthew 25:15-15].

If one understands the context of a person's words, one is, generally speaking, pretty far down the road toward grasping their true meaning. That is one of the inherent problems with scriptural interpretation. The context is often exceedingly difficult to nail down. Not only were the words uttered in a foreign tongue, they were spoken two thousand or more years ago and sometimes not written down until decades after their original utterance.

Over the years, New Testament scholars have been able to piece together some important contextual elements regarding the Gospel lesson appointed for this upcoming Sunday–the so-called "Parable of the Talents" [Matthew 25:14-30, the Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year A].

We know that Jesus is about midway through his final week before his death on the cross. We sense his desire to press home important points to his disciples. He knows–the disciples do not yet adequately grasp–that he will soon give up his life for them and for us, that on the third day he will be raised from the dead, and that he will provide his loved ones, and there are billions of us, a "Paracletus,"–an Advocate or Comforter–in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

If Jesus had a clock, then it would be ticking, ticking toward his encounter with Pilate and the other Roman authorities. In this week's text, he gives his disciples, and us, his penultimate Matthean parable. He says, "It will be like a man going on a journey," [25:14a]. Without the appropriate context, we might ask ourselves, "What will be like a man going on a journey?" Building on the two parables told immediately before this one, we know that when Jesus speaks about "it," he's speaking about the Kingdom of God.

The man will call his servants before him and "entrust his wealth to them" [25:14b, NRSV]. To one he gave five "talents," to another two, and to the third, he gave one (note that the NIV says "bags of gold," instead of talents). In Jesus' day, a single talent represented 15 years of earnings for an able-bodied man. Using our own terms, for example, if an annual man's earnings is, say $40,000, then the servant who received one talent was given $600,000, the servant given two would have $1.2 million, and the servant receiving five talents would now have $3 million. That's quite a tidy sum, even for the servant who receives the single talent.

We're familiar with the rest of the parable. Jesus says that "after a long time, the master returns and settles accounts with them. The one who'd received five talents was able to make five more. The one who'd received two was able to make two more. To both of these servants, the master said, "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."

We all recall that the one who'd received the single talent came forward and said, "Master, 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" [25:24-25].

Pay careful attention to the master's response, particularly the manner in which it is translated in the NRSV: "You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I did not scatter? [25:26, emphasis my own].

Then the master in the parable pronounces a harsh judgment. He tells the servant that he could have at least given the funds to bankers and earned a bit of interest. His talent is taken away and given to the one who now has ten–note that the master has allowed the other two to keep all of their funds, not just the "extra" that they earned. The third servant is thrown "into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" [25:30].

Whew. That's pretty harsh treatment of the third servant, don't you think? Most of us give a sigh of relief when we recall that this is, after all, "only a parable," not real life. There really isn't a third servant who gets cast into the darkness, right? Jesus is just trying to make a point, right? But what point might that be?

I'll wager you've heard a sermon (or three) on this parable–a sermon that picked up on the fact that the word for gold or money used here is "talent." It is unfortunate that one of the several Latin words for bag of gold later morphed into the word we use to describe "ability," "knack," "capacity," "flair,"–I could go on. It's really tempting for the preacher to make a good play on words with "talent." In doing so, we can take this little parable, put a bow around it, and say it teaches us to discover what gifts and talents we all have and to use them for God's kingdom. That isn't a bad sermon point.

Wait; I'm on a roll here. You can take this parable and say that Jesus is teaching us all that while some of us may have more talent that others, each of us–that includes you–has at least one talent, and God wants us not to waste it. As they say in Divinity School, "That'll preach." Indeed, I'm sure Jesus would want us to use our God-given abilities always to the glory of God.

But you see, I don't think that message takes into context the original parable offered by Jesus. You see, a sermon that emphasizes out gifts and talents isn't nearly BIG enough to match the point being made by Jesus! There's so much more!

We know from the context of the parable that "the man" who is "going on a journey" is Jesus. His journey is first to be betrayed by someone he loves, then to be the defendant at an unfair trial in Jerusalem, then finally to come to a hill called Golgotha, where he will die between two other condemned men. Yet then, alas, He will be raised!

"But wait," we say. "The man in the parable can't be Jesus, for the master in the parable is 'a harsh man,' reaping where he didn't sow. Jesus isn't like that at all."

But, again, read the parable carefully. Jesus doesn't say that the master is harsh; the third servant says so. Clearly the first two servants didn't view the master as harsh and unfair; they took risks and invested the treasure, apparently without too much worry about a downturn in the market. No, the master isn't harsh and vindictive. It's just that the vision of the third servant is so poor.

Utilizing the logic of C.S. Lewis, we might look at the third servant and recognize that in the parable the master says to him, "If that's the only master you can see, then that's the sort of master you will get." The third servant isn't so much judged by the master, as he makes his own self-judgment.

There's one question left, of course: If Jesus is the man heading out on a journey who entrusts his wealth to his servants [25:14], then what is Jesus' wealth? We know from earlier stories that Jesus doesn't carry money around.

His wealth is his Incarnation. It is his Gospel. It's his message that we are to love God with all our heart, and strength, and mind, and that we are also to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus' wealth is his precious life, which he gave up so willingly for you and me. You see, the issue becomes, if we're entrusted with that kind of wealth, then what are we willing to do?

Can we see then that this parable is actually about what Christians do or do not do with the Gospel as they wait for the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven? And, oh, my friends, the Kingdom is coming, because Jesus' return is assured.

In that sense, at least, this parable is a bit like the last one–the one with the ten bridesmaids. There we learned that some were wise, and some were foolish. Here we see a similar pattern. The first two servants in the parable were wise; they immediately set out to work with the "treasure" that had been entrusted to them. Sure, they might fail in some of their efforts, but in every effort, they were emulating their lord. And upon the return of their Lord, they would join him in his Joy. The third, unfortunately, was foolish. He put his treasure into what amounted to a casket.

In the end, this parable is about trust and wisdom. If, as servants of Christ, we trust him, then we can venture out into our crazy, scary world so as to enjoy God's gracious providence everywhere. On the other hand, to be a child of a gracious God and yet look upon God as oppressive, vengeful, and cruel, is to live an impoverished life. Living out the Gospel is also wise, since the future belongs to Yahweh, and God's values–not the world's–will not only win the day, but enable us to enter into our Master's Joy.