You may have heard this today:
Matthew 25:14-30
Jesus said, "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. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.
After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 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.' 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.' 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.' 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.'
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; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' 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? 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. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. 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 this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' "
This is often preached as the Parable of the Talents, and it lends itself to a wonderfully American work ethic. God gave you gifts: use them! Multiply them! And if you have been wonderfully successfully, why, you can enter into the joy of your master!
These sermons (unless you hang out with a fairly Puritanical set) typically end with the second paragraph. We don't like to remember the third servant, who hid the talent and got thrown into the outer darkness for not taking the talent to the usurers. Maybe that reluctance reflects some unconscious sense that this interpretation doesn't sit all that well with what we read about Jesus elsewhere. "…to all those who have, more will be given?" Does that sound like the shepherd who left ninety-nine sheep to look for the lost one? Or the housewife who swept the whole house until she found the one lost coin? Or the Jewish rabbi who talked with the Samaritan who was so outcast she got her water at midday?
Possibly, just possibly, this story is about something else. Let's begin with those talents. A talent of gold weighed somewhere between seventy and a hundred pounds: call it an even million dollars. So we are talking about a "master" who casually hands out five, three or one million dollars and heads off. This sounds more like hedge fund managers or vulture capitalists than like a Sunday School superintendent.
And how the heck did you double a million dollars back then anyway? Oddly enough, that will sound familiar. Two major financial trades involved currencies and mortgages. One big business was converting the coinage of the empire (which had faces on it and references to the divine emperor) into shekels for people who wanted to pay the temple tax. You may not be surprised to learn that the money traders didn't do this as a non-profit. Another big profit center was lending to peasants. Getting ready to plant, a peasant might find himself short of the money for seed and take out a mortgage on his land. These mortgages could run at twenty, thirty, forty percent. And of course, if the harvest was bad, you couldn't expect the lender to take the hit, could you?
What does that make the third slave? That slave is the one who speaks truth to power. He tells the master point blank that he reaps where he did not sow, that he takes profits he did not earn - and he pays the penalty. The harsh master, like many financiers today, doesn't like to be told off and gets rid of the inconvenient truth-teller who wouldn't exploit his fellow slaves.
So what is going on here? Why would Jesus tell a story like this? The context suggests a possible interpretation. He tells it shortly before the end in Jerusalem. It is one of several where he is breaking it to the disciples that he is not the kind of messiah they were hoping for. He is not going to overthrow the Romans; he is not going to crush Caesar. He is going to die. (I have always loved Thomas for his reaction to the trip to Jerusalem: "Let us go with him so we may die with him." Always the realist, Thomas.)
That is the context within the gospel of Matthew, but the story is being told after Easter. Seeing it from the far side, the story becomes one of unexpected victory. Yes, the harsh master, the Romans, killed the truth-telling slave, but the story has another episode that starts on the third day.