One of the things we must consider
whenever we interpret one of Jesus’ parables is their nature as mashal . . .
remember? We talked about it before, it
means “dark saying.” As in difficult to
interpret, hidden, not-straightforward.
And the thing to remember is that they were just as dark to the
first-century Christians, as they are to us.
Even more so: they didn’t have 2
millennia of interpretive tradition to fix an interpretation in their
minds. Even if it isn’t what Jesus
originally had in mind.
The thing is, Jesus must have used
mashal for a reason, right? Otherwise,
why do it? Why didn’t Jesus just say: ok, here’s what I mean,
and just blatt it out? Ok, ok . . . he
did do that a couple of times, like in the parable of the seed scattered on the
sidewalk, but normally, no. Even though
he could have made them obvious, he could have spelled out what he meant, I am
convinced that he wanted us to struggle, to wrestle with his words. Contrary to popular belief, this Christianity
stuff is not easy, even though becoming Christians is . . . but living into our
faiths isn’t easy, it isn’t easy figuring out what Jesus meant, much less how
we’re supposed to apply it.
And here’s a radical thought: maybe its
meaning isn’t fixed. Maybe there is no
one meaning, maybe it depends on the context of those who are listening. The classic example of this is over in Luke,
where he says “I come to bring good news to the poor,” and some folks, folks
with money, perhaps, who might be less inclined than others to give “their”
money to poor people, tend to spiritualize it, saying it means the good news of
salvation, but the poor—who tend to be more concrete, maybe because they’re too
busy scrambling for food—the poor tend to say “Hallelujah! That’s really good news! We’re gonna get something to eat . . .”
But what if it’s both? Or neither?
Or some other interpretation we haven’t thought about? What if that is one of the reasons Jesus
spoke so often in mashal form: not only is it good for us to figure out their
meanings for ourselves, but they leave wiggle room for interpretation, for
being adapted to a time and place. We
Presbyterians profess to believe in “Reformed and always being reformed by the
Spirit of God.” To my mind, this is one
way of giving room to the Spirit: admitting of more than one interpretation of
any given passage . . .
And the way this parable has
traditionally been interpreted by us sober-sided, financially responsible, mainline
protestants is through the lens of fiscal responsibility, being good stewards
of what God has given us. God gets mad
if we fritter it away, this interpretation goes, but God gets furious when we
don’t make something of it, when we don’t multiply it to do mission, to further
the Kingdom of God on Earth. And a
related interpretation—more closely related than many of us like to admit—is
the prosperity doctrine version, which emphasizes the part where the master
says—notice it’s not Jesus saying this as an interpretation, but the master in
the parable—“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.” And we think “quite right, quite right . . .
it’s like wise investment in a growing business, or in blue chip stocks . . .
we as stewards of God’s bounty must be sober and sound, investing it into solid
missions where the return in souls is assured.
If a mission doesn’t carry its weight, if numbers served or brought into
the church don’t increase, cut it out!
Be done with it! Look what happens to people—and churches!—who
accumulate money and don’t do anything with it, don’t use it for the mission of
God. They get thrown into outer
darkness, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Gnash, gnash, gnash.”
Note that this assumes a certain kind of
reading, an allegorical one where we assign people or things in real life to
things in the story, in the allegory, and that means the “master” must be
assigned as God for a good-steward reading to make sense. But there are problems with that kind of
reading: the servant says “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping
where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed” and is
that a fair assessment of God as we understand it? Does God—whom we define,
after all, as love—does God take other peoples’ stuff? Does he reap where he
hasn’t sewn? Is that a loving thing to
do? And the “master” doesn’t contradict
him! He doesn’t say: that is not how I
operate, you know . . . that may be the way of the world, but it’s not mine . .
. no. The master admits it: “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.” And here’s another thing that doesn’t ring
true: charging interest was against the Torah, against the laws of Moses, where
it is was considered usery no matter how much is charged. And in this most Jewish of gospels, can you
imagine God asking someone to go to a userer?
I have an idea: why don’t we read it
exactly as written? Why don’t we read it
straight? The master is a wealthy landowner, nothing more nothing
less. Likewise, the slaves are slaves, probably
stewards, household slaves charged with managing the affairs of the
master. This was a common enough scenario
in the first century, that masters entrusted their stuff to trusted servants.
If we do this, it all falls into line,
it all makes perfect sense. The master
is doing what masters often do, and more important, Jesus’ depiction of the
master is historically accurate. In the
first century, you didn’t get to be a wealthy landowner by being nice. You got that way by power tactics, by
swindling and cheating and mistreating others.
You got that way by reaping where you did not sew, by taking the fruits
of the labors of others. It was like
that Tennessee Ernie Ford song, I owe my soul to the company store: small landowners were routinely charged
outrageous prices, so that in lean years, they got into increasing debt with
the big landowners, debt they couldn’t quite pay off in fat years, so that after
a time, the only thing left to take was their land. That’s how wealthy landowners got wealthier,
on the backs of the poor—kind of like today, actually, with the income gap
becoming ever larger and wider between those with a lot and those with . . .
less.
And the last words of the master—remember,
they aren’t Jesus’—ring true if the master isn’t supposed to be God, but just a
wealthy landowner: “ . . . 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.” This is a simple statement of historical
fact: those with money will get more. It
takes money to make money, doesn’t it?
And second clause was true as well:
from those with nothing, even what they have will be taken away. And this had, perhaps, literally happened to
some of the disciples who were listening:
They would have no trouble understanding just who the master represents,
they knew that for all too many just like them, as they began to owe more and
more, and could pay less and less, even their land, their ancestral holdings,
what little they had, was finally taken away.
And of course, that is what is happening
today, isn’t it? Since the early 1970s, real
wages—i.e., wages adjusted for inflation—have decreased for those outside of
that notorious top 1%, which have increased.
And as more and more people got further and further behind, consumer
debt rose, people began to use credit cards for daily expenses. In
1980, total CEO pay equaled 42% of the total blue collar pay, while last year,
it had grown to 343% of the blue collar.
In the meantime, in the last 10 years alone, median household income
fell $3,719. To those who have, more is
certainly being given. And those who
have relatively nothing began to lose what they do have—their homes, the basis
of the American dream.
Well, now that
we have a good idea what Jesus might have been talking about, why would he say
it? And why would Matthew place that
parable right here? Remember, its in the
section of his gospel dealing with the second coming, and it follows a kingdom
parable, the parable of the bridesmaids, which we looked at last week. At the end of that, Jesus says “Keep awake,
therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” And ours begins “For it is as if a man, going
on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them.” And the “it” it refers to is the second
coming, which will happen we know not when.
And like the bridesmaids, the slaves don’t know when the master will
return, and like the bridesmaids, some do one thing, and some another.
But here’s the
difference: in the parable of the bridesmaids, nothing was said about the
character of the bridegroom, just that he was coming. But here, in the parable of the talents, it’s
clear that the master is not a nice guy: even he agrees! He reaps where he does not sew, gathers
where he does not scatter. He is a
rapacious land owner, and the disciples to which this parable was told are all
too familiar with the type. And two of
the slaves—the ones to whom more was given, not coincidentally—participate in
his rapacious behavior, they go out and emulate the wicked master, and he
praises them for it, he rewards them.
But the one to whom the least is given does nothing of the kind: what he does is not waste the master’s cash,
as did the prodigal son, but he buries it.
By doing this, he doesn’t do anything technically wrong, he just refuses
to participate in the master’s greedy behavior.
He refuses to reap where he doesn’t sew.
Mahatma Gandhi
was a fan of Jesus. One of his most
famous one-liners shows that: “I like your Christ,” he said “I do not like your
Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” But less known is the fact that he modeled
his famous techniques of non-violent resistance, techniques that ultimately
drove the British colonialists out of India, on those of Christ. We’ve talked about them before: turn the
other cheek, go the extra mile, whose face is on the coin . . . placed in
historical context, these stories can be seen as examples of resisting the
Roman oppressors without the use of violence.
Pastor and biblical scholar David Ewart points out that the actions of
the third slave are in that vein: he
breaks no law, does nothing violent—as in Colonial India, all the cards are in the
hands of the powers that be anyway—yet he refuses to play the world’s
game. He refuses to participate in the
master’s selfish ways. He refuses to
help him reap where he does not sew.
And he pays
the price doesn’t he? The same price
paid by the early Christian martyrs: all he has is taken, and he is cast into
the outer darkness, thrown out of his cushy job as household slave, his family
left to starve out on their own.
Gnashing of teeth, indeed. And in
this case, Jesus’ use of mashal takes on a whole different dimension: if he had
told it outright, if he’d condemned the master and praised the third slave, it
might not have gone well for him. In
fact, in the end, it didn’t, did it? He
was hung up on a tree to die.
Brothers and
sisters: last week we talked about the wedding banquet—where all eat their
fill, rich as well as poor, servant as well as landowner—we talked about it as a
powerful metaphor for the kingdom of God, radically opposed to the ways of the empire. Radically opposed to the rapacious practices
of the powerful, who reap what they have not sewn and gather where they did not
scatter. Where to those who already
have, more is given, and from those who have nothing, even that is taken
away. As the Church, we are called to be
pointers to a just reality, avatars of God’s just ways. How will we respond? Amen.
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