Thinking through the parable of the talents for the 2nd Sunday before Advent I wondered what sort of life the cast of Jesus’ parables had in his mind and whether they featured in his other parables, and whether the same happened in the mind of Jesus’ hearers. It did for me and led me to preach this. The text of the parable of the talents is printed below.
Who does the one who hid his talent remind you of from the gospels?
While the parable of the talents is deadly serious there is something jokey about it.
There were three people walked into a parable. One was given five talents. The second was given two talents. And the third was given one. It’s the classic: there was an Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irish man ……..
There is a light-heartedness in the parable as you would expect from the one who preaches from the heart and who is the light of the world. He uses exaggeration and the absurd to create a comic effect to engage and challenge us, his hearers and disciples.
We’ve misheard the parable if we think it’s about the sort of talents which make Britain’s Got Talent. The talents Jesus is talking about here is a unit of measurement used for weighing silver. We have our strange units of measurement too. Like a yard of cloth, or a pint of beer. Here we have talents of silver.
Three people walked into a parable. Each given a weight of silver. Here’s the funny bit. A talent weighed 80 lbs (about half my weight) and was worth 6000 denarii. How would you even carry it?
Typically one denarius was the wage for a day’s work. So one talent was the equivalent to 20 years labour at a denarius a day for a six day week. Five talents of silver was worth 100 years labour, two talents was worth 40 years labour. The slave given the one talent wasn’t given a little. He was given less but it was still a small fortune. He was set up for life.
Jesus gives us something here that is hard to imagine because it is so preposterous. The slave with the one talent hid it. Where can you hide so much? How deep do you have to dig the hole to bury it?
So, who does he remind you of, this one who walked into a parable and was given a talent of silver?
He reminds me of the labourers who worked the whole day in the vineyard only to find that the landowner paid those who worked the last hour the same as them. In that parable the landowner hires workers throughout the day – including some at the last hour. He instructs the manager to pay the last first and to pay them all the same. They each get their one denarius. The ones working the longest, and used to being paid the most, complained. But they could have been delighted that the last and least chosen had, for once, been paid what they needed.
These disgruntled ones were probably always used to being the first chosen. There are those who are used to coming first. Coming first is beyond most of us. It requires hard work: the greasing of palms, the pulling of strings, the favour of friends in high places, the use of elbows to stay ahead of the game. They were ahead of the queue on the labour market and the first to be taken on by the landowner. But then they got nothing more than the ones who came last.
Is the one who is given the one talent one who is used to always being amongst those first chosen – and one of the complainers that the last chosen and the least chosen are paid the same? Is he one of those who complain about the state of affairs in the kingdom of heaven where the last always come first and the first always seem to come last?
Something has happened to make him misjudge the master. Something has happened to make him afraid. He says: “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.” Whatever led him to think he was a harsh man? There must have been something that made him disgruntled and that coloured his judgement. Was he amongst those used to being first who now were last?
That’s who he reminds me of – of all those who misjudge God, who fear his judgement, rather than loving his judgement because it is full of mercy and love for the last and the least and for those who have suffered the wrongs of how things are.
The Psalmist wrote this into what became the prayer book for millions, including Jesus:
With the loyal you show yourself loyal.
With the blameless you show yourself blameless.
With the pure you show yourselves pure.
With the crooked you show yourselves perverse. (Psalm 18:25-26)
However kind, generous or good the master is, the crooked will always have a perverse view of him. Often, when we read this parable we say we don’t like the sound of the master. What I am suggesting is that this fearful one has got the master wrong. He isn’t actually a harsh man, reaping where he has not sown and gathering where he has not scattered. And that is particularly so if the master is actually God, as he has been for so many who have heard this parable. We surely don’t share in this perverse view of those who complain about the master and are afraid of him.
If we’re not like him then we are like the other two who walked into the parable: those given so much by a generous master who trusted them with all that he had. He trusted them with his life, and his generosity and trust were their stock in trade. That is what makes me think that the one who knew the master to be a harsh man had got him so wrong. He was anything but harsh.
I read this parable with a group of residents of a fairly prosperous retirement village this week. One of them had found it difficult to adjust to a life where she was no longer so high profile and where she was limited by health issues. Being of a similar age I sympathised with her, realising that our power dwindles as we age. We could say that we become less “talented”. But in the gospel where the least, the last and the smallest count for so much, even a little talent, a lightweight born from the thankful heart of a person is good enough for the kingdom of heaven.
Complaints and resentment, on the other hand, bury what little talent we may have ended up with.
I don’t know whether you’ve noticed that the number of talents match the number of loaves and fish with which Jesus fed the five thousand. There were five loaves and two fish. No one went hungry, and there was enough left over to feed a nation. In the right hands so much can be made of so little – a smile, a word, a touch, a seed. This is the currency of the kingdom, the currency of grace, our weight of silver.
There were three people walked into a parable, ourselves included because we have been given our weight of silver, our talent. We have been given enough to set us up for life. It’s not money, that would only be small change. It’s grace. That is what we trade in – unless, like the least talented in the parable we perversely fear God and God ceases to be gracious in our eyes.
Three people walked into a parable. And the punch line is that the worthless slave gets thrown into the outer darkness, the darkness that is beyond darkness, where there is no light, and where there is only the weeping and the gnashing of teeth of his fellow complainants.
But fear and threats is not what the gospel leaves us with. What we are left with is a generous spirit which goes to the heart of our lives. That is the talent given to the church. He sets us up for life to trade in the affairs of the kingdom of heaven, putting the last and least first and forgiving one another. No other talent compares to this.
We are his beloved. We are his trusted ones. He trusts us with his life. (We celebrate that when we receive his body in our hands at Communion).
We are the ones to whom God shows himself loyal, blameless and pure. For us there is nothing perverse about God. There is nothing for us to complain about. There is no reason to fear his judgement. His ways are not perverse, but straightforward love.
Matthew 25:14-30
For it 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 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 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 with 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 bringing two more talents, 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, “Yu wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I do not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested your 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 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.”