November 10, 2005
Talent
Pentecost 26/28A Mt 25.14f,19-29
The New Orleans poor got what they deserved. Not long after Katrina, a moderately wealthy and inordinately conservative Christian gentleman and otherwise law-abiding citizen used the Parable of the Talents to make this point to me. He implied that they had had the same opportunities as all of us and did not take advantage of them.
I suppose that for some, there may be more than an element of truth in that point of view and even some smug comfort. “Use it or lose it” is not for many an uncommon way of looking at life, nor is it always wrong. But punishing the poor for being poor strikes me as hardly consistent with Jesus’ prophetic ambiance of justice and grace and love, especially for the poverty-stricken. Indeed, that Jesus, according to Matthew, was the very source of this parable is a reality that must not be overlooked, for it is integral in searching for its meaning.
This is a kingdom parable. Jesus is saying, “The kingdom of God will be” the way this story tells us it will be. Those who refuse actively to obey God and to put to use the life God has given us are not only just missing the point, they are jeopardizing that life and that freedom in peril of losing both.
When Jesus spoke this parable, the word “talent” referred to a unit of weight measurement and also to money. It did not refer, at that time, to what we might call a “gifted ability.” As with all his parables, it is better that we let it speak from its own context at the time of its telling.
The story is about a man who had servants. He was going on a journey. He entrusted his possessions to them as stewards, not as owners. Further, it is helpful to note that each of the varying amounts was given according to the abilities of the recipient, a condition that obviously will affect the outcome.
The Kingdom of God is not a slave state. The parable does not defend slavery in any way. Our servanthood in the Kingdom is to be modeled after Jesus and balanced, as well, with the fact that we are children of God. The parable does not state that the kingdom of God is primarily about money. The presence of money surely serves to make it more lifelike for us, but that is not what it’s about.
It is not at all about what we have, but about our stewardship with what we have. Like the ordered freedom that is at the heart of our normative Anglican tradition, it is this point of commonality and of productive obedience among us all that is compared in this story. The parable challenges us to use our freedom to choose and to be obediently productive through staying open to and discerning the Holy Spirit in our lives.
My friend who was so ready to judge the poor apparently overlooked entirely any message there may be in the Parable of the Talents about our collegial stewardship as a nation. Perhaps for a moment, at least, did Katrina force us to face exactly to whom it is that our rich productivity is obedient.
[Visit Episcopal Relief and Development at http://www.er-d.org/ to make a donation to catastrophe relief or Episcopal Migration Ministries at emm@episcopalchurch.org to volunteer to assist displaced people with housing.]