Let’s make money!

The Prosperity Gospel has arrived and it’s cool to be making money. Investments will only increase and if we are doing this for the Church, what’s not to like? Let’s make money! Oh by the way there is a twist in the tale, so hang in please – it’s worth it.

Matthew’s Gospel

Matthew’s Gospel is written in 5 sections, akin to the Torah. The subsection from Chapter 24 onwards deals with what’s known as the eschatological, the last days until the end of time, or when Jesus returns. Jesus prophesies persecutions (Matthew 24:9-14) and the Desolating Sacrilege (Matthew 24:15-28), and tells of the coming of the Son of Man (Matthew 24:29-31). He then gives the lesson of the fig tree (Matthew 24:32-35) and tells of the necessity of watchfulness (Matthew 24:36-44).

Context

Last week we were looking at the Wedding Banquet again, which we had visited before. This week we are looking at Matthew 25:14-30 which might be called the ‘Sermon on the Mount (Part 2)’. We are in Judea, not Galilee, and in right before Jesus’ final week. In Matthew, Jesus and his disciples are sitting on the Mount of Olives (the place from which the Messiah was believed to begin his rule – Zechariah 14:4-5), overlooking the Second Temple, rebuilt by Herod the Great, the Roman puppet-king who tried to kill the infant Jesus.

Parable of the Talents

This is a familiar story, we may have heard it first at Sunday School and often in Church. The master of the house – why is it always the man?, perhaps we’ll address this later – is off on a business journey. The slaves are called and he gives them a sum of money equivalent to their perceived ability. This is standard economic process today, right? Let’s make money!

The one given five ‘Talents’ makes five ‘Talents’ more. The slave given two ‘Talents’ makes, oddly, two ‘Talents’ more. Hey, a 100% markup would be acceptable in many financial exchanges, especially currently, albeit we are not told just how long the master was away. They are both deemed to be ‘good and trustworthy’ and they can enter the joy of their master.

The Third slave?

The third slave is bravely very honest, they tell their master exactly how they normally treat them. They are sufficiently vulnerable to explain exactly what they did with the master’s ‘Talent’ – they just buried it. Perhaps under the bed, or in the garden? Wasn’t the idea to ‘Let’s make money!’?

Oh, this slave is (publicly) denigrated ‘you wicked and lazy slave’. He’s told what they should have done: invested it and obtained some interest. To add insult to injury, albeit it was never the slave’s money, the ‘Talent’ is given to the one who had a total of 10 ‘Talents’. The third slave is thrown into that outer darkness, with some weeping and gnashing of teeth added for good measure (have we heard of that before recently?).

Conclusion?

So given the verse “For to all those who have, more will be given” we may conclude that this is about wise investments. Let’s make money! Er No.

Talent(s)

I was careful to write ‘Talents’ earlier. The Jewish audience would have taken a step back when they heard of this parable. It is one which is designed to make you stop and think. If we haven’t yet, then we may need to read it again.

If a denarii is equivalent to a day’s wages, the annual pay of a Roman legionnaire was 225 denarii. So a talent is 6000 denarii. A talent represented 26 kg of silver. [1] Yes, that’s equivalent to around 16 years wages. So, no wonder the audience would have felt that we had already lost reality. Or perhaps it is an expression not connected with monetary value?Additionally, as Jesus spoke Aramaic, the word used for Talents can also mean ‘cities’. It’s a parable remember. It’s not about let’s make money.

Burying it

So the first two slaves exercise some capitalistic ingenuity and they are rewarded for their risk-taking and consequent economic gain. They took a risk. So what of the third slave?

According to the extant 1st C Jewish civil law then, burying was regarded as the best security against potential theft. [2] If we look at the equivalent account in the Gospel according to Luke 19:11-27 we are told that the scene is with Zacchaeus, the Roman-puppet tax farmer, possibly at dinner in his house. Here the slave puts the coin in cloth (see [2] below).

	Luke’s Gospel	Matthew’s Gospel
Monetary Value	100 denarii or Minas	6000 denarii
Amount Given	all given the same, 10 people	according to their ability, to 3 people
To do what with it?	do business	no instructions, implied?
Where are we?	Jesus en route to Jerusalem	Mount of Olives

So what can we make of this?

The master is seemingly generous to the extreme. Giving vast sums of money to the three principal slaves. Surely he was aware of the concerns of the third slave? But they still received. It’s a parable still, so we need to ruminate over the whole thing, it won’t be obvious.

The first two slaves operated in an expected capitalistic manner – much as we might perceive today. The third slave, driven by fear, failed to follow their master’s directive. But they did tell the Master how they operated. 

I struggle to see Jesus here. Is Jesus the Master? Was this the Jesus I follow, we follow, the one who would cast this slave into outer darkness?

The Jews, following the Torah, would have baulked at making money through interest (Deuteronomy 23:19-20). What would they have made of it? The third slave may be one they would associate with, the down-trodden, the marginalised. Most folklore stories involve three people, but generally the third character is the good one, and may be it is here as well. [3]

The preferential option for the poor urges us to find Christ within

The third slave spoke truth to power. The key phrase “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have it in abundance; but with those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away” (Matthew 25:29) may be written in terms of the “sins of inequality“. For those who reap with inequality they will find more, but those who seek that inequality is removed, will find that inequality will be banished.

Parables make us think – the obvious answer may not be the one the focus is upon.

Jesus’ Return

This parable about what the Kin_dom of Heaven may be like relates to our perception of inequality. Do we want to continually promote exploitation, our focus upon wealth, or about enabling all, facilitating that opportunity for all to live life to the abundance? It’s about speaking truth to power. It’s about turning the tables, once again, of showing God’s love to all.

So when we consider such parables think again of what it might have been received to the ears of the Jews. The talents are not money nor our capabilities, nor the point of the parable. It is what is Heaven like. If we seek a Heaven which is giving of wealth and talents to those who already possess it in spades, if it is about driving more inequality, then I’d suggest we may need to think about it again.

What’s the Kin_dom of God to you?

Jesus sought to bring an inclusive welcome, not to split communities apart and make some struggle even more. The kin_dom of Heaven is like a community that seeks to enable everyone, to release the captive, to welcome the stranger, to feed the poor – not banish them. That’s the kingdom of God I would seek, and remember that Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is near, it’s here. 

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[1] Neil Faulkner, Rome: Empire of Eagles xiv (2013)
[2] Stephen M. Bainbridge, “The Parable of the Talents“, (William D. Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, 2017), p. 11
“If a person entrusted with money buried it as soon as he took possession of it, he would be free from liability should anything happen to it. For money merely tied up in a cloth, the opposite was true. In this case, the person was responsible to cover any loss incurred due to the irresponsible nature funds but also to affirmatively deploy them in trade so as to increase their value.“
[3] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by jesus, (New York : HarperOne, 2014, 2015), p.103.