Talents
risk and reward
Jesus told this parable:
For it's just like a person who's gone overseas for a while and summons his slaves and gives them over his assets. And to one he entrusted five talents, to another two, and to another one, each according to their ability. And then he flew out. So the next thing you know the first guy, who got five talents, went off and got to work with them and made a net profit of five more; just like that the two-talent guy made a new profit of two more. But third guy, who got one talent, went away and dug a hole in his backyard and hid his master's money there.
After a considerable time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.
And the guy who got five talents came in for his review and brought five more talents, and said, "Master, you entrusted me with five talents; check it out, I made five more talents." And his master said to him, "Nice job, good and trustworthy slave; you were trustworthy over a small amount, I will put you in charge of a lot. Enter into your master's joy"
The second guy, who got two talents, came in for his review and said, "Master, you entrusted me with two talents; check it out, I made two more talents. And his master said to him, "Nice job, good and trustworthy slave; you were trustworthy over a small amount, I will put you in charge of a lot. Enter into your master's joy"
The third guy, the one who had received one talent, came in for his review and said, "Master, I know that you're a hard man; extracting wealth where you didn't invest, and making bank where you haven't spent; and so I was afraid and I went off and hid your talent in the ground. Look - you've got what's yours."
Then his master answered him, "wicked and begrudging slave, you know that I extract wealth where I did not invest, and make bank where I haven't spent? You should have thrown my money into the bank, and then when I came I could have gotten back what's mine with a bit of interest. [To his attendants] Take the talent from him and give it to the ten-talent guy."
Here's the sum-up: to everyone who has, it will be given and it will abound; to the one who has not, even what they do have will be taken away.
And throw that worthless slave into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Matthew 25:14-30
I think I have often been inclined to read this parable through a lens of fear. Maybe you have too. It sounds a lot like this : God gives you talents (abilities, aptitudes, natural capacities, etc..) and you need to put them to work to make something with them; in particular, as a believer you need to be out there just making more believers. And if you don't, God's going to reckon up with you and if you haven't measured up, you are out!
Let me suggest that there's at least two things wrong with that line of interpretation. (1) It doesn't square with the rest of Scripture, and so we need to read this parable in conversation or dialogue with the rest of Scripture. In particular, how do we understand this gospel in terms of salvation by grace through faith. (2) It assumes that the description in v24 applies as is to God - that God is a hard taskmaster who just expects profit without putting anything in. I would argue that more broadly the parables of Jesus do not always present the primary 'lord/master/judge' figure in ways that parallel God, but often contrast with God. The persistent widow parable in Luke 18 is a good example of that.
So, let me suggest that we reframe our approach to the parable with a few things. Firstly, the principle of reciprocity that seems to run through Matthew's gospel. I picked this up from RT France's masterful commentary. We see it first in Matthew 5:7, mercy will be shown to the merciful, and then in various forms in other places. In 6:14-15, and 18:35 specifically in relation to forgiveness; In 7:1-2 as a general principle for evaluating others and oneself, and in 7:12 as the golden rule. In short, I think we can express this principle like this: God will treat you in relation to how you treat others.
But, this needs an important qualification. Otherwise we are left with an entirely "you get what you deserve view" of divine recompense. We end up with karma. There's another thread running through Matthew that is equally important, and it's the theme of divine mercy. One way this can be seen is the repeated appeals to Jesus to show mercy, which he fulfils! Both the Father and the Son in Matthew are characterised by their doing mercy first. There is a priority and an unmerited free gracious act towards humans.
It's this combination that helps us understand the sequence in Matthew 18's unforgiving servant. The servant is first shown mercy, and then expected to show mercy to others. It's that failure to show mercy to others that brings the servant under judgment. We may similarly extend this out to Jesus' pervasive ethic:
The way God has treated you (mercy, forgiveness, grace, love) is to characterise your behaviour towards others.
Putting this together with our prior principle of reciprocity, we might add:
If you fail to treat others the way you have been treated by God, why do you expect God to treat you differently?
I am taking a long way to get back to the parable of talents, but we are getting there. In Miroslav Volf's fantastic book, Free of Charge, he spends the first half of the book laying out a pattern of generosity which boils down to simply this: God is a giver, and he gives generously to make the recipients of his gifts also be generous givers. "the true God gives so we can become joyful givers and not just self-absorbed receivers. God the giver has made us to be givers and obliges us therefore to give."
Putting these together, we begin to see the parable in a new light. If all that we possess, our entire existence, every possession, ability, aptitude, dollar and cent, ultimately belongs to God and is a gift from him to us, and if God's gifts to us are given in order that we may be generous givers as he is a generous Giver, and if we are to use what he has given us to give to others, and if we have experienced the graceful mercy of God, then how ought we use our talents?
It is not, I suggest, the failure to make a profit that the last slave is primarily rebuked for. The last slave takes the one talent, takes what is given to them and hoards it, fearing to lose what the master has given them. And in doing so it can not bear the fruit (the profit) that generous usage would entail. The slave's expectation of the master is harshness, and so harshness he receives. The first two slaves take the masters gifts and get to work - investing and using their resources for what? We are quick to interpret this parable as capitalists, thinking that they must be using their wealth to make more wealth. The text does not say so much. Might we step back a little and consider that they are prepared to lose the wealth they have, undertaking the risk (of generosity), and in the end they are rewarded by seeing the fruit of 'investing' (metaphorically, not just financially) - when we give, we all gain; when we hoard, we are all poorer.
It's possible to think and talk through a whole range of "ifs" and "buts", yet I have already said a lot here. So let me wrap up and suggest that this parable summons us to take the risk of taking everything we have, which is not ours anyway but a gracious gift by a generous God, and to imitate him by graciously giving, knowing that he can and will make it abound all the more.