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Originally posted by Chocoholic:
I have heard an alternative interpretation of this parable, which I understand comes from liberation theology and shows the the third servant as the hero, speaking out about an unjust master.

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Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
I have always been deeply puzzled by the parable of the talents. I get completely stuck on how mean the master is, and by extension, apparently, God.

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Rule #1: Don't assume that God is necessarily one of the characters in the parable.

Rule #2: Don't assume that the parable is trying to tell you how to improve your life.

Rule #3: Don't assume that you're the goodie in the story (and that other people are the baddies).

Rule #4: If you can explain the whole parable without mentioning the words "kingdom of God," you're probably doing it wrong.

Rule #5: If it ends up having anything to do with going to heaven when we die, you're probably doing it wrong

Rule #6: If Jesus seems more like a headmaster giving orders than like a comedian cracking jokes, you're probably doing it wrong.

Rule #7: If you feel perfectly confident and untroubled while expounding the parable, you're probably doing it wrong.

Rule #8: If your sermon on the parable leaves people with nothing to look forward to and nothing to hope for, you're probably doing it wrong.

Rule #9: Now go back and repeat Rule 3 (because every preacher forgets this at least once in every sermon).

Rule #10: Finally, if you've preached a lousy sermon, just remember: as long as the parable was read aloud before you started, it won't be a total loss.

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Originally posted by Evensong:

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Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
I have always been deeply puzzled by the parable of the talents. I get completely stuck on how mean the master is, and by extension, apparently, God.

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One of my professors recently preached on this. He said the master was not God, quite the reverse. The master was an unjust man not following Torah rules because he expected interest on his loans.

Charging interest on loans was not permitted by torah so the last slave that did not invest was the one most faithful to the law and challenged the injustice of the master.

This wiki article talks around the issue of interest that could be relevant in first century Judaism. According to Ezekiel, it was one of the worst sins.

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When we hear of the first two servants’ 100 percent return, we aren’t cheering. These servants have merely succeeded in getting more than their share of the limited pie. They, like their master, have learned to take what they did not deposit and reap where they did not sow. How honest is that? The first two servants have joined the ranks of the ruthless economic domination.

Enter the third servant, the one who kept the money safe. Exodus holds that if your neighbor gives you money for safe keeping, you are responsible if it is stolen (Exodus 22:7). According to rabbinic law, the proper way to keep money safe was to bury it (Rohrbaugh). Wrapping it in a cloth was riskier, but the money was safe. The third servant succeeded. He acted faithfully and ethically, but he faces his master with fear. Sitting in the peasant section, we taste the third servant’s fear. We, too, have been berated by someone who holds the strings to our well-being.

The third servant is a truthteller: “I knew you were a harsh man,” he says. The third servant becomes what William Herzog calls a “whistle-blower,” unmasking the master’s greed and the toil on others (Parables as Subversive Speech).

He doesn’t want the money: “Here take your money.” He doesn’t want to be part of the system of greed that tramples on others.

The master doesn’t try to defend his action by saying he is not harsh or that he hasn’t reaped where he shouldn’t have. Instead he verbally attacks the servant and calls him “evil and lazy.” Calling truthtellers names is a usual response.

With peasant ears this third servant becomes the hero. He is honest. He acknowledges himself to be afraid but still acts. He is creatively subordinate. He kept his master’s money as the law required but refused to be part of the master’s thievery.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Thank you, Evensong. That was certainly different!

Is he suggesting that this might have actually been Jesus' message?

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I think it takes a lot of work to read that into the parable. I'm not convinced of it.

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Originally posted by Evensong:
It takes alot of work because its so untraditional. But the basics and the theology do accord with Jesus' teachings.

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Originally posted by Freddy:


The thing is that Jesus seems to be on the master's side.

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Originally posted by Evensong:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
The thing is that Jesus seems to be on the master's side.

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Where do you see that in the parable?

"Those who have nothing" are usually the ones Jesus sides with.

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When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’

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‘Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves their allowance of food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions. But if that wicked slave says to himself, “My master is delayed”, and he begins to beat his fellow-slaves, and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know. He will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
All three parables are introduced by the phrase at 25:1 "the kingdom of heaven is like this". The third parable makes it explicit that it is God who is the judge, and we humans who will be called to account for what we did or didn't do... I don't think that within that arc it makes sense to give the second parable an upside-down interpretation unless you turn the other two upside-down also.

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I take the view that, in the parables, Jesus used morally imperfect analogies drawn from real life in order to reveal spiritual truths. On the face of it, the master in the parable of the talents is grotesque, and it is difficult not to feel sorry for the servant who hid his talent. The punishment is out of all proportion to the servant's failure, which can hardly even be called a crime. If Jesus intended to teach us about how to handle money righteously, then I would have to concur with Evensong. After all, the servants who made more money must have made it at the expense of others somewhere down the line. This seems to be a glorification of free market capitalism in which the nervous and frightened poor, who start with the least money to invest, fail to take risks. The parable appears to validate the attitude of some of those on the religious right who have contempt for the poor, accusing them of laziness, lack of ambition and, most perniciously and cruelly, a lack of faith in God. From a materialistic point of view, the parable could not be more opposed to the ethics of Jesus Christ.
QB]

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
[QB]
But I believe that Jesus used the shock factor to provoke his hearers into thinking about spiritual truths. From a material point of view, the servant with one talent did nothing wrong within the framework of Christian ethics. But if the talents represent a spiritual currency given to each of us by God, then this servant can be seen in a radically different light. In my opinion, this servant failed to bear spiritual fruit in his life through the grace of God given to him, as a result of a deep-seated hostility to God ("I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed"). He was paralysed into inaction and ineffectiveness by his obsession with playing safe.

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Whenever Christ is questioned concerning the nature of words he always makes this quite clear. It is not a political Gospel. "Render unto to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar etc". "My kingdom is not of this world etc".

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
The Gospel of Christ transcends politics which is why it's wrong to work political idealism into it, whether that be liberation theology, the prosperity Gospel or whatever. They're all doomed to fail because that's not what the Gospel is about.

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1. The doctrine of the ascension is the basis of all political theology – and why there can be no such thing as apolitical theology. The church cannot be a cultus privatus because Jesus of Nazareth, “crucified under Pontius Pilate,” reigns and his edict is public truth. Remove Christ from the forum and it does not remain empty: nature abhors a vacuum; idols love one and soon fill it.

2. God is political. Cut the political bits out of the Bible – as Jim Wallis and some friends once did – and you’re left with “a Bible full of holes.” God is political – and God takes sides. In the Old Testament, Yahweh’s exodus and covenant “bias / preferential option for the poor” is now a well-worn phrase – but an undeniable fact. And the New Testament – Luke in particular – doesn’t drop the ball: the Magnificat and the Jubilee Manifesto suggest the game plan.

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5. The point is not that the poor and oppressed have a monopoly on virtue, let alone that they are an elect group, rather it is simply that they are the ones who get screwed – and God doesn’t like people getting screwed. So God sends his servant Moses, his spokesmen the prophets, and finally his Son Jesus, their Big Brother, to take care of the bullies, though he fights with his mouth not his fists. Not, of course, that God loves the oppressor any less than he loves the oppressed; indeed his rescue mission is to liberate them both, the latter from their humiliation and suffering, and the former from their pride and violence.

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Our faith can and should dictate how we act in the political sphere but that is a world apart from trying to impose political idealism on it, as if the Gospel approves of one political system above another. It doesn't.

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Originally posted by Evensong:
The traditional interpretation forces it more than the liberation theology one: God still comes out looking like a dick.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

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Originally posted by Evensong:
The traditional interpretation forces it more than the liberation theology one: God still comes out looking like a dick.

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I really don't think this bothers Jesus at all.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Though if it bothers you, you might consider the "how much more" analogies I mentioned above.

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Originally posted by Evensong:
Parables usually center around an aphorism.

In this parable this is the aphorism:

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.

If you can't make sense of that, you've missed the point. Because the aphorism is the point.

The grace idea or the faith vs works idea does not work to explain the aphorism.

An "evils of capitalism" rendering fits the aphorism much better. As a critique.

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If you can't make sense of that, you've missed the point. Because the aphorism is the point.

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"The rich get richer and the poor have children."

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Originally posted by Evensong:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

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Originally posted by Evensong:
The traditional interpretation forces it more than the liberation theology one: God still comes out looking like a dick.

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I really don't think this bothers Jesus at all.

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God the father being a dick doesn't bother Jesus?

Wasn't he the same chap that said "God is light, in whom there is no dickness at all"?

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Originally posted by Evensong:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Though if it bothers you, you might consider the "how much more" analogies I mentioned above.

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I'm afraid I don't understand how your "how much more" analogy works in this parable. The master is a dick so look how much more of a dick God is?

Or the master is a dick so how much more will be God be unlike the master? If the latter, the liberation theology interpretation fits.

Btw, I'd be interested to hear how you interpret the punch line of the parable (the aphorism I quoted above).

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
There are similarities to other parables. Take, for example, the fig tree. Is the man who owns the unfruitful fig tree "being a dick" for wanting to uproot and burn it?

In the parable of the talents, it is lack of fruit that is punished. Just the same as with the fig tree, although here there is no gardener to plead for a last chance.

But the basic message is the same. You have been given talents/soil to grow in, you are expected to bear fruit, if you don't then you're out and what you have will be given to those who do bear fruit.

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Originally posted by Gramps49:
Often times Jesus will use an example of what may be considered ruthless to get a greater point across.

The third servant admits that his master reaps where the master does not sow. The master gathers where he has not seeded. The master will do any thing to expand his estate.

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2 Samuel 22: Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness,
According to my cleanness in His eyes.
26 “With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful;
With a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless;
27 With the pure You will show Yourself pure;
And with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd.
28 You will save the humble people;
But Your eyes are on the haughty, that You may bring them down.

Psalm 18:24Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness,
According to the cleanness of my hands in His sight.
25 With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful;
With a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless;
26 With the pure You will show Yourself pure;
And with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd.
27 For You will save the humble people,
But will bring down haughty looks.

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