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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The Minas
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
Luke 19 vs11-28 came up in today's lectionary. The 'nobleman' sounds like an earthly father with a crippling pride problem - impatient, only interested in success / results, impatient with timidity / caution. I have enough of this in my life without identifying God the father with this kind of thing...any ideas?
Host note: Here is the passage.
[ 18. November 2015, 23:40: Message edited by: Moo ]
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
Given the things Jesus is recorded saying about what his purpose was, I would say that the audience he was targeting in telling the parable was not so much the kind of person who would respond well to a description of God as nice, but rather the kind of person who was likely to push thoughts about God completely out of mind, or even reject God. To reach such an audience, I think he presented God not based on what God is intrinsically like, but based on the effects people can perceive as a result of God's presence.
In particular, I take the parable as a warning to people with a tendency to neglect their spiritual life that when they have the opportunity to enter into the kingdom of God, they may find themselves in a position that feels similar to the slaves who were entrusted with the nobleman's money. Not because God is a lot like the nobleman, but because they are in danger of allowing themselves to relate to God the way the slaves in the parable related to the nobleman.
Explaining to people who are in danger of rejecting God's influence how nice God is will not get their attention nearly as well as explaining the danger they are in terms they can identify with.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
quote:
Not because God is a lot like the nobleman, but because they are in danger of allowing themselves to relate to God the way the slaves in the parable related to the nobleman.
That sounds like an important distinction, but one I am not getting! Would you mind unpacking that a little?
Thanks for linking to the passage, Moo - I should have done it, but family life overwhelmed me before I finished the OP.
I read it again. The nobleman is my Dad - 'acting out' (as I think the psychological term has it) a crippling inner sense of worthlessness by demanding homage from all around him, and seeking power in order to inflict it on those poor unfortunates in a last-gasp attempt to protect his dying ego.
The guys who make the investment gains are toadys who just get to wobble a little further along the knife-edge until the next time the nobleman needs to polish his knob. The servants who get 'slaughtered in his presence' are the only winners. They spoke their truth without fear, and didn't have to go on living with the f*cker.
Well, a parable is meant to convey a truth by putting it into an everyday scenario which we recognise, right?
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
Thought experiment – how would the master have reacted if the servant had invested the money and lost it?
Also the servant’s actions don’t even make sense by his own lights – he believes his master to be a harsh man who reaps where he doesn’t sow, but he doesn’t do anything with his money.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I don't think it has anything to do with Dads, heavenly or otherwise.
IMHO this parable is highlighting an aspect of our lives while Christ is "away" (that is, after the ascension and before his return). We have been entrusted with a treasure--the message of salvation--and we are to get on with it, making good use of it, seeing that the Gospel gets out to all nations or (at the barest minimum) AT LEAST impacts our own personal lives.
Jesus picks a business relationship to convey that responsibility--not because God is like an employer in other ways (distant, uncaring, whatever) but because the focus of this parable is on doing what you can with what you have. And that's a situation that comes up all the time in employment.
You'll notice the master is not at all critical of any servant who has done jackshit to carry out his job. He honors the guy with the smaller return just as he honors the guy with the larger return. They got off their butts and did what any decent employee would do, namely, got on with their jobs. The master honors that, regardless of whether the return is small or great. IMHO if a third fellow had shown up saying, "I'm sorry, I did my best, but the whole thing went to hell anyway" he would not have been punished. He tried. (I suspect the reason no such person was included in the parable is the same principle as that behind the OT passage, "My Word will not return to me empty... it will accomplish the purpose for which I send it out." Jesus cannot imagine a case where the Gospel would NOT have some return-on-investment, however small.)
But the last employee--well, he did crap-all. He took the seed money, all right, but neither invested it nor even banked it while he watched endless reruns of Gilligan's Island. In Christian terms, this is the guy who hears the word, but then not only refuses to share it with anybody else, he makes damn sure it has no effect on his own personal life and faith either. I mean, seriously? Why are you (general you) even calling yourself a Christian if you will neither share the Gospel with anybody else in any way, nor even benefit from it yourself? What a waste.
This is what pisses the master off. Not to mention getting a snarky answer from the guy, which, as noted above makes no sense. If you thought I was a hard boss, why the hell didn't you lift a single finger to do the bare minimum? How hard is it to walk down the street and put the money on deposit, hey? You still could have sat on your butt watching reruns after that. By his behavior, the third guy is saying, "You are not the boss of me, and I am not your employee." Which has an entirely expected result. He gets sacked and his responsibilities handed over to the guy who actually did the job.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Oops, Mark? If there is a similarity between your Dad and the nobleman in the parable, I think the problem lies in the fact that the nobleman is acting like any employer would--and your Dad is doing the same. That is, he's acting like an employer in a situation where he ought to act like a Dad. And that's messed up. Behavior which makes sense between employer and employee does NOT make sense between father and son, where a whole lot of other, more intimate and loving things ought to be going on.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
For a bit of historical context, I noted in another thread that the template for the nobleman was probably Archelaus, son of Herod the Great and presumptive heir to his kingdom. The points of congruence are
- The nobleman "went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return", in much the same way Archelaus had to go to Rome and have his kingship approved by Augustus Cæsar. Augustus was both the executor of Herod's will and the political leader to whom the Judean client state owed allegiance.
. - His prospective subjects "sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king.’" A similar group of Judeans showed up in Rome to beg Augustus Cæsar to not install any of the House of Herod as king. The details are in Josephus.
I'm not sure this makes that big a difference in the interpretation of the parable since the focus is on the servants/slaves and not their master. On the other hand it could be a level of political commentary that would have been easily noted by an audience of first century Jews but which escapes the notice of most of us.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
Guys, this is, I think, my first venture into Kerymania. And I like it. I went to a midweek service on Wednesday where this was the reading. I swore to Mrs Whale (who knows much more about these things) that I had never read this passage before. I had never heard of Minas. Sure I had heard the parable of the talents, but it never included slaughtering the bad guys (verse 10). Thanks LambChopped for unpacking it the way you did. It makes a lot of sense.
Posts: 2799 | From: Nether Regions | Registered: Aug 2001
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
Thanks Croesos - that's an interesting context for it. So Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and the disciples think that glory, victory and the kingdom is at hand. And he says, with a wry smile, that it's going to be a whole lot more like when that b*stard Archelaus went to Rome to get himself anointed...'and you know what happened when he came back, don't you?'
So perhaps the story is a rough joke, to puncture pride. But the story paints the man who buried the money as frightened, not lazy or proud - at least that's how I see him, perhaps because I identify with him. In his mind, should he lose the money, he expects the 'nobleman' (whose cut-throat character is explicitly established) to say 'why did a w***** like you expect anything but to lose it - you should have f**** buried it, you useless c***'. So he does.
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
...'nobleman' (whose cut-throat character is explicitly established)...
This is a side issue, but I think the servant made accusations against his master to divert the discussion, to get himself off the hook. The master did not rise to the bait. His words are not an admission quote:
He said to him, “I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! You knew, did you, that I was a harsh man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow?
I think the servant engaged in an ad hominem argument.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
quote:
Not because God is a lot like the nobleman, but because they are in danger of allowing themselves to relate to God the way the slaves in the parable related to the nobleman.
That sounds like an important distinction, but one I am not getting! Would you mind unpacking that a little?
It's just basic psychological projection. If you want to interpret the parable with the idea that the nobleman is God, it doesn't have to imply that the nobleman presents an accurate picture of the true nature of God. Instead, the nobleman could be presenting an accurate picture of how the third slave would have perceived God based on projected insecurities, fears and rationalizations. If the third slave was a habitual schemer and liar, he would have naturally seen the nobleman as a dangerous and unforgiving figure.
Note that if you only read up through verse 21, you do not get a negative view of the nobleman, only starting with verse 22 in his reply to the third slave. Also note that the nobleman gave explicit instructions to "Do business with these until I come back," which the third slave completely ignored.
Lastly, let me say that I think the parable was primarily aimed at the religious leaders of the time to admonish them for failing to honor their responsibility to lead the church as faithful representatives of God, who would obviously have been the one doing the appointing of the "nobleman" Jesus as the new king. These religious leaders clearly did not perceive Jesus as a kind and loving miracle worker. Instead, they perceived him as an enemy who threatened their position and needed to be eliminated.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Lastly, let me say that I think the parable was primarily aimed at the religious leaders of the time to admonish them for failing to honor their responsibility to lead the church as faithful representatives of God, who would obviously have been the one doing the appointing of the "nobleman" Jesus as the new king. These religious leaders clearly did not perceive Jesus as a kind and loving miracle worker. Instead, they perceived him as an enemy who threatened their position and needed to be eliminated.
There is a similar feel to the Parable of the Vineyard. The problem is not with the king who owns the vineyard, the problem is most definitely with the tenants who perceive the son of the owner as a barrier to working the vineyard without paying the owner.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jonah the Whale:
I went to a midweek service on Wednesday where this was the reading. I swore to Mrs Whale (who knows much more about these things) that I had never read this passage before. I had never heard of Minas. Sure I had heard the parable of the talents, but it never included slaughtering the bad guys (verse 10).
The version in Matthew tends to be more popular for some reason ...
(According to Wikipedia, the Gospel of the Nazarenes had an alternative version where the guy who got five talents spent them all on harlots and flute-girls.)
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
quote:
If the third slave was a habitual schemer and liar, he would have naturally seen the nobleman as a dangerous and unforgiving figure.
...and at the conclusion of the passage, the 'nobleman' demonstrates just far how his character differs from that lying, scheming assessment by calling for his erstwhile adversaries (who for some reason seem to share the third slave's view of his suitability for leadership) to be brought into his presence and slaughtered.
Folks, I'm a Christian; I'm not bashing the story for points, but it doesn't make sense to me. Jesus says 'the kingdom of heaven is not about to be revealed in glory - instead, here's a story about a psychopath with an ego problem who you really, really want to keep on the right side of, if you want to keep your head on your shoulders.'
?
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
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