The Parable of the
“Good” Steward?
Please read Matthew 25:14-30.
We typically call this parable “the Parable of the
Talents.” We like labels, but whatever
label we may put on it, it is a parable of Jesus that cannot be confined by a
label. It is a parable about money. It falls conveniently in the Lectionary during
November, also known as Stewardship Season, and so we have all heard sermons
about the “good” stewards who doubled their master’s money and were rewarded,
and the “bad” steward who buried his talent.
Since the parable in English translations uses the word, “talent,” we get
another meaning from the parable not to hide our God-given gifts and talents. And we hope that everyone will know we are
really talking about money.
This is a parable about money—a lot of money. Let’s try to get some perspective on just how
much was at stake for these three slaves.
Never mind that a talent was a silver coin that weighed 60 or 70 pounds. Each talent was worth about 6000 denarii; a
denarius was the average worker’s daily wage.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average daily wage for
All Occupations in West Virginia in 2010 was $136.00. By today’s standards in West Virginia, then, a
talent would have been worth over $800,000.
The master had a portfolio that was worth roughly $6.4 million. When he left, he diversified it among three
of his slaves. The first got $4 million,
the second $1.6 million, and the third $800 thousand. The first two each actively traded the
investment and ultimately doubled his money; the third took a more conservative
approach and preserved the principal amount.
So when the master returned, his $6.4 million was worth $12 million.
In my work at the United Methodist Foundation, I have used
this parable as an illustration.
There
is an easy interpretation that this parable promotes investing and discourages preservation
at the expense of lost opportunity.
We
generally think of the master as representing the figure of God, right?
It is certainly different from the typical portrait
of God as gracious, merciful, and abounding in steadfast love.
The parable presents a downright harsh description
of the master, when you think about it.
The master is shown as absent, harsh, and concerned only about maximizing
wealth.
Did Jesus mean that character to
represent God?
Is the common
interpretation the only way to look at Jesus’ parable?
This parable is open-ended and invites different
interpretations. As with any parable, we
bring our own context and understanding to the reading. Our Western minds, trained by our worldview,
automatically think of the first two slaves as the heroes. They are the ones who took risks and produced
a good return. And to us, that is a good
thing. However, it has been suggested by
some that the original audience would have heard it quite differently. For
example:
“The social-economic situation in which
Jesus told this parable benefited only the small ruling elite. It was a system
that concentrated wealth in a few hands, a society where the poor became
poorer, and the rich became richer. Even
though poor Jews hated exploiters, since financial profit was attached to being
a rich man’s steward, many accepted to serve the rich, and some even aligned
with these exploiters. I look at the parable of the talents as a critique of this
situation.”
When viewed from within that context, the audience would
question how the first two slaves could have earned a profit of 100% absent
usury or some other form of exploitation or dishonesty. The central character of the parable, the
third servant, is seen as the hero of the story because he does not collaborate
with the other two to further exploit the poor.
Like a modern-day whistle-blower, he stands up to his master and refuses
to cooperate with him, knowing that the master is harsh and cruel. By refusing to be a part of the system, he becomes
the “good” steward and suffers the consequences by being thrown into the outer
darkness.
The literary context of the parable is also important.
Because of its placement, it can be seen as a contrast between the kingdom of earth
and the kingdom of heaven.
“The parable
of the talents thus shows that in this world, rich people exploit and praise
fellow exploiters. The rich become richer and the poor poorer. But it is not so
in the kingdom of God.”
Interestingly, the story that immediately follows this
parable is the judgment parable where the sheep are separated from the goats, (Matt.
25:25-40). There, we learn that we visit
Jesus by feeding the hungry, by giving drink to the thirsty, by welcoming the
stranger, by clothing the naked, by caring for the sick, and by visiting those
in prisons. In other words, we meet Jesus beyond the margins, in places of pain
and suffering—perhaps in the very outer darkness into which the “good” steward
was thrown!
Jeff Taylor
