Exegesis paper - Parable of the Talents

Lahoma Howard

May 2023

Text - Matthew 25:14-30

The Parable of the Talents

14 “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; 15 to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. At once 16 the one who had received the five talents went off and traded with them and made five more talents. 17 In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. 18 But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 20 Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things; I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things; I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I did not scatter? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. 29 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. 30 As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’[1]

Introduction

            The parable of the talents is one of a collection of parables in the synoptic Gospels that are considered “King Parables” [2]. The common, most popular interpretation of this parable considers the master to be an allegorical representation of Jesus/God, and the talents as gifts and abilities given to people by God. The basic premise of these popular interpretations is that you shouldn’t waste the gifts that God has given you, and you will be punished if you do[3]. This popular interpretation lends quite well to the purposes of capitalism, empire, and white supremacy. We often underestimate the way that the hidden, religious undercurrents of our culture influence the way that people react to situations and each other in the world, however, if we examine things closely, we can understand that incorrect or discriminatory interpretations of biblical texts have caused great harm in the world[4]. In this paper I will explore the possibility that this parable has been misinterpreted for centuries, discuss alternative interpretations, and also discuss the ideas of how this was a text of resistance, which uses the device of “public” and “hidden” transcripts to present concurrently a message that would not alert the Romans, but at the same time offer hope to the marginalized people who were the hearers of these texts.

What is this parable NOT about?

            The first, and most important question we should ask ourselves is, what is this parable NOT about? The main task is to establish who this story is about, who it is for, where it was told, and why, and what the meanings would have been to those who initially heard it. It is always a hazard when we read these ancient texts to want to interpret them from our own cultural understandings and personal contexts. While that is a convenient way to handle these texts when pressured to write a sermon on a weekly basis, it is not always the best way to distill the real wisdom of Jesus and the ancient writers. It is always the main task of the hearer to suspend their own understanding to hear what the speaker is saying, and this is no small task for most of us. What I posit that this text is NOT about are the following:

1)      This text is not about gifts or abilities that people have been given by God

2)      This text is not about wasting gifts that you have been given by God

3)      This text is not about demonizing or punishing the poor, the disabled, or the marginalized.

4)      This text is not about a punitive God who punishes those who don’t do his will

Many would argue for the first two, however, this doesn’t make sense in the greater context of the bible.

Allegorical Tale or Parable?

            If this text is not the things listed above, then what is really going on here? What Is this story about? Who are these characters? Is this story allegorical, or is it actually a true parable, and what even is the difference?

The definition of a parable according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is the following:

: a usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle

the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan

also : something (such as a news story or a series of real events) likened to a parable in providing an instructive example or lesson[5]

 

While an allegory is defined as the following:

           

: the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence

a writer known for his use of allegory

also : an instance (as in a story or painting) of such expression

The poem is an allegory of love and jealousy.[6]

 

 If we stick closely to the text, of the story itself, we don’t see any indication that the master in this story is intended to be an allegorical Jesus or God, a literal reading is that he is “a man” in some translations he may be called a “wealthy man” or “noble man”. In the Luke version of this story (Luke 19:11-27), he is a “nobleman” who is going to a distant region to “receive royal power for himself (Luke 19:11-13)”[7]. In the Matthew text, there is the indication that he is a “hard man” or a “harsh master”[8]. There are really no texts within our Christian canon, in which Jesus is explicitly described as being hard or harsh, and so it would be a curious aberration for him to be considered the master in this story by those early Christians who heard it. One could argue that there are many instances of God being a harsh judge in Torah texts with which the early Christians would have been familiar, however, when we look at the ways that Jesus describes God we are met with a God who is loving, kind, a father (Abba, Father – Mark 14:36). So, I propose that we do not assume that this character is Jesus or God and that this is not an allegorical tale, but a true parable.

How did they make the money, and why didn’t the 3rd man want to do that?

            This brings us to the meat of the story - we have 3 servants of the master, who were each given a relatively substantial amount of 0money as he was leaving on a journey. As tempting as it may be to interpret the word “talent” from our own context it had nothing to do with abilities and was actually a monetary denomination. A single talent was equal to 6,000 denarii, and a denar was the general pay for a day’s labor. So, in essence, these servants were handed truly large amounts of money, even the servant only given 1 talent[9]. Now, if we are attentive readers, we can gain insight into how the first two servants made their money directly from the original text. In the text above from the NRSV we see that when the master chastises the 3rd man, he tells him that he should have given the money to the bankers and then he could have had “his with interest”[10]. A reading from a Greek Interlinear shows this as well:

27ἔδει (It was necessary) σε (you) οὖν (therefore) βαλεῖν (to put) τὰ (the) ἀργύριά (silver) μου (of me) τοῖς (to the) τραπεζίταις (bankers) καὶ (and) ἐλθὼν (having come) ἐγὼ (I) ἐκομισάμην (would have received) ἂν τὸ ἐμὸν (mine own,) σὺν (with) τόκῳ (interest.)[11]

 

So, we can assume that this is the behavior that was expected of the servants by the master. The problem with this, and why the 3rd servant resisted the master’s expectations, is that rather than the servant being wicked and slothful, the 3rd servant was being true to Torah[12]. Jesus’s followers would have recognized this aspect of the story and sided with the 3rd servant, who refused to financially exploit his neighbors at the behest of a wealthy (possibly Roman?) master. In this time, making loans with interest (usury) was strictly forbidden by Torah law, and additionally, exploitation of the poor was against every teaching that Jesus gave[13]. In light of this, it makes very little sense to interpret this parable as favorable to the master (or to capitalism, Rome, or the Empire in general).

Public and Private transcripts

            Like most of the Christian Testament texts, this parable can be interpreted as a story of resistance[14]. The historical context from which the text arose was that of an occupied people, who were being oppressed by an incredibly powerful empire. Considering that this text was written down some years after the death of Jesus, we can assume that there was a lot of persecution of his followers still occurring. Some scholars argue that the synoptic Gospels as a whole were written down after Paul’s letters and that they had been oral tradition until that time, so what we see happening in Paul’s time may be indicative of the kind of treatment that the writers, and Christians in general were being given by Rome[15]. There are a number of texts from the Christian Scriptures that we can read with the assumption that there is an ostensibly “Public” story that is on the surface, and which would have sounded pleasing to the ears of the Romans, and an underlying “hidden” transcript that flips the story to actually being unfavorable to oppressing forces[16]. Several scholars have similarly argued, that while Roman soldiers or elites who heard people reading or discussing this text in public would have approved of the surface message[17], and heard tale of giving to Rome its due interest, that those who were speaking it, and that Christians and other people who were being oppressed and marginalized by the kingdom would have heard the story much differently. They would have identified with the 3rd slave, who was being mistreated, and whom the master was trying to coerce into going against Torah law[18]. The third man did not hide the talent because he was “wicked and lazy”, but because his fear of God was much greater than his fear of the harsh master[19]. Jesus may have actually been asking them if they had stewarded the Law of Moses effectively, or if they had given in to the pressures of Rome[20].

Conclusions

This kind of use of religious texts and scriptural stories as texts of resistance is not only something that was done by people in the ancient past. Marginalized people throughout history have read these stories and recognized the private transcript and have used them for both comfort and as tools of resistance. We have seen in our own more recent history that these kinds of resistance stories informed the early Black Church in the USA. Many of the spirituals that slaves would sing in the field would sound perfectly innocent to the white masters, however, have subversive undertones that would be heard by the slaves who sang them[21]. It would not be unreasonable to consider the idea that this story, on the surface would give a message to the Romans that would have sounded pleasing to their sensibilities but offered a coded message of resistance and hope to the oppressed peoples who heard them.

 

Bibliography

 

Johnson, Sherman E . “King Parables in the Synoptic Gospels.” Journal of Biblical Literature 74, no. 1 (1955): 37–39.

Kraybill, Donald. The Upside Down Kingdom. Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2018.

 

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 10th ed. Merriam-Webster Incorporated, 1999.

 

Schottroff, Luise. The Parables of Jesus. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006.

 

Senokoane, B. B.Tumi. “A Black Reading of ‘The Parable of the Talents.’” Black Theology 18, no. 3 (2020): 288–298.

 

Strong, James. The Interlinear Greek - English New Testament, Including Strong’s Greek Dictionary. Edited by Publishing Toronto. Toronto, CA, 2016.

 

Thurman, Howard. Jesus and the Disinherited. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2012.

 

Tönsing, J. Gertrud. “Scolding the ‘Wicked, Lazy’ Servant; Is the Master God?: A Redaction-Critical Study of Matthew 25:14–30 and Luke 19:11–27.” Neotestamentica 53, no. 1 (2019): 123–147.

 



[1] New Revised Standard Version Bible (Division of Christian Education of the Natinal Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, 1989), https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-Revised-Standard-Version-NRSV-Bible/.

[2] Sherman E . Johnson, “King Parables in the Synoptic Gospels,” Journal of Biblical Literature 74, no. 1 (1955): 37–39.

[3] J. Gertrud Tönsing, “Scolding the ‘Wicked, Lazy’ Servant; Is the Master God?: A Redaction-Critical Study of Matthew 25:14–30 and Luke 19:11–27,” Neotestamentica 53, no. 1 (2019): 123–147.

[4] B. B.Tumi Senokoane, “A Black Reading of ‘The Parable of the Talents,’” Black Theology 18, no. 3 (2020): 288–298.

[5] Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed. (Merriam-Webster Incorporated, 1999).

[6] Ibid.

[7] New Revised Standard Version Bible.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Donald Kraybill, The Upside Down Kingdom, 4th Revise. (Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2011).

[10] New Revised Standard Version Bible.

[11] James Strong, The Interlinear Greek - English New Testament, Including Strong’s Greek Dictionary, ed. Publishing Toronto (Toronto, CA, 2016).

[12] Tönsing, “Scolding the ‘Wicked, Lazy’ Servant; Is the Master God?: A Redaction-Critical Study of Matthew 25:14–30 and Luke 19:11–27.”

[13] Kraybill, The Upside Down Kingdom.

[14] Luise Schottroff, The Parables of Jesus (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006).

[15] Kraybill, The Upside Down Kingdom.

[16] Tönsing, “Scolding the ‘Wicked, Lazy’ Servant; Is the Master God?: A Redaction-Critical Study of Matthew 25:14–30 and Luke 19:11–27.”

[17] Schottroff, The Parables of Jesus.

[18] Kraybill, The Upside Down Kingdom.

[19] Tönsing, “Scolding the ‘Wicked, Lazy’ Servant; Is the Master God?: A Redaction-Critical Study of Matthew 25:14–30 and Luke 19:11–27.”

[20] Kraybill, The Upside Down Kingdom.

[21] Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2012).

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