What is the difference?
Gospel Reading: Matthew 25:14-30
For Sunday, Nov. 13 , 2011: Year A—Ordinary 33
Jesus never comes right out and says “The Kingdom of Heaven is…” He says “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…” And then he tells some odd story that at first hearing seems not to clarify the issue but to confuse it.
Keep Awake
The opening words of the “Parable of the Talents” tie it to the conclusion of the previous parable—For it is as if. It’s as though today’s parable is some sort of explanation of what Jesus had just said.
And what Jesus had just said was: Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. That is the conclusion of a parable about the Kingdom of God. The “keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” is an admonition of how one should live in light of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Not About the Money
One could read this parable this way: Jesus is leaving but he will return and usher in the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven. Until then he has bestowed upon us the gift of free market capitalism which we should dedicate ourselves too so that when Jesus returns we will have made him a healthy profit and if you don’t at least show some minimal gain through compound interest you can go to hell.
This isn’t really about money—even though there is a lot of money at stake here. A talent is the largest designation of money there was at the time, it is equal to fifteen years salary, not including benefits. So, we are talking about a total of a hundred and twenty year’s salary or somewhere around five million dollars.
But it isn’t really about money—it is about something more important.
Not About your Talents
Even though the denomination of money is called a “talent,” Jesus is not talking about talents, either. This is just an unfortunate coincidence in the English translation which leads to as bad a reading as the free market capital reading.
No, this is about something even more important than our own personal knack for doing something well.
It’s About Torah
This is about the Torah—the law of Moses which is often talked about as a great treasure. It is the greatest treasure that the Hebrew people have. The law was given to them by God. The gift of the law is what makes them distinct from other peoples—it is God’s promise to them that they will be God’s people and God will be their God.
It is a great treasure but is also talked about as a great yoke around their necks, a great burden. Why a burden? Because it was believed that the law of God was entrusted to their protection. It’s up to them to guard it and make sure it is not defiled or watered down, compromised.
Keep it Safe?
Over the many hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years there was great debate about what protecting this gift/burden thing really meant. There is a very strong tradition that says a fence should be built around the law. That is, make more and more stringent laws so that no one will even get close to transgressing the actual law—thus keeping it super safe, not unlike burying it in the ground.
There is also a strong tradition that says that the law is the gift given to the chosen people so that they may be a gift to other peoples. Some ancient rabbis believed that the more Torah is read the more of God’s mercy is brought into the world. God blesses them so that they may bless others. In Jesus’ Parable of the Talents it would follow that the Kingdom of Heaven is marked by the Torah being shared abundantly, producing more and more Kingdom of Heaven-ness, by the giving of it, not the protecting it, limiting and containing it.
The Hardest Question
What is the difference between interpreting our Holy Scriptures abundantly or protectively?
Russell Rathbun is a preacher at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author of Midrash on the Juanitos (Cathedral Hill Press, 2010) and the curator of The Hardest Question.
