“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 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.’ 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.’

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.’ 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.’ 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 seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’

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? 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. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. 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. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (Matthew 25:14-30).

What are you waiting for?

The question connotes impatience. The hangry spouse asks it of the other as dinner gets cold. The high pressure salesman asks it of the circumspect potential customer. The buddy asks it of his shy friend trying to work up the nerve to ask the girl to the movies.

But tempered with patience, the question transforms into one of the most important spiritual questions. For all of us wait, and we do not want to lose hope. But hope in what? And how shall we wait? The spiritual journey, which takes at least a lifetime, hinges on those questions. And we cannot bear the questions without patience. 

Whatever else Jesus comes to us for, he comes to help us find the answer. He is, in fact, the answer, and he is with us, but all too invisible and seemingly elusive. So he taught, mainly with parables, to help us find the answer, to find him in the way we live. Contrary to popular opinion, Jesus did not teach much about honest business practices, not using bad words, or sexual decisions and birth control. Not that he opposed a wholesome lifestyle. But he taught much more about how to wait and for what we wait or, more precisely, for whom.

Getting into the Parable of the Talents

Just before Matthew tells the passion narrative, the story of Jesus’s persecution, crucifixion, and resurrection, Matthew records four of Jesus’s parables on waiting for his return. The first promotes keeping one’s moral and spiritual integrity (24:45-51), the second, practicing spiritual attentiveness in daily life (25:1-13), and the fourth, finding Christ in intimate service to vulnerable people (25:31-46). The Parable of the Talents is the third one, and it concerns giving of ourselves as God has given to us. 

According to the parable, how shall we give of ourselves? To answer we must first understand the meaning of term, “talent,” for it symbolizes what we receive and give back. For much of my life, I thought it meant just what we mean by “talent”: a skill or ability, an aptitude for some performance. The parable actually makes sense if you interpret it that way, and it motivated me in my education and discernment of my vocation. 

Sizing Up “Talent” in the Parable

But that is an error, and a very interesting one. For in antiquity, the word, “talent,” referred to various units of measurement. In Middle English, it somehow evolved to an inner disposition or motive. Then along came the printing press in the 15th century and a wider readership of Bibles. The Parable of the Talents got a lot of buzz in Bible study groups. Verse 15, which states that the man gave talents “to each according to his ability” was widely misinterpreted to mean that the talent was the ability given. Five hundred years later, that is now the standard definition.

But a talent to Matthews’s audience was a unit of measurement, specifically an amount of currency. Before looking at the value of that currency, let us look at other numbers in the story. The man summoned three slaves. Furthermore, he did not give to each equally. To the first he gave five talents, to the second, two, and to the last, one. By telling us that, Matthew lures us (or at least me) into a cognitive bias called the contrast effect. We may think that he gave the first a lot, the second, a fair amount, and the third, a little, in fact so little that he has no room for error when he invests his measly talent. If he invests poorly, it looks like he loses everything. And it looks that way because his one talent is multiples less than the amount given the others.

In other words, the contrast to the others distorts our sense of the poor third guy’s lot. And that really gets us in his shoes because, like the rest of us, he likely assesses his gift in comparison to others. It looks small, barely enough. But how much was a talent? Depending on the sources I read, anywhere from 15 to 20 years of a day laborer’s wages! In a ballpark guess with today’s American dollars, that translates to about three quarters of a million dollars. And like him, we feel poor with that amount of money if our neighbor appears to have about a million and a half and a country club dweller appears to have four million.

Nevertheless and speaking for myself, I sympathize with the one talent guy. For although I really have much, it seldom feels that way. I do not dare run out of money. The average age of death of my parents and grandparents is in the mid-90s. I need to pay for my life and my family’s needs when I am long in the tooth or have no tooth left.

Sizing Up the Rich Man

Another sense that I sympathize with him, also stemming from a bias: I see the rich man with slaves who can take off for a long trip to who-knows-where, and I imagine a tyrant. Now not everyone shares this bias. America suffers a great deal from the opposite bias that wealth correlates positively with moral character and other critical leadership qualities. We appear to be learning otherwise the hard way. But like the one talent guy, excess of power and wealth provokes my suspicion, especially if the person holding it has evident power over me.

Moreover, Jesus contributes to my bias with his warnings against the corrupting lure of wealth. Nevertheless, in this parable, he presents no unsavory quality in the rich man until the one talent guy, in nervous defensiveness, insults him. Matthew’s audience would have been aghast at a slave accusing his master of harshness and greed. Moreover, up to that point, the rich man appears generous with his resources and sings his hospitable welcome to the first two slaves. He did not have to do that.  

Like the rich man, God does bless us with more than we often realize when we look around the room at what others have. Furthermore, God, like the rich man, gives something more precious than money with no expectation of return: a relationship with a profitable purpose. But while to the rich man, that purpose was multiplying material wealth, to God it is multiplying love, preparing the world to receive and abide in God’s loving reign. Serving God in that way only multiplies our love for God and neighbor, and in that sense, the rich get richer.

Nevertheless, God differs from the rich man who keeps us as slaves and rewards us transactionally. Neither is God a thin-skinned sadist who orders a personal gang of thugs to cast us into a burning landfill for offending him. With his parables, Jesus did not intend to teach a sufficient character profile of God.

Sizing Up Your Relationship With God

Rather, Jesus’s parables provoke us to look in the mirror at how we relate to God, neighbor, and ourselves, bidding us to face and accept new challenges in loving. Nobody, no saint for that matter, ever rises above the discomfort of those challenges in this lifetime. I see myself in the one talent guy when I respond to God as one who loves me only conditionally, when I project my image of a tyrannical authority onto God. At times, I forget that God gives me more than I can count and invites me to join God in the joyous work of sharing from that largesse with the world God loves. Such biases, projections, and failures in gratitude and graciousness displease God not because God keeps score, but because they make me less loving.

What are we waiting for then? Let me pose a better question: What is God waiting for? This parable suggests that God waits for us to open our hearts and receive God’s love. God waits for us to get so lost in gratitude for all God gives that we get busy giving back with no time to compare ourselves to others or worry about getting credit. God waits for us to trust God so much that we do not bury our gifts to preserve them but give them gratuitously. For God gives so generously that giving is receiving and receiving, giving. And let us be thankful that God is patient.

Related Posts

Dr. Jesus, Peace, and Apocalypse: Sermon on Matthew 10:24-39

Christian Spirituality of Now: Sermon on Matthew 24:36-44

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God….Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled (Matthew 5:3, 6).

Photo by Олександр К on Unsplash. Public Domain.