a word for today
The Parable of the Little Guy
The thing I love about Jesus’ parables is how after two thousand years we’re still scratching our heads about what some of them mean. Or should I say, how each of them speaks into the particular times we find ourselves living through? As the world changes, as we change, we can’t help but read some of them in new ways. Or we may want to interrogate some of the established interpretations a little harder.
Take the Parable of the Talents for instance (Matthew 25.14-30), which we would have looked at if we had been in church last Sunday. You know the one? The three slaves entrusted with a different number of talents? With a quick online search, I came across a professor of New Testament offering the popular assumption that the man with the slaves must reflect Christ, even though he is described as harsh. However, he does admit that the story ‘worries us at many levels’ and is honest enough to end his piece with a humble plea for a better understanding of its meaning.
The challenge in the story is indeed the harsh master who expects his slaves to invest his money while he is absent. Out of the three, two do not disappoint, but the third can only bury his money in the ground, and most sermons will point to this last slave as a failure, unable or unwilling to make the most of the opportunity he’s been given.
Such an interpretation makes perfect sense to those of us who expect a healthy return on our investments or long for positive interest rates which will help our savings grow. But what if we remind ourselves that Jesus and his listeners were living in a society very different to our own? Look a bit closer at what life was like in first-century Palestine and it’s clear that Jesus is telling a story about someone with power, and power to exploit. The master is not a good man. Indeed, we are told that, ‘he reaps where he does not sow’. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to see him as a criminal or a loan shark. To those listening to Jesus he would have brought to mind their Roman overlords.
So, what of the slaves in the story? Are they not encouraged to follow the master in his habit of exploitation? In Jesus’ day many Jews were compromised by working alongside the Romans to do this very thing towards those in poverty living off the land. Their wealth creation in this little exercise depended on a group of people on the next rung down the ladder who they could suck dry. So, before we go along with the idea of slave number three being the ‘wicked and lazy’ one, might we do better to reflect on how the story would sound to a Christian community living in dire poverty.
What if we could step into the story and ask this third slave about his admission of fear – to say a little more about his point of view? Does he feel overwhelmed? Let’s face it: all his life he has been treated as an investment, but suddenly, now he is expected to invest! Maybe he thinks he has done a good thing by keeping the money safe. Or what if this is a deliberate act of rebellion? No, says he, I won’t follow this instruction to exploit in the way my master does – I have some integrity which I wish to maintain.
Just look how easily we side with the one who has the power to compel others. Even when the one we think of as weaker may be afraid, incapable, unprepared or suffering from long term consequences of having so little self-confidence and skills. He has so little chance to develop his own identity. Does the master end up so angry in the story because he has been found out?
Jesus taught in parables, which means he doesn’t tell us what to do. But if we take the trouble, we can allow these ancient stories from a foreign world breathe their wisdom into contemporary scenarios. This may include issues around decision-making and leadership, situations where authority sometimes prevails unquestioned. In recent decades we have heard so many stories where those we look up to, whether in government, the police, the judiciary, banking, or the church, have been shown to abuse their power.
So, here we have a story where Jesus can be seen to be speaking up for the little guy, the quiet one, the ignored one, the overlooked, the forgotten, and possibly the one who wants to find enough courage to blow the whistle: ‘Hang on, can we just look at what is going on here?’ All with the unavoidable echo of where Jesus found himself in the last few days of his life.
Keith Griffin
The thing I love about Jesus’ parables is how after two thousand years we’re still scratching our heads about what some of them mean. Or should I say, how each of them speaks into the particular times we find ourselves living through? As the world changes, as we change, we can’t help but read some of them in new ways. Or we may want to interrogate some of the established interpretations a little harder.
Take the Parable of the Talents for instance (Matthew 25.14-30), which we would have looked at if we had been in church last Sunday. You know the one? The three slaves entrusted with a different number of talents? With a quick online search, I came across a professor of New Testament offering the popular assumption that the man with the slaves must reflect Christ, even though he is described as harsh. However, he does admit that the story ‘worries us at many levels’ and is honest enough to end his piece with a humble plea for a better understanding of its meaning.
The challenge in the story is indeed the harsh master who expects his slaves to invest his money while he is absent. Out of the three, two do not disappoint, but the third can only bury his money in the ground, and most sermons will point to this last slave as a failure, unable or unwilling to make the most of the opportunity he’s been given.
Such an interpretation makes perfect sense to those of us who expect a healthy return on our investments or long for positive interest rates which will help our savings grow. But what if we remind ourselves that Jesus and his listeners were living in a society very different to our own? Look a bit closer at what life was like in first-century Palestine and it’s clear that Jesus is telling a story about someone with power, and power to exploit. The master is not a good man. Indeed, we are told that, ‘he reaps where he does not sow’. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to see him as a criminal or a loan shark. To those listening to Jesus he would have brought to mind their Roman overlords.
So, what of the slaves in the story? Are they not encouraged to follow the master in his habit of exploitation? In Jesus’ day many Jews were compromised by working alongside the Romans to do this very thing towards those in poverty living off the land. Their wealth creation in this little exercise depended on a group of people on the next rung down the ladder who they could suck dry. So, before we go along with the idea of slave number three being the ‘wicked and lazy’ one, might we do better to reflect on how the story would sound to a Christian community living in dire poverty.
What if we could step into the story and ask this third slave about his admission of fear – to say a little more about his point of view? Does he feel overwhelmed? Let’s face it: all his life he has been treated as an investment, but suddenly, now he is expected to invest! Maybe he thinks he has done a good thing by keeping the money safe. Or what if this is a deliberate act of rebellion? No, says he, I won’t follow this instruction to exploit in the way my master does – I have some integrity which I wish to maintain.
Just look how easily we side with the one who has the power to compel others. Even when the one we think of as weaker may be afraid, incapable, unprepared or suffering from long term consequences of having so little self-confidence and skills. He has so little chance to develop his own identity. Does the master end up so angry in the story because he has been found out?
Jesus taught in parables, which means he doesn’t tell us what to do. But if we take the trouble, we can allow these ancient stories from a foreign world breathe their wisdom into contemporary scenarios. This may include issues around decision-making and leadership, situations where authority sometimes prevails unquestioned. In recent decades we have heard so many stories where those we look up to, whether in government, the police, the judiciary, banking, or the church, have been shown to abuse their power.
So, here we have a story where Jesus can be seen to be speaking up for the little guy, the quiet one, the ignored one, the overlooked, the forgotten, and possibly the one who wants to find enough courage to blow the whistle: ‘Hang on, can we just look at what is going on here?’ All with the unavoidable echo of where Jesus found himself in the last few days of his life.
Keith Griffin
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