Going for broke
It
seems we have sanitised the parables, domesticated them, if we are to follow
the judgement of a man, Gerhard Lohfink, who has devoted a lifetime to studying
them. The Parable of the Talents, we were brought up to believe, is all about using
our abilities. Whether they are great or small they will be rewarded equitably.
But it seems it is not as simple as that: ‘No one gets executed for teaching
nothing more than bourgeois morality!’
But
Jesus did get executed and it was because his teaching was explosive. The
master, who entrusts his property to his servants, goes away and then returns
and demands an account, is the Son of Man who will return in judgement. The master
is portrayed by Jesus as a millionaire business man. He entrusts considerable
sums of money – which he later calls “little things”, peanuts, in our language,
– to his servants and is happy when they make 100% profit. It is unlikely that
honest deals would realise such a return so rapidly so the servants must have
been into some sharp practice, such as we see revealed in the recent banking
scandals in the US and Europe.
The
third servant risks nothing but the master doesn’t contradict him when he says,
‘I knew you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering grain
where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid.’ This servant is considered ‘worthless’
and is ‘thrown out into the outer darkness’. But he was the one person whose
conscience wouldn’t allow him get into all the shady deals.
So
the story is neither religious nor moral. It is about the harsh and reckless
world of financial speculators and manipulators of interest rates, a world
where those who do not take risks lose everything. But why does Jesus tell such
a story? Amazing as it may sound, he uses an image from the real immoral world
we live in to reveal God’s plan: the new world that he wants to create will
only come about when people risk everything. There is no room in it for cowards
and comfort seekers. It is those who ‘go for broke’[1]
that will create it.
So
next time you watch a DVD on crooked business men or ‘terrorists’ spare a
thought for Jesus’ message. These are people who risk everything to achieve
their ends. We may not like their goals but we cannot help but admire their
panache, their flamboyant courage. Would that the ‘children of light’ showed
the same!
16 November 2014 Sunday
33 A
Proverbs 31:10…31 I
Thess 5:1-6 Matt
25:14-30
[1]
Go for broke is a phrase from Hawaiian
Pidgin meaning "to wager everything". It was the motto of a World War
II Japanese-American military unit,
