Before we open the Gospel, two things I’m excited to share with you.
Episode III of the podcast, The Stone Which the Builders Rejected, is here. We meet people whose place in the story might surprise you, including a woman sheltering spies and a condemned man asking Jesus to remember him. If you’ve ever wondered whether your own history disqualifies you from belonging, come spend some time with these people. Scripture has a habit of putting the people we dismiss right where we need to look.
And now, something new: our first-ever Message From the Margins: On Site. I’m going to Rome, and I want to bring you with me.
I’ll be covering the tenth-anniversary conversation around Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis’s 2016 teaching on love in the family. The title means The Joy of Love. It asks the Church to take the lives of actual families seriously, including the complicated parts, and to accompany them with pastoral care. There is a great deal there worth helping people understand.
I’ll also be visiting churches to tell the stories of saints whose lives have something to say to people at the margins. I want you to encounter the people behind the statues, understand what they faced, and discover why their stories might belong in your life.
You’ll be able to follow along from home. No passport required, and mercifully, no need to keep up with a priest who has just spotted another church.
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Your Brother in Christ,
Now, about that servant with the shovel.
I Bet You Never Noticed THIS in the Parable of the Talents
The servant returned everything he was given. Why wasn’t that enough?
There are some Bible stories we know so well that we can finish the lesson before Jesus finishes telling them.
The Good Samaritan? Help your neighbor.
The Prodigal Son? God forgives.
The Parable of the Talents? Use your… well… talents.
All perfectly reasonable answers. All worth remembering. But sometimes the lesson we remember becomes so familiar that we stop paying attention to the story that gave it to us.
Today, I’d like us to pay attention again.
We’re going to read the Parable of the Talents together, then walk back through it. There are a few details I want to show you, including one that makes me wonder whether the poor fellow with the shovel has received a fair hearing in quite a few sermons.
I say this as someone professionally commissioned to give sermons. We should probably be supervised.
As you read, notice which person you understand. Notice what seems reasonable. And if something bothers you, please don’t assume that means you are reading badly.
That may be exactly where we need to begin.
First, the story
Matthew 25:14–30
The Parable of the Talents
New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
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.
16 The one who had received the five talents went off at once 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 seed; 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.’
Well.
If you found yourself feeling a little sorry for the third servant, you have company. He gives back everything he received, and his reward is the outer darkness. That is a rather alarming performance review.
But before we defend him, or condemn him, let’s go back to the beginning.
He received how much?
“…who called his own servants and entrusted his goods to them.”
Notice whose property this is.
The master is putting his possessions into the care of people who belong to his household. The Greek word translated “servants” here is douloi, slaves. These are people living under an owner’s authority, even while exercising considerable responsibility.
That changes the pressure surrounding the assignment. Managing someone else’s fortune is daunting enough. Managing it for someone who has power over your life adds rather more to the experience. The steaks are already high.
Then we reach the distribution.
“To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his own ability.”
Our English makes it easy to hear “talents” and start thinking of a beautiful singing voice, juggling, a gift for mathematics, the ability to name all 50 States, or that thing where you can pull your thumb all the way to the back of your hand.
Here, however, a talent is good old fashioned money. Simoleans. Mammon. Dough. Matthew uses a separate Greek word, dynamis, for ability (you’ll here the word “dynamic” in there, there’s your Greek lesson for today.). The master distributes the money according to each servant’s capacity. The story itself distinguishes between what they can do and what they have been given to work with. Greek text
And the money is considerable. A metric crap ton in fact.
One talent represented approximately 6,000 denarii. Using a denarius as a laborer’s daily wage, scholars commonly describe a talent as roughly twenty years’ earnings. Five talents would approach a century’s wages. This is more money than any of these men could earn in their life time.
I’m always kind of surprised there wasn’t a fourth servant who took the money and ran like “h-e- double hockey sticks with it,” but this is Jesus’ story, not mine. I say that joking, but it also a reminder that parables are stories that intentionally convey a truth about the kingdom of God, they are not cinema or general wisdom sayings.
But I digress.
Anywho, These are comparisons to help us grasp the scale, rather than a precise ancient payroll calculation.
The third servant did not receive the change left over after the other two had been taken care of.
He received a fortune.
Go back and read “one talent” again. Does it sound different now?
That is one of the pleasures of reading Scripture closely. We haven’t changed a word. We have recovered something the words meant before we arrived with our assumptions.
The master leaves, and the servants begin to act.
The man with the shovel
“Immediately he who received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents.”
The second servant does the same with his two. Matthew doesn’t tell us what they traded or give us their business plans. He gives us their action and its result.
Then comes the third.
“But he who received the one talent went away and dug in the earth and hid his lord’s money.”
If you picture this as an obviously foolish thing to do, there is another detail worth recovering.
Burying valuables was a recognizable means of keeping them safe. Matthew even gives us another parable involving treasure hidden in a field. For an ancient listener, a man placing wealth in the ground would not automatically look like someone who had lost his mind. For my part, I always imagine Captain Jack Sparrow burying his treasure, but as you know I’m not quite right in the head.
The point is, to an observer in his time, he would look careful.
Hold that thought.
We know how the story ends, which makes it difficult to let the servant’s action appear reasonable even briefly. But imagine hearing the story without knowing the verdict.
One person has done business. Another has done business. A third has secured the property.
We now have to wait for the master to return.
Listen to what happens twice
“Now after a long time the lord of those servants came, and settled accounts with them.”
After a long time.
The story gives these servants an extended period in which to carry their responsibilities. Eventually, their stewardship becomes a conversation.
The first servant reports what was entrusted to him and what he has gained. The master responds:
“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.”
Before we move on, look at the scale again.
“You have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things.”
A few things.
We just learned that five talents represented roughly a century’s wages. To the master of this household, that is, well, pocket change.
A hundred years of work, and he calls it “a few things.” What on earth does he consider many?
Jesus gives us a glimpse of an abundance that stretches beyond what we know how to measure. The sum that makes our eyes widen barely begins to suggest what the master has in store.
And suddenly, some of the things we spend our lives trying to accumulate look a little smaller. The titles we worry about. The importance we attach to being important. The possessions we are quite certain will finally make us feel we have enough.
A century’s wages. “A few things.”
We are like ants carting around a prized leaf fragment, aren’t we?
I suspect our sense of proportion may need some work.
Now listen to the second report. Two talents received. Two more gained.
And the response?
Exactly the same.
The master does not ask why this servant failed to produce five. There is no disappointed glance toward the larger pile. Both receive the same commendation, the promise of greater responsibility, and the welcome into joy.
The word “faithful,” pistos, carries the sense of being trustworthy in carrying out a responsibility. That is what the master commends. (Okay, two Greek lessons.) Greek lexicon
The second servant has less to present, and there is no suggestion that his welcome is diminished.
Keep that beside the first discovery. The smallest allocation was substantial, and the different totals do not produce different degrees of welcome.
Then the third servant approaches.
“I was afraid”
His report takes a different direction.
“Lord, I knew you that you are a hard man, reaping where you didn’t sow, and gathering where you didn’t scatter.”
He begins with his understanding of the master.
Winnowing means separating grain from chaff after threshing. So the servant is describing a man who collects the benefit of agricultural work he has not performed himself. You can hear the accusation. People living under powerful owners might recognize the kind of man he is describing. We should let that trouble us before trying to explain it away.
But notice who is speaking. This is the servant’s description. We have to listen to it as part of the exchange, without assuming either that he is lying or that he has supplied the final interpretation of the whole story.
He continues:
“I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.”
There is his explanation. Fear led him to protect the money.
Then comes the sentence I want you to notice:
“Here you have what is yours.”
Everything is accounted for.
He has not squandered the property. He has not run away with it. The thing entrusted to him is available for inspection and can be returned to its owner.
You can understand why he might consider that a defense.
Perhaps you can also feel why the master’s response is so disturbing.
“You wicked and lazy slave! ”
The servant describes fear. The master judges failed responsibility. We are hearing two assessments of the same conduct.
Now look at the question mark at the end of the master’s reply about reaping and gathering. He takes the servant’s description and puts it back to him as a challenge.
Follow the reasoning into the next sentence. If the servant believed his master expected a return, why choose the one course that would produce none? Even depositing the money with bankers would have produced interest.
The question mark does not prove that the servant has misjudged the master’s character. It helps us hear the master challenging his defense. The servant has explained why he was afraid; the master argues that this explanation does not justify what he did.
For hearers formed by Torah, the mention of interest could itself raise questions. Israel’s Scriptures restrict charging interest to fellow Israelites while permitting it in other circumstances. We don’t know enough about the proposed transaction to declare it unlawful. We do know this financial world carries moral complications that a casual modern reading can miss. Deuteronomy 23:19–20
The talent is taken away. The servant who has proved trustworthy receives it, and the third servant is expelled.
There is no way to make that ending pleasant.
The saying about those who have receiving more can sound particularly harsh if we lift it out as a rule for society. Within this story, it accompanies a judgment about what the servants have done with entrusted responsibility. It cannot simply become permission to enrich the wealthy and abandon everyone else.
And the outer darkness remains a warning.
A parable can use the recognizable world of powerful masters without making every feature of that world a portrait of God. Scholars disagree about how far that comparison should extend here. But Matthew places the story within Jesus’ teaching about accountability, and we should resist editing away its severity merely because we would prefer a more comfortable conclusion.
What has become clear is that the master regards returning his property intact as insufficient.
The servant has preserved the possession. He has failed to fulfill its purpose in his care.
Now look at what surrounds the story
Before we decide what that means for our lives, there is one more thing to do.
Read around it.
Jesus tells this parable during His teaching about His return and how His disciples should live while waiting for the kingdom. Earlier, He describes a servant responsible for distributing food to the household. The faithful servant is the one the returning master finds doing that work.
People need to eat while they wait. The absence does not suspend the responsibility. Matthew 24:45–51
Immediately after the talents, Jesus describes judgment through encounters with people who need food, welcome, clothing, and care. He identifies Himself with those He calls the least of His brothers and sisters. Scholars debate precisely whom that phrase includes, particularly whether it refers to His vulnerable disciples. But receiving or neglecting people with whom Jesus identifies is central to the scene. Matthew 25:31–46
That sequence helps us ask a better question about the talents.
What does faithful responsibility look like while the master is away?
Now we are hearing more than an encouragement to put our abilities to good use. We are being asked to consider what our actions, and our failures to act, mean for the work entrusted to us.
Notice how we got here.
We began with the story as we remembered it. We learned something about its money and its social world. We returned to particular sentences. Then we widened our view to the surrounding teaching.
That movement between the details and the whole is part of what theologians call the hermeneutical circle.
You have just been doing it.
The name sounds formidable. The work begins with ordinary curiosity and a willingness to read again. You don’t need to pretend the difficult parts are easy. You need to pay attention to them.
And sometimes it helps to invite another reader into the conversation.
Preferably one who has been thinking about the passage for a while.
St. John Chrysanthemum has entered the conversation
St. John Chrysostom, whom all we clergy of lesser maturity call St. John Chrysanthemum, has something particularly useful to offer here.
In his homily on this passage, he interprets the talents through the assistance we can give our neighbors. He includes teaching among those responsibilities.
Explaining the master’s commendation, he writes, “For this is goodness to look to one’s neighbor.”
Then he considers a question that must have occurred to nearly everyone who has ever tried to teach: what if people won’t listen?
In his reading, we remain responsible for communicating what we have received. The ultimate accounting belongs to God. We are to do our part without making it dependent on our ability to guarantee the response. Chrysostom, Homily 78 on Matthew
Think about that.
If I possess something that could help you, and I withhold it because I cannot control what you will do with it, my caution can become a reason you never receive it at all.
Chrysostom is giving us a theological application of the parable. And it opens a question that reaches well beyond the individual Christian.
What about the Church?
Have we buried the treasure?
The Church has received an extraordinary inheritance.
We have Scripture and the work of generations who have studied it. We have sacramental life, theological wisdom, and practices of prayer and mercy. We have the testimony of people who followed Christ through circumstances most of us would struggle to endure.
We should love that inheritance. We should preserve it faithfully. We have access to it because other people cared enough to copy, translate, protect, and teach it.
But what happens when protecting it becomes the whole assignment?
Imagine someone who has attended church for forty years and still feels unqualified to open a Bible.
They know when to stand. They know the responses. They have heard passages proclaimed thousands of times. Yet no one has helped them understand how to read a Gospel as an adult, how to ask questions of a parable, or how its ancient world might illuminate their own.
They have spent decades close to the treasure.
How much of it have we placed in their hands?
Or think of someone who asks a serious question and receives a technically accurate answer they cannot understand. The answer may represent centuries of careful thought. It may be exceptionally precise.
But the person goes home with the question they arrived with.
I love theology. I am quite capable of becoming excited about a distinction most people did not realize they were in danger of failing to make. Clergy have to watch that tendency. Enjoying what we know can become a substitute for the harder work of helping someone else understand it.
The purpose of teaching includes what becomes possible for the learner.
The Gospel was meant to grow in the hearts of people.
That means handing it on with enough patience for people to ask questions, wrestle with what they hear, and begin putting it into practice. They may notice demands we have become very good at avoiding. They may need explanations we have never learned to give.
We have to enter that exchange.
We also have to ask whether institutional fear sometimes decides how much of the Gospel reaches the world. Do we postpone defending someone’s dignity because the people threatening it are influential? Do we praise mercy in the abstract and hesitate when practicing it might cost us approval?
We can produce respectable explanations for caution.
Meanwhile, someone is waiting for help.
The Church should be willing to ask whether its efforts to protect the treasure are helping people encounter Christ or making that encounter harder.
And “the Church” includes those of us who find it very easy to explain what everyone else ought to change.
This ministry belongs in the examination. So do I.
A growing readership cannot answer every question about faithfulness. We still have to ask what we are helping people understand and put into practice, whose needs we are attending to, and what we keep postponing because we are afraid.
I ask myself those questions every day. They’re part of the reason you’ve seen the offerings here grow. Someone who struggles to get through a lengthy article deserves access to the richness of our faith, too. The podcast gives us another way to share it, with visuals that help bring the people and their stories to life. I’m still learning how to do that well, and your feedback helps me see where the next bit of work is needed.
The question reaches from the whole Church right down to this priest at his desk: Has possession of the Gospel become a substitute for fulfilling our responsibility to share it?
That is a question worth taking into prayer.
What would we like to place before Him?
Before you decide this means you must somehow acquire the abilities, influence, and stamina of everyone you admire, remember the servant with two talents.
He is never asked why he did not produce five.
The same welcome is spoken to both faithful servants. Different responsibilities do not require identical totals.
Your part may be helping one person understand a passage that has frightened them. It may be accompanying someone who is beginning to pray again. It may be explaining, with patience, what another person once took the time to explain to you.
Think of what can open in that person’s life.
Someone who has heard Scripture chiefly as a catalogue of reasons God must be disappointed in them begins to understand the ministry of Jesus. They encounter both the seriousness of His call and the depth of His mercy. They find themselves able to pray honestly. They begin recognizing something Christ is asking them to do for another person.
The treasure has reached them. Now something is growing.
There is joy in being part of that.
Matthew ends his Gospel with the risen Christ sending His disciples to make disciples and teach what He has commanded. He promises to remain with them. The Church’s outward movement rests on His authority and His presence. Matthew 28:18–20
We are allowed to trust that promise as we do the work.
And you have already begun participating today. You read a familiar story, asked questions, learned something about its world, and returned to its words with greater understanding.
You can do that again. The next time a detail puzzles you, stay with it. Read what comes before and after. Look for a reliable explanation of the setting. Ask how what you have learned changes the way you hear the passage.
Then consider whom that discovery might help.
I still have sympathy for the man with the shovel. I understand the desire to keep something precious safe. I understand how reassuring it would feel to place everything before the master and say that nothing had been lost.
But after reading the story again, I find myself wanting more to show than an undisturbed patch of earth.
I want someone to have been fed. I want someone to have been taught. I want someone to have discovered that the Gospel can speak to the life they are actually living.
And perhaps, when they open their Bible with someone else, they will smile and say:
“Come here. There’s something in this story I want to show you.”
A Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, You have entrusted us with a Gospel worth sharing and people worth loving.
When fear makes us reach for the shovel, help us recognize what we are doing. Give us courage to teach what we have learned, to offer the mercy we have received, and to trust You with the results we cannot control.
Help Your Church care for the treasure You have given her by placing it within reach of the people who need it. Give us patience with questions and generosity with our time. Help us recognize the person waiting for someone to explain, to listen, or to make room.
For those of us who feel we have little to offer, let Your love give us courage to begin. Make us faithful in the work before us, and teach us the joy of sharing what we have received from You.
Amen.
And Now It’s Your Turn
Which part of this reading surprised you most? I’d especially love to hear about someone who helped you discover the richness of your faith by taking the time to explain it. What did they give you that you’ve carried ever since?
Tell us in the comments. Their example may give the rest of us a place to begin.
If someone you know has only ever heard this parable explained as “use your gifts,” send them this piece. You may have a very interesting conversation afterward.
I want more people to have the experience of opening a familiar passage and discovering how much they were never taught to see. That takes time to research, time to write, and readers willing to help sustain it.
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