Shooting the Messenger?!

“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.” (Matthew 25:21)

It sounds wonderful doesn’t it? And we can all imagine ourselves in this role: the good and trustworthy servant. Well done! After all haven’t we been faithful, haven’t we followed even when the going got tough! Haven’t we worshipped regularly, served diligently, lived our lives well as witnesses to Jesus?

Or perhaps we hear the alternate words more loudly: “As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 25:30)

And we beat our chests and cry mea culpa, “my fault, all my fault”—we are unworthy. Even though we have tried we have failed—God have mercy on us; God save us from what we imagine might be our reward.

The parable from Matthew’s Gospel which we’ve heard today (25:14-30) is generally read in one of those two ways. Either, we hear it as an ethical instruction (“Use your talents”) and we feel affirmed either in what we are doing or what we might do; or we hear it as an eschatological warning (“Be prepared for the end times!”) and we quake in our boots wondering whether we have been good enough.

But parables are enigmatic stories! They are meant to confront our comfort and our complacency, our well-worn ruts and usual patterns. They are meant to open our hearts, expand our vision, and loosen our limbs in the face of the unexpected nature of God’s realm.

So, noted New Testament and historical Jesus scholar, William Herzog invites us to hear this parable from a different perspective in his book, Parables as Subversive Speech (1994), and in the Seasons of the Spirit material for this week. He asks us to read it from the perspective of the oppressed; and he asks us to read it with a critical eye to the accepted capitalistic assumptions that underlie those two traditional interpretations. He asks us not to assume that the one “going on a journey” is God or Jesus. He asks us to explore the story a little more in the context of its time; and in the context of what we understand now about who God is and who we are before God. He asks us to find the confrontation for us now in this parable.

And I don’t know about you, but I simply want to jump at this chance, because I know that God who is shown to us in Jesus is not a harsh master, reaping where God did not sow or gathering where God did scatter seed. I know that God who is revealed to us in Jesus is not a master who expects us to be afraid, who keeps us quaking in our boots. I know that the God who entered our world in Jesus wants to be in relationship with us.

So let’s follow Herzog’s invitation for a while by beginning with the servants. Herzog argues that:

The head of an elite household could not stay home if he intended to protect his interests and expand his influence. Not only would he travel to his estates but he would travel abroad in hopes of increasing his investments, initiating new business schemes, building patron-client networks, currying favor with imperial overlords, or perhaps representing his city in some official capacity. For the accumulation of his wealth, the basis of his power and prestige, to continue in his absence, he needed to entrust important portions of it to his household retainers. These powerful figures were not household slaves (oiketeria), although they may have very well have been called [servants], (douloi) to emphasize their dependence on their patron-master.

…the phrase… “to each according to his ability” …[may also] be translated “to each according to his power,” where power indicates rank or status.

So, we have a group of three household retainers, who have different ranks or statuses in the household. The most important one is given the most money; and the least important, the least for which to be responsible.

So, just how did the master (and therefore his retainers) make their money? What was the business in which they were engaged? Herzog continues:

The elites used their wealth to make loans to peasant farmers so that the farmers could plant the crops. Interest rates were high; estimates range to 60 percent and perhaps as high as 200 percent for loans on crops. The purpose of making such loans was not so much to make a large profit, at least by the standards of the ancient world, but to accept land as collateral so that the elites could foreclose on their loans in years when the crops could not cover the incurred indebtedness. Had the servants sought a more lucrative return, they might have contracted with a small manufacturing operation specializing in luxury items, because the only “markets” in the ancient world were the urban elites; to make money meant pandering to their lust for luxury. By combining the talents they had received with the raw goods extracted from the peasants who were controlled by their household, the servants had the means necessary to increase wealth. But to do so, they had to exploit the peasant or village base of the household, the merchants with whom they entered into a common venture, or the peasants to whom they made loans.

That sounds like these servant-retainers were placed in a very difficult position—not really of the elite; neither were they of the village because they had to do the master’s business with the people of the village in an exploitative system. The parable does not dispute that this is a master who reaps where he has not ploughed and gathers where he has not sown. But we all have to make a living, right?!

The first two servants got to work “at once” and doubled their investment even though the master is gone for “a long time.” Their industry reveals the zeal with which they work the system to make a handsome turn for the master, but it also reflects their desire to use some portion of that endowment to feather their own nests. First things first: the owner’s initial investment must be secured, then doubled; after that, the retainers can make their profit.

The first two servants were sucked into the system; and probably they didn’t have much choice—they needed to feed and clothe themselves and their families; but the system was exploitative; and just because one is a victim of a system doesn’t mean that one might not also be a perpetrator, or at least a perpetuator.

The third servant is different; and clearly the third servant is the “focus of the parable”. Obviously, the third servant “enjoys [something of] the master’s trust”. He is given some responsibility thought not nearly so much as the other two. Perhaps it is a test of whether he can bear the weight of further responsibility. It is certainly a test of what he values; and where his loyalties lie.

Herzog suggests that there was “a repertoire of scenarios available to Jesus” for the work of the third servant. Jesus could have had the servant entering “into partnership with the poor”, an act “greater than… charity” “according to the rabbis” of which Jesus was one. Instead Jesus depicts the third servant burying “the talent in the ground”. By doing this, according to Herzog, the third servant “takes the best available precaution against theft and liability”. He makes sure the money is safe because he knows he has a hard taskmaster; and he does not enter into business which might exploit others.

And yet, even though the third servant takes the safe option with the master’s money (and the non-exploitative one), he does not take the safe option when the master confronts him. The third servant does not use the fancy language of the formal exchanges that have just happened between the master and the first two servants. The third servant tells it like it is. The actions of the third servant would have astonished Jesus hearers, just as they are astonishing to us now—doing nothing with the money entrusted; and then speaking forthrightly with the master. Herzog puts it this way:

The third retainer cuts through the mystifying rhetoric that has dominated the exchange between the elite and his first two retainers, and he identifies the aristocrat for what he is, strict, cruel, harsh, and merciless… he shames his master through his unexpected attack...

In his wrathful retort, the aristocrat [master does not deny]… the truth of the servant’s description, [perhaps] because he understands [this way of business as acceptable]… But the third servant has named the master and his occupation from another point of view. He [has] exposed the sham of what has transpired and places it under the unobstructed light of … prophetic judgment…

The master’s judgment is immediate. Having spoken the truth, the servant must be vilified, shamed, and humiliated so that his words will carry no weight.

“You wicked and lazy slave! You knew…”

For Herzog,

The hero of the parable is the third servant. By digging a hole and burying the aristocrat’s talent in the ground, he has taken it out of circulation. It cannot be used to dispossess more peasants from their lands through its dispersion in the form of usurious loans. By his actions, the third retainer dissociates himself from the system he has so cleverly exploited to attain his position of power and influence. No motivation is given or needs to be; a figure is known by his actions, not by his internal ruminations. When the hero speaks, he utters in the full light of day what he has learned in the dark; he reveals what has been covered beneath the public rhetoric of praise and promise, made known what has been hidden beneath the mystifications of the elites, proclaims clearly what has only been whispered among the elites and their retainers. The whistle-blower is no fool. He realizes that he will pay a price, but he has decided to accept the cost rather than continue to pursue his exploitive path.

“You wicked and lazy slave! You knew…”

The hero of the story is the third servant—the one who stands up to the domineering master who expected them to exploit their friends and neighbours for monetary gain. The parable becomes a story of the prophet who stands up to power and is punished for it; of a servant who shows to the truth to power and is destroyed for it.

In this reading of the story, the third servant is the Christ figure.

This reading of the story carries a different sort of warning—not an eschatological one, but a warning about expecting to be rewarded for following the way of Christ. Doing God’s will doesn’t mean riches and prosperity. It means standing against the corrupting influences of powerful people and the lure of money or prestige; and copping the results of that audacity.

So what does that mean for how we understand mission—God’s mission in the world and our part in it.

It doesn’t paint a picture of the grand success of wealth, popularity and status. It doesn’t affirm that if we do the right things we will get want we want. There is no prosperity gospel in this reading of the parable. Instead, it cautions us that the result of speaking the truth to power is destruction, but that is what we are called to do.

God’s mission in our world is not about the people of God being wealthy or popular or adulated. God’s mission in the world is about the reconciliation of Creation—all Creation. And that means the powerful need to be called to account; and the powerless given their status as the beloved children of God.

Through God’s graciousness, we are enfolded into God’s work in our world—it’s not our work, it’s God’s—but it’s not God’s if it’s not God’s—if it does not demonstrate the values of God’s realm—justice, peace, reconciliation.

How then do we assess our role in the mission of God? It’s got nothing to do with how many we are, how much we own, how popular we are, how much money we raise… It’s all about how we act in and for God’s world… and for that, we can never have any expectation of reward!

You wicked and lazy slaves! You know that there are those who reap where they do not plough, and gather where they do not sew; and you dare as God’s people to challenge that?