That parable of the wasted talents can be taken on a number of levels. If we take it on the superficial level of human enterprise, I'm afraid there is not much good news here for the poor: "For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have more than enough. But from the man who has not, even what he has will be taken away." There are some who would say that this is a keep observation of how society works. Those who have money are in a position to make more; If we take the parable at this level, it would seem to be an endorsement of rampant capitalism. The rising tide lifts all boats and that sort of thing. Which is all very fine if you've got a boat. In this context, the poor are those without boats.

However, I don't think many would read the parable in that way. Such a reading would be seriously at odds with the general body of the teachings of Jesus. None of the parables should be taken at face value, or literally. All the parables are complex works of art, with multiple layers of meaning. They are also very clever reflections on the human condition.

The primary meaning of today's parable is that every character has got a talent. The talents may well have been unevenly distributed; but that is not the point; the point is that everyone has something to work on. The fellow who ran off and buried the one talent he received is a familiar character enough. Bouts of false humility save him a lot of toil and trouble. Better bury the talent than expose it to the critical and comparative gaze of others. Better deny the talent exists at all than to follow the road it may take me.

This actually is the central point of the parable: the attitude of the negligent servant. It wasn't that he was lazy, wasteful, or over extravagant. On the contrary, having received the talent, he buried it, hid it and hoarded it, not for himself but for his master. His problem was that he was over-cautious. And fear is at the root of this caution: "Master, I heard you were a hard man, reaping where you do not sow....I was afraid. So I went off and hid your talent in the ground. Here it is. It is yours." Fear was his problem; -fear and the fact that he did not know his master. This servant regarded God as harsh, hard, severe, in short a tyrant. Jesus wants to show that obedience to such a caricature of God is doomed from the beginning: people will respond legalistically to such an image. The rule book comes into play early in this game. Jesus had in mind the type of pious Jew who sought personal security in a meticulous observation of the law. This is the piety that separates us from God.

This sort of pious caution has bedeviled all of the great religions, paralysing its people with a fear-filled spirituality. I suppose that is the price that Catholicism paid for deserting the scriptures for so many centuries. In our own Augustinian tradition, a great controlling cant was: 'What will the people think?' Any suggestion that things might be done differently or viewed differently was greeted with this controlling mantra. "What will the people think? That will disturb the people." In truth, what the speaker was actually saying is "That will disturb me, or that will make excessive demands on me." So much talent was buried on the false and spurious assumption that the people would be disturbed by it.

If you look closely at Catholic morality in operation here up to relatively recent times, you will see that is was culturally conditioned. It had much more in common with Victorian respectability than with a scriptural ethic. The whole goal of morality was respectability. It had its primary motivation in what the neighbours thought rather than in what the individual was convinced of. In that sort of environment, fear will always hover closely like a low cloud. The dynamic, energetic God expressed through the personality of Jesus on this earth was replaced by a crusty old moral accountant in the skies.

Authentic Christian spirituality, which should be directed towards the neighbour, falls out of focus. It becomes inward-looking and obsessed with personal salvation. It would endorse the image of God expressed by the wasteful servant: Master, you are a hard man.You reap where you have not sown and you gather where you have not scattered. ...Jesus taught otherwise.

Home