Going on alone – 14 November 2014

For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his servants and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.  [Matthew 25:14-15]

…the Parable of the Talents.  The servant who had been lent five talents made them into ten; the one with two talents made four; the one with one talent took fright, buried it, and eventually returned it safe and unsullied to his master.  Parts of the American church have a lot of fun with this parable because it is all about capitalism, about wealth and righteousness belonging together, and Jesus even seems to justify usury. 

I think the key to the parable is in the very first sentences, which I read.  The point is the master’s absence.  This is emphasized.  In Matthew he goes away on a journey (Gr. αποδημων – to another country).  Then he went away, Matthew repeats.  It’s the same stress in Mark.  In Luke he is a nobleman who goes off to a far country.  And that I think is the issue – it’s about going on alone, without the immediate sense or awareness of God…?  It’s grown-up faith.  If we want to be really adventurous with this parable, then we ponder living without the presence of someone we love…?  Living without adequate health perhaps, or money, or faith and hope…?  And when you think about it, there are various other points in the gospels where Jesus explicitly stresses his coming absence, as though the disciples need to understand this.  I think this parable does reflect the early church having to come to terms with the fact that Jesus has not returned as some expected – neither will he.  Life as a disciple, as we know, might well be comforted by the perceived presence of Christ in the Eucharist, or by the promise that he will be with us always, even to the end of the world.  But life is equally marked by the presence of absence. Then, says Jesus in the parable, he went away.

“Talents”, by the way, in this parable, certainly do not mean personal gifts and aptitudes, the kind of thing referred to in the unspeakable TV show “NZ’s Got Talent”.  The talent in Greek (ταλεντον) was a measure of volume, generally the amount of wine in one amphora.  “Talent” here may mean a talent of gold, an unimaginable sum, or silver, or wine.  The talent was a lot of whatever it is.  The parable then is about what we do with what we own, certainly our assets in the sense understood by Inland Revenue, but also what we do with the whole environment we have inherited.  It is up to us, because God is not about to appear and make it all right.

Grown-up faith, then, is about getting on with it.  It is about living, not huddling, in the midst of life and risk.  It is not about measuring everything by how we happen to be feeling at the moment – which is no measure at all -- or rushing for safety as did the servant who buried his talent securely in a hole.  It is about risking mistakes and daring to be vulnerable and fallible.  It is moreover about consenting to being made this way in life, even at our advanced stage or age, by God’s wild spirit of resurrection and new life.  Our prayer of silence and stillness, which you must admit is somewhat sparse of reassurances, is for many of us the best and truest way of being, in this kind of world.