Text: Luke 19 11-27
I guess most people would expect that as the years go by, interpretation of Biblical texts would get easier and easier for a Pastor. It seems to me that the older I get the more willing I am to accept some challenging questions that often destroys common explanations. Let’s begin our examination of the text before us today with the common explanation.
We have a pretty important man who plans a trip to a distant country so that he can be made king but before her goes he gives exactly the same amount of money to ten of his servants. He commands them to put this money to work. They all get a mina which has been calculated to be about 3 months wages, so let’s say $10,000. When he returns, and we’re not given the time, but let’s guess at a year just to make the calculations easier, he calls them in to see how they’ve done. The first returns with the amazing news that he’s earned 10 more. He’s got $100,000. Not bad at all! The second comes in with $50,000 and no one’s going to complain about that. But the third brings his lone mina back after carefully wrapping his mina in his hanky, “because”, he says, “you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.”
The King isn’t happy. He wanted interest, so he takes his mina from him and hands it to the first servant.
And so the explanation would have me continue on to say that we’ve all been given gifts and talents by our God and King and that we should strive to use the gifts that God has given us as best we can. Now, if we were looking at the very similar parable as recorded in Matthew I’d have less trouble than I do as I look at this one recorded in Luke. This parable contains a few differences that seem to change everything.
Let me share a few of the bigger problems I see.
These are indeed strange additions to the parable. There’s not the usual comforting Gospel message here. There’s fear, there’s high expectation and there’s a fairly unloveable King. When I read this parable, the King reminds me more of a greedy, power-hungry, human politician than our loving God. So let’s try something different, very different. Instead of ignoring these additions, instead of working hard to explain why our Kingly God would acts in such a strange way, let’s see what happens if we accept these things as hints from Jesus that the King in this parable doesn’t represent God.
Very quickly we see that the King here reflects the ruling worldly powerful enemies of the Gospel, the Temple officials with their huge influence, grasping businessmen who strive for higher and higher profits, human rulers who want more and more power and influence, and less and less opposition. And indeed the scholars tell us that after the death of Herod the Great, his son Archelaus went to Rome to ask Caesar to make him king over Judea. But Herod hadn't been too popular among the Jews, so they sent a delegation of 50 men to oppose his appointment. In other words the King stands for the normal human way of doing things, the feeling within each of in us that says, all murderers should be killed, all terrorists wiped from the face of the earth, and all who think and act and live differently from me had better go somewhere else so that I can continue doing my thing, undisturbed. What’s important in this world is my security and my wealth, and forget anyone else. This is how human beings operate.
Two of the servants accept the need to play the game demanded by such a tyrant. They do all they can to meet the Kings’s requirements. Who knows what they do to gain their exorbitant interest rate, but you can be sure that if you’re getting 1,000% someone else is losing - losing badly. But despite this, two servants accept the rules to this harsh profit at all costs game and they succeed in impressing the King. It’s the third servant who refuses to play this horrible game. He rebels. Winning at the expense of others is not in his nature. He’s not going to treat others like that - as stepping blocks I’ve got to climb in order to get on in life. He rejects the King’s game. But he doesn’t make a fuss, he doesn’t fight back, he doesn’t act violently, he simply continues to live life according to his rules. He respectfully wraps his gift in a hanky and keeps it safe so that when the time comes he can simply hand it back. Gentle, respectful yet firm and unmoving when it comes to living according to God’s ways rather than sinful human beings. Remind you of anyone?
With this understanding it’s the third servant who becomes the Christ-figure of the parable. This servant rejects the normal human way of thinking and living and treating other people, and continues to be faithful to his life’s purpose despite the cost. And there sure is a cost. Not only is he stripped of his gift, not only does he join the ranks of the have nots, but of course he’s lumped in with those other rebels who don’t want this person to be king. And this means there’s little doubt that he’s first in line when the rebels are dragged before the King to be slaughtered before his eyes.
When we live lives that are different to the society around us there is always a cost. Let me give you an example. Can you imagine what would happen if we decided that because the message of the Gospel is utterly inclusive, because God wants us to exclude no one, this congregation made it known far and wide that we welcomed homosexuals as members. There’d be quite a few problems we’d have to overcome wouldn’t there?
But this is the life were called to live. Our life’s purpose is different from this world where might is right, where you only get what you deserve, where money is power, where those with most get more, and where others need to be used rather than cared for.
On this last Sunday of the church year, be challenged by the one who is a very different kind of King. May this unique servant King rule in your heart.