“one talent” servant: villain, hero, or human?
Jesus challenges perception
So much of life depends on perception. So much of life depends on one’s point of view. Notice the graphic below, which you might have seen before. What did you see first: the young woman or the old woman? Or maybe you see something else altogether!
During my wife Banu’s and my ordination process, we had a meeting with some people in Princeton, New Jersey. It was a time for personality profile, aptitude, evaluation of well-being, and other assessments. One session involved a well-known gauge of perception, a Rorschach test. For me, many of the inkblots reminded me of the shapes of countries and continents. I guess my years as a kid looking at atlases left an impression. I busied myself for many hours gazing at maps of states and nations.
And then there are sayings, adages, about perception. One person’s trash is another’s treasure. Is the glass half full or half empty?
Perception includes historical figures. For example, take George Washington and the other founding fathers. To the British, they were rebels, and using today’s language, possibly insurgents — maybe even terrorists. Clearly, for the colonials, Washington was a victorious general, and later, the father of our country. Some people even wanted to make him king.
Jesus was a master at dealing with perception. He constantly challenged people’s point of view. He constantly had them question their point of view. And believe me, there were plenty of people who were not happy when he did that. There were plenty of people who assumed their point of view was the correct one — the way it’s supposed to be. “Everybody knows that!” We tend to make the same assumptions.
In his parables, Jesus questions point of view on a fairly regular basis. For example, he reimagines “neighbor” with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30–37). He tells the story of a man assaulted on the road by robbers, who beat him half to death. A priest comes along and, seeing him, passes by on the other side of the road. A Levite comes along and does the same thing.
Then a Samaritan shows up, and cares for the man, and he takes him to an inn and gives the innkeeper money to care for him. Using the Samaritan as the merciful one would be a shock since the Jews bitterly hated the Samaritans. Jesus asks which of the three was a neighbor to the poor man.
A change of perception!
(Actually, calling him the “good” Samaritan plays right into the ethnic strife. Yeah, he’s one of the “good” ones. Notice, Jesus doesn’t use the word “good.”)
To me, the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, is a crazy story that involves point of view. I’ll explain what I mean by that in a few moments.
Here’s a bit of context. Chapter 25 consists of three parables, and they are prefaced, “the kingdom of heaven will be like this” (v. 1). The first one is about ten bridesmaids awaiting the arrival of the bridegroom. Night is about to fall. Five are wise and have enough oil for their lamps. Five are foolish and do not. They have to hurry off and buy more. By the time they return, the door has been shut. Moral of the story: stay awake, keep alert.
The third parable concerns the judgment of the nations. The question is who cared for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner. Those who did are the sheep at the Lord’s right hand, and those who did not are the goats at the left hand. Moral of the story: according to Jesus, to the extent you did or did not do those things, you did or did not do it to me.
The ones at the left hand “will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous [the sheep at the right hand] into eternal life” (v. 46). Yikes!
So now, the parable in the middle, speaks of a rich man who’s about to go away on a long journey. He calls three of his trusted slaves (or servants) and gives different amounts of money to them: five talents, two talents, and one talent. While he’s gone, he expects them to use what he’s given them and make even more money. And that’s what the first two of them do; the master is pleased!
However, the third servant, the “one talent” servant, is a disappointment. He takes what he was given and buries it in the ground; the master is displeased! That servant is sternly reprimanded for his behavior. And his master orders him to be severely punished. “Throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (v. 30). Again, yikes!
(By the way, I’ve used the male pronoun in referring to the servants. I am aware females could just as easily be the servants. Please excuse my terminology!)
So, is the “one talent” servant a cowardly villain, or a courageous hero — or maybe something else? Stay tuned.
Before we go any further, we should recognize in the parable, a talent is indeed an amount of money — and it’s a pretty hefty sum. A talent was equal to about 6000 denarii. One denarius was the usual daily wage for a laborer. So if you do the math for one year (counting days off for the Sabbath), one talent equals about 20 years of wages. It is an enormous, mind-boggling amount of money, especially to the people Jesus is addressing, who are mainly peasants.
Very often, the word “talent” is taken to mean gifts or abilities. That would affect your point of view, your perception of the parable. So it’s just good to keep in mind that’s not how the original audience understood it.
Still, that’s the way I’ve usually heard the story explained: that is, “talent” as an ability, as a gift. And in this case, it’s a gift that has been squandered. The third fellow receives his talent and does nothing with it.
Linda Pepe, a Baptist minister in New Jersey, has some comments about the servants. For the first two servants, their use of the talents “was a leap of faith, to risk perhaps losing the money, or if we are talking about a real talent, or spiritual gift, to risk making some mistakes. But they did it, and because of that ability to take real chances, to step out in faith, they were able to do mighty things and to give a wonderful report to the master when he returned.”
As for the third servant, he wanted to play it safe. He wanted to keep his head down, and not do anything that would get him noticed. It can be scary to use your talent, to use the gift you’ve been given. What if you screw up? What if people laugh at you?
Not taking the risk, playing it safe, can lead to one of the bitterest emotions of all: regret. I know because I have sometimes felt it.
(On a side note: there’s a question sometimes posed, “If you had your life to live over again would you do anything differently?” I find it interesting when people say, “No, I wouldn’t.” I can’t say that. There are many cases in which I wish I had the moment back. There are things I would like to do or to undo. There are times when through action or inaction, people have been hurt.)
What do we do with our resources, our property, our money? Do we bury them in the ground? Do we hoard them for ourselves? Do we understand they’re meant to be used? That applies to us at both the individual level and at the congregational level. What do we do with the talents (both abilities and money) God has given us?
So, to sum up, the first reading of the parable would likely have us saying the “one talent” servant is a cowardly villain. Can we change our perception, our point of view, like I mentioned earlier, to consider him a courageous hero? Let’s see how that could happen.
We need to remember what I said about Jesus’ audience, about their being peasants — ordinary people with very little money.
When Jesus begins talking about the rich man who entrusts his boys with money, that’s something they understand very well. Our friend Linda says they “would have known right away that Jesus was speaking of the people who owned their homes, the ones who would raise taxes, the ones with the power to alter the laws, put constraints on their freedoms, and to keep them in a state of poverty.”
The rich man’s three guys “would have orders to get the money multiplied in any way they saw fit — including putting even more pressure on the peasants. The system was corrupt, and the rich continued to get richer and the poor poorer.”
The third servant doesn’t play along. When his boss chews him out, he says he should have at least invested the money and made sure he received interest. Some of the people listening to Jesus might know how the torah, the law of Moses, speaks against receiving interest (Exodus 22:25). “If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not exact interest from them.”
That’s a key part of our economic system!
Also, in those days, burying money was considered to be a good way to protect it. They didn’t have safe deposit boxes!
The “one talent” servant wants nothing to do with this crooked business of wringing money from the poor. He knows his boss is “a harsh man, reaping where [he] did not sow, and gathering where [he] did not scatter seed” (v. 24). The third servant knows he is endangering his position. He might wind up among the poor, the ones he’s trying to defend.
When he buries the talent, he knows very well he’s taking a big risk. So from this point of view, he could be considered a courageous hero.
Maybe the “one talent” servant doesn’t fit the binary nature of villain versus hero. Maybe the personality, the character, of the servant is more nuanced. Maybe the servant is simply human. I said earlier Jesus was a master at dealing with perception. Here’s a great example.
Much hinges on how we perceive the master. Is the master benevolent or malevolent? Is the master kind and compassionate? Is the master malignant and malicious?
By extension, how do we perceive God? Is God kind and compassionate? Is God malignant and malicious?
And how do we perceive ourselves? Are we kind and compassionate? Are we malignant and malicious? Is it one or the other? Is it some cruel and caring communion? Mortal, mixed-up creatures that we are, we need help, we need salvation whatever the case.
We have the assurance nothing can “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).
If we see our Lord, not as the harsh master, but as he calls us, his friends, then we are set free to use our talents. We are set free from the demands of a world that constantly says we have to prove ourselves. We are set free to use our talents, not for ours or anyone else’s glory, but for the glory of God.
