Be Daring: SALT's Commentary for Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Year A): Matthew 25:14-30

Big Picture:

1) Wrapping up his formal teaching ministry, Jesus turns, appropriately enough, to three parables about “the end of the age,” the full flowering of God’s coming kingdom — and what we should do in the meantime. Indeed, his point is very much about the here and now: he means to exhort his listeners to live mindful, daring, generous lives.

2) Mindful: as we saw last week, in the first parable he compares this flowering to a joyous wedding banquet, and exhorts his listeners to “keep awake” and be prepared to celebrate. Daring: this week’s parable is an extension of the same line of thought, this time counseling not only readiness but also a kind of courage. Generous: and next week we’ll tackle one of the most famous passages in the New Testament, a story of a shepherd-king, some sheep, and some goats.

3) The Greek word doule in this passage is typically translated as “slave,” but it can also mean “servant.”

4) More than once in his teaching, Jesus uses a “how much more” form of argument. For example, encouraging prayer, Jesus contends that if his listeners “know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your God in heaven give good things to those who ask!” (Matt 7:11). Or again, assuring his listeners that God cares for them: “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will God not much more clothe you?” (Matt 6:30). This week’s parable has a similar underlying design. If even this scoundrel invites his servants “into his joy” when they make wise, fruitful use of his resources, how much more will God, the just and generous Maker of all things, invite us into God’s joy when we do the same?

Scripture:

1) The passage’s first few words — “For it is as if…” — make clear that this parable is an extension of the one Jesus has just told, the parable of the ten bridesmaids, essentially an exhortation to await Jesus’ return with wisdom and readiness to joyfully celebrate. Keep awake, Jesus says, and keep your lamps trimmed and burning. For it is as if a man, going on a journey…

2) A “talent” was an astronomical sum of money, roughly equivalent to 15-20 years of wages for the average worker in those days. In the United States today, the average salary is about $60,000 per year, so “five talents” would be equivalent to something on the order of five million dollars; “two talents,” just over $2 million; and “one talent,” about $1 million. The English word, “talent,” meaning “a special natural ability,” derives in part from this ancient sense of “a valuable gift.”

3) The first two servants get down to business right away, “trading” the funds with resourceful daring and insight, eventually doubling their seed money in each case. But a third servant takes a timid, unimaginative approach, burying the money for fear of losing it. When the kyrios (“lord” or “master”) returns, he praises the first two for their trustworthiness, grants them even more responsibility, and — in a striking phrase echoing the parable of the ten bridesmaids — invites them to “enter into the joy of your master” (Matt 25:21,23). But he scolds the timid servant for being so fearful and complacent, and sends him away into “outer darkness.”

4) We should be careful here not to make a simple one-to-one correspondence between God (or Jesus specifically) on the one hand and the kyrios in the parable on the other. Parables aren’t strict allegories, with each character “standing for” someone or something in the real world in a straightforward way; rather, parables are little gymnasiums for thinking, designed to help us catch a glimpse of an idea or a way of living that’s otherwise difficult to describe. In this case, the overall point is to help us imagine a daring, creative, fruitful way of life. Moreover, “the master” in the parable is called “a harsh man, reaping where [he] did not sow” (Matt 25:24). As he often does, Jesus is using a “how much more” form of argument here: If even this harsh, intemperate master will invite resourceful servants “into his joy,” how much more will the faithful, merciful God of love and justice do the same?

Takeaways:

1) Following on the heels of the parable of the bridesmaids, this is “Part 2” of a parabolic pair exhorting us to avoid foolish complacency and embrace a wise, active form of awaiting Jesus’ joyful return. Like the first two servants in the parable, we should roll up our sleeves and get to work with daring and imagination, utilizing the gifts God gives us for the sake of God’s mission, and ultimately for the sake of God’s joy. Invest your gifts, be courageous enough to take some wise risks, and multiply the good God is doing in and through you — for the love of the world!

2) The metaphor here is financial, but this is no prosperity gospel or paean to capitalism: after all, the servants in the parable are expanding the master’s wealth, not their own — and in any case, elsewhere in Matthew’s account, Jesus is crystal clear about the dangers of wealth (see, for example, Matt 6:24). Rather, Jesus is using money as a parabolic figure for “value” more generally, poetically calling us toward a more fearless, resourceful way of life.

3) What kind of life does God want you to live? A mindful, joyful life (last week’s parable); a daring, fruitful life (this week’s); and finally, a generous, compassionate life (next week’s grand finale).

4) And what sort of “daring” does Jesus have in mind? Not the reckless, thrill-seeking sort, but rather the wise, generative sort, the kind of boldness that perceptively surveys any given situation, and then — with vigor, hope, and imagination — invests resources (money, yes, and also time and effort and talent and humor and all the good things God gives us every day) in ways that amplify and multiply the goodness of the world. The kingdom of heaven is coming, indeed is dawning even now, and it’s breaking into the world in and through our daring, our chutzpah, our audacious trust that one good thing can become two.

5) Want to live this courageous kind of life? Start with an inventory of the gifts God has given you — your particular gifts, not someone else’s. How can you put them to fruitful, imaginative, adventurous use? What opportunities are near at hand? What good thing can you double (or triple, for that matter)? And on the other hand: what gifts have you buried, for fear of disappointing yourself or others?

6) The good news of the Gospel this week is that God calls us to this kind of daring life, both individually and as communities (congregations, neighborhoods, towns, cities, and so on). And best of all, God pairs this invitation with the promise of entering into divine joy. For if even the harsh masters of the world delight in bold ingenuity, how much more will the God of love and grace delight in it! So go in peace, yes, and also go in courage. Be daring!