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News and Society > Religion > Investing Talents
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Article rating : 0.00, 0 votes. Author : Dave McKay
The parable of the talents must be (amongst churchgoers)
one of the most popular of all the parables of Jesus. Church
leaders often point out that it is a parable about someone
investing money and getting more money back. They often
assume that Jesus must be supporting the concept of
working for money by teaching it.
But, of course, a parable is a parable, and not a model for
anyone to follow literally.
The parable appears in Matthew 25:14-30. It really is a
wonderful parable, when we have even a modicum of
hunger for the sincere truth of what it is saying. Jesus starts
by saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like..." This is the
indication that it is a parable. He is not saying that the
kingdom of heaven is a simple matter of making
money. Rather, he is saying that there is some kind of a
similarity between principles in the kingdom of heaven and
the kind of material principles illustrated in the parable.
So what principles are being illustrated in the parable?
Basically, people are being asked to look after something,
in the absence of the person who has gone "into a far
country". Assuming that Jesus is the person who has gone
away, and we are the people who have been entrusted with
something, the big question becomes, "What has he left us
in charge of?"
The common assumption is "money" (or the means to
make money). Both answers (money and the means to
make it) are consistent with the word "talent", since it was a
word for money in those days, and it is also a word for
something that can be used to make money in our
modern vocabulary.
But, of course, what God has entrusted us with are "true
(spiritual) riches". This is neither the money nor the jobs
(i.e. the means to make money) that so fill the attention of
the world today (both inside and out of the churches). His
true riches are the teachings of Jesus and the promptings
of the Holy Spirit. So Jesus is saying, through the parable,
that we need to give serious thought to what we are doing
with the wonderful blessing of his teachings and his Spirit.
Notice that the other issue of importance in the parable is
one of "risk". In the parable, the people who get out there
and take a few risks are actually rewarded for it. The villain,
on the other hand, is not only rebuked for having failed to
take any risks, but he is actually "cast into outer darkness"
where there is "weeping and wailing and gnashing of
teeth"... and all because he tried to play it safe. Where he is
sent, by the way, is a description of what we traditionally call
hell.
This aspect of the story, in itself, contradicts the churchy
teaching that you don't have to do anything to get to heaven,
that Jesus has done it all for you. The gospels, of course,
are full of stories about people being punished severely and
often eternally for not doing things. So you have to
wonder what Bible these people are reading to have
concluded that Jesus doesn't require discipline from his
followers, and that he would never consign anyone to hell
for disobedience.
The parable says that the man who goes into a far country
(Jesus) is an "austere" man, exercising strong discipline.
Even the bad guy knew that. But his "safe" alternative was to
do nothing. And this illustrates a far-ranging and extremely
serious flaw
in religious thinking, which is that, if you do
nothing, you have done nothing wrong. This is the thinking
behind the entire anti-cult mentality. Everyone is looking for
a safe, lukewarm, risk-free church, where they can be
guaranteed salvation entirely on the grounds that they have
done nothing so radical as to risk being called a heretic.
This obsession with orthodoxy is precisely the sort of thing
that Jesus was attacking with his parable about the
talents.
Obviously it was risky to follow Jesus. It was physically
dangerous, as history has shown. Virtually all of his first
followers met early deaths because of the extreme hatred
that the system had for what they were saying. (How does
that compare with your supposedly "safe" churches
today?) So that was a physical risk.
But there was also the risk of genuinely falling for some
religious heresy, and thus displeasing God in the process.
Jesus, for example, dared to contradict Moses with regard to
divorce, he dared to at least appear to be breaking the law
about sabbath observances, he dared to condemn the
entire religious establishment (despite the fact that there
were probably exceptions), and he dared to associate with
(and even commend) people who were notoriously "off" in
their religious beliefs. Aren't these exactly the sort of things
that the church world lives in fear of doing today?
The anti-cult mentality tries to avoid all contact with any form
of extreme religious belief, and to align itself as much as
possible with the mainstream of Christianity.
I'll give an example of this. A so-called cult expert in
Australia (David Millikan) in a television report, expressed
shock that The Family (formerly known as the Children of
God) were encouraging people to masturbate. But he did
this at the same time that he showed no concern at all
about his own denomination (The Uniting Church)
supporting homosexuality and adultery. He also
condemned (on national television) another small Christian
group (the Jesus Christians) for teaching what he called
"self-mutilation" because a number of their members
donated kidneys to people to save their lives.
The guy was obviously straining at gnats and swallowing
camels, but the point I am making here is that openly
teaching that masturbation is not sinful, or donating a kidney
to save someone's life, both constitute things that are not
"normally" taught by churches. The non-risk-takers are
scared of anything that is different, even if a few years from
now, with a bit more perspective both practices are not
going to sound shocking at all. Normalcy is the no-risk
believer's only hope of salvation. And so they are more or
less obligated to condemn anything that is different, just as
Millikan had done.
But where does such conformity and mediocrity get you? It
gets you right in line behind the guy who was sent into outer
darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and
gnashing of teeth. Is that really where you want to go? If not,
then determine, right now, to stop taking the "safe" way and
to start listening to a few alternatives to mediocrity. You may
make some mistakes, but overall you will grow spiritually.
And far from being damned for doing that, you will be
amongst those who are rewarded eternally for having taken
a few risks.
(See also The Reno Principle.)
Dave and Cherry McKay are co-founders of the Jesus
Christian communities, with teams in Australia, Kenya,
England, and the U.S. Email them at: or
visit their website at: http://www.jesuschristians.com
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