Law, one of the most valuable achievements of humanity, exists to hold these struggles somewhat in check. It is quite right that workers living in such a society struggle for their rights. In a world built on rivalry they have no other choice. The masterful art of the parable consists precisely in the way it shows, with the greatest possible economy of words and images, how God’s new world suddenly erupts into this world of the old society. For the story ends differently from what the hearers expect. They expect the last workers, who were idle almost all day, to receive only a couple of copper coins. That they receive exactly as much as the first must have been a great shock to Jesus’ listeners. The ground was ripped from under their feet. All previous standards were removed. But if they open themselves to the parable they do not fall into nothingness but find their feet standing on the ground of the reign of God, God’s new society.
In the reign of God, different rules apply. It is true that people work from morning to night here too. God’s world is not a land of the lotus eaters. But here work has dignity, and no one need go home in the evening filled with worry and anxiety. No one is alone. Above all: it is possible to live without rivalry because there is now something greater and more expansive than all one’s own desires: work for God’s cause. Precisely this common cause desired by everyone creates a solidarity that makes it possible to suffer with the suffering of others and to join in others’ joy.
Of course, in the world of the parable this new society has not yet come to fruition. It is proleptically visible only in the landowner, who—contrary to all experience in the old society—is “good” (20:15). The Greek text uses agathos for “good.” The word is usually translated “generous” here: “Are you envious because I am generous?” That is how the NRSV has the landowner speak to one of the resentful workers. But the Greek text, when literally translated, has “is your eye evil because I am good?” That is not quite the same, because in its basic meaning agathos means “good” in the sense of “usable,” “suitable,” “appropriate,” “proper.” When the landowner gives the last just as much as the first he acts properly, reasonably, and therefore well. He is, of course, not “reasonable” according to the standards of a society shaped by struggles to divide things but reasonable by the standards of the reign of God. Jesus was the first to fully grasp the reasonableness of the reign of God. It is reflected, for example, in his demands in the Sermon on the Mount. Renunciation of violence (Matt 5:38-42) is the only possible way to bring about genuine peace. Jesus rejected all violence in principle and thus set in motion a sequence of effects that could not have been foreseen. Therefore he is the suitable, the appropriate, person.
Yet again: at the moment when Jesus tells the story, the new thing has not yet begun to spread. It is proleptically visible only in him, the most suitable person for the reign of God. But it is also already visible in his disciples and sympathizers: namely, at the moment when they abandon their own rivalries and assist one another in solidarity.
All this has probably made it clear that we miss the meaning of the parable if we designate its theme simply as the overflowing generosity of God. Obviously, it ultimately speaks of God’s limitless and undeserved generosity, but if the parable was about only that it would be completely devoid of obligatory character. Every believer speaks today of God’s generosity; such talk costs nothing and changes nothing. If Jesus had talked only about the generous God he would not have been crucified.
The grumbling of the workers hired at the first hour reflects the grumbling of those contemporaries of Jesus who were outraged by the new thing he was beginning with his disciples: a common life growing out of constant forgiveness and solidarity and in which, therefore, latecomers and sinners who had not offered any service found their place. Jesus was reproached again and again for eating with tax collectors and sinners.
Thus Matthew 20:1-15 is not about some abstract characteristic of God. Jesus speaks of the boundless generosity of God solely from the point of view that this generosity is now reality since his own appearance and is so in the form of a new society that is beginning to grow around him and through him. The parable speaks of how this new reality is breaking into the weariness and hopelessness of the people of God. It is an outrageous process. It makes the lowest into the highest; it awakens deep anxieties; it causes scandal. But it also allows hope to bloom and bestows deep joy.
In the parable of the hired workers Jesus depicts what is now happening, at this very hour: the coming of the reign of God. He interprets what is already taking place before his hearers’ eyes, its impact still hidden and yet visible. The parable does not provide a timeless teaching. It reveals things that are already happening and by revealing them sets them free. A new possibility for living becomes plausible.
The hearers can depend on the parable’s import. They can enter into the story the parable tells and allow Jesus’ words to give them a new foundation on which to stand. They can ask Jesus to make them part of his group of disciples where the new thing is already beginning to grow. Or they can become sympathizers with the Jesus movement and thus support the new world that is beginning there.
Thus, Jesus’ words are effective. They create reality. In the parable of the workers in the vineyard, which so exactly describes the gloomy social conditions of his time, Jesus was also surely thinking that the time of harvest in Israel must again become what, in God’s eyes, it should always have been: a time of jubilation and shouts of joy.
The Seed Growing Secretly
It is surely clear by now that Jesus’ parables illuminate the reign of God from all sides; still more, they entice us to enter into it. And because the reign of God cannot be reduced to simple formulae, Jesus’ parables often seem to contradict each other. We can show this through three examples.
The first of these is the parable of the seed growing secretly (Mark 4:26-29). It is one of Jesus’ loveliest parables: short, compact, positively functional in its direct and virtually unadorned style, and yet imbued with a marvelous hope:
The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.
This parable tells of the coming of the reign of God in the image of a field that produces seed and allows it to grow steadily until harvest. The accent is not on the sowing. The farmer who sowed the seed is part of the plan of the parable. Nor is the accent on the harvest. It too is simply part of the frame that holds together the central and focal part of the parable. What is crucial is only the description of how the wheat grows while the farmer does nothing. Only here, in the central part of the parable, is there a description of “phases.” Only here does the narrative become detailed.
That is very strange to people today. As biologically enlightened moderns they know how the seed grows and why it grows and what one can do to make it grow faster or slower, taller or shorter, and above all pest-resistant. The work of today’s agricultural engineers is by no means finished when the seed is sown. At the least, there is still spraying to be done.
At that time in Galilee or Judea it was quite different. The parable depicts the impossibility of intervening in the growth of the seed. The farmers had to wait. They slept and rose, day and night, and the earth produced its yield “of itself.” Human beings could not understand or influence the miracle of growth. They only knew that God’s creative power was at work and in the end gave the harvest.
From beginning to end the parable is about the coming of the reign of God. It is not about the fact that the reign of God will only come if first the seed is sown. It is certainly not about the idea that the reign of God comes slowly, as grain gradually ripens. Its point is solely that human beings cannot bring about or force the coming of God’s reign, most certainly not by violence, as the Zealots thought p
ossible. They can only wait. They may sleep quietly at night. God brings the reign of God. God alone.
The parable shows the creative power and historical might of God. No one will prevent God from working and bringing God’s salvation. The human response to this knowledge of God can only be a deep, calm trust in God.
The Other Aspect of the Matter
And yet that is only one side of the story. For on the other hand the same Jesus calls his hearers to absolute decisiveness and a marshaling of all their strength in light of the reign of God. In the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, mentioned above, we find a parable that points in that very direction. It portrays a resistance fighter who plans a political murder and prepares himself at home to the last detail. Again and again he draws his sword and thrusts it into the mud wall of his house. When he is sure that he is quick enough and strong enough, he goes out to impale the man who is to be eliminated.
That parable resembles in many respects the similitude about the deceitful manager (Luke 16:1-7). The story itself is just as immoral, the event is described with the same soberness and precision, and the real message points in the same direction. Therefore, we may regard the parable of the terrorist as an authentic Jesus parable. It reads: “The Father’s reign is like a person who wanted to kill someone powerful. While still at home he drew his sword and thrust it into the wall to find out whether his hand would go in. Then he killed the powerful one” (GThom 98).
Here again we should note the catechetical brevity. Obviously a good storyteller would develop the parable in more detail. But a good storyteller like Jesus would place the emphasis in his depiction of events on the preparatory self-reassurance or training of the terrorist because that, and not the carrying out of the murder, is the crucial point. The murder can be taken care of with a short statement, because what the storyteller means to say is something different: the reign of God demands a person’s whole commitment. One may not go to sleep but must engage passionately, do everything one can in order to obtain a share in the reign of God. Only “the violent bear it away” (Matt 11:12).
The Parable of the Talents
Thus the reign of God requires people who go for broke. That is exactly the point of the parable of the talents or, as it is often called, the parable of the “money given in trust”:
[With the heavenly reign] it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves 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.
The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, “Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”
And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, “Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”
Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.”
But his master replied, “You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.
“So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matt 25:14-30)
At first glance it seems that everything about this parable is clear. Apparently it means to say that God has given each person different abilities and expects that each will apply the abilities given to her or him. At any rate, that is how the parable is commonly interpreted. God requires much of those to whom God has given much; from those to whom less has been given, less is accordingly required.
But was that all Jesus wanted to say? Did he only mean that “you should apply the abilities God has given you”? Jesus was executed for what he said and did. Let me repeat: nobody is executed for teaching nothing more than bourgeois morality.
But there are other problems with the parable. In Matthew’s gospel it is included in a larger composition of parables about the return of the Son of Man, that is, the Christ of the Parousia. It is quite clear that Matthew (and the early church with him) understood the parable in that light. The master who goes away is now the exalted Christ. When he returns he will demand a reckoning from each according to her or his abilities. The accounting given by the slaves is thus the judgment of the world. Whoever withstands the judgment receives a share in the eternal banquet of joy (“enter into the joy of your master”). But those, like the third slave, who do not withstand the judgment will lose everything and will be thrown into the outermost darkness.
Thus Matthew interpreted the traditional Jesus parable, in light of the early church’s expectation of the return of Christ, as being about the judgment of the world, and apparently in doing so he also made changes in the text of the parable. In using it for his own teaching he updated it. That is the right of every Christian teacher. Every preacher today also does something similar in interpreting the Sunday gospel: she or he brings it up to date. Luke did something similar with parallel material in the parable of the pounds (Luke 19:11-27).
None of that should prevent us from inquiring about the meaning Jesus intended in the parable. Was Jesus really talking about his own return in the parable of the talents? What was this parable about originally?
A Millionaire on a Business Trip
We can most readily enter into the imagery of the parable if we begin with the figure of the man who hands out the talents to his slaves. This is another of those immoral figures we encounter rather often, as we have seen, in Jesus’ parables. This “master” is one of the very wealthy, because he hands out enormous sums of money to his “slaves” or “servants”—that is, highly placed slaves or employees with significant responsibilities. In addition, this man is a boaster because he calls these huge sums “a few things,” or “a little,” that is, minor matters. That is, of course, an obvious understatement. Bankers nowadays talk casually of “peanuts” in much the same way. This boaster confirms quite candidly in his dialogue with the third slave that he conducts his business in immoral ways: “You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter?” (Matt 25:26 // Luke 19:22). That is, the man uses evil methods in his business. He exploits other people. He lends money at usurious rates. He collects harshly; he sucks up everything. Probably he speculates habitually in high-risk ventures. Now he goes abroad for a while, perhaps to exploit new financial sources or to collect money.
In any case, this reconstruction of the original story in the parable is partly hypothetical. It could also be that the sums entrusted were elevated so enormously by Matthew himself, since the Lukan parallel speaks of “minas” (Luke 19:13), which are considerably less valuable than talents. In that case “trustworthy in a few things” (Luke 19:17) would not be ironic but intended seriously. But even if the original parable went that
way, what follows must in any case have been part of it: slaves one and two are worthy reflections of their master. While he is abroad they each increase the capital entrusted to them by a hundred percent. That, obviously, could not have been done with solid buying and selling but only by methods executed behind closed doors, by daring acts outside the realm of legality that, of course, corresponded exactly to those of the master.
The third slave is afraid to run such risks. He dares nothing, not even depositing the money given to him in a “private bank.” After all, even a bank could go bankrupt. He hides his master’s money in the storehouse most commonly used in antiquity: he buries it. In this way he loses nothing, but he makes not a cent of profit.
And precisely in that way he loses everything. He belongs to a company that values lightning-fast action, initiative, pleasure in risk, and—high returns. When his master returns from abroad, the third slave is kicked out. His professional existence is destroyed.
Thus in telling his parable, as he sometimes does, Jesus makes use of unusual, tension-building material. The stuff of the story he tells is neither religious nor moral. Jesus places his listeners in a world that is harsh and reckless. People there who do not risk everything cannot last. They will be fired.
What a bold move, to make a statement about the reign of God in terms of immoral material, a story from the world of speculators and players! And what a demand lies behind this parable! For what it means to say should be clear in the context of the other parables we have already discussed. Jesus is talking about the plan God has for the world. He speaks of the new thing God wants to create in the midst of the old society. This, God’s cause, Jesus says, will not succeed with cowards, with people who are immovable, who are constantly trying to make themselves secure, who would rather delay than act. God’s new society only succeeds with people who are ready to risk, who put everything on the table, who go for broke and become “perpetrators” with ultimate decisiveness.
Jesus of Nazareth Page 16