John Martignoni: The Parable of the Talents (pt.1)

Q: I recently heard a new interpretation of the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) that basically says the master in the parable is greedy and cruel and is not representative of God.  According to this view, the master is part of an unjust economic system that preys on the poor and that the servants who received the 5 talents and the 2 talents and multiplied them were participating in this unjust system, but the one who buried the talent given to him and did nothing with it was the hero of the story for refusing to participate in such an unjust system.  In all honesty, I was shocked when I heard this.  Have you ever heard that version of the parable?  

A: I have indeed heard that version, or interpretation, of the parable, but the first time I heard it was only a few months ago.  That parable was the gospel reading one Sunday this past November, and the day after it was read at Mass, I received several calls and emails from different parts of the country with people saying their priest had given a homily that Sunday that was basically that same version of the parable – the master was greedy and wicked, unjust economic system, the two servants were rewarded for being greedy like their master, and the third servant was the one who acted heroically in protest of the unjust economic conditions and was unjustly punished by the wicked master.

It didn’t require a great deal of thought to realize that if several different priests, from different parts of the country, all gave basically the same homily, on the same day, and all of those homilies had this new “twist” on the Parable of the Talents, then there must be some common source material that they all drew from.  So, I went online and pretty quickly identified the source – the November 7, 2011 edition of America magazine.  

There was an article in that edition of America magazine, written by a Professor of New Testament studies at Catholic Theological Union, that was entitled, “Unmasking Greed.” (Read  the article at: http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/tales/67114973/unmasking-greed.) This article was on the Parable of the Talents and put forth the following notions regarding that parable: 1) the parable offers an “image of how an individual can take measures to undermine a system that allows the rich to become richer while the poor become poorer;” 2) the master in the parable is greedy, cruel, and self-aggrandizing; 3) the third servant is the “honorable one – only he has refused to cooperate in the system by which his master continues to accrue huge amounts of money while others go wanting;” 4) what happened to the third servant is a sobering reminder of “what can happen to those who blow the whistle on the rich and powerful.”  

The author of the article may well be an outstanding Professor of New Testament studies, and is undoubtedly a very intelligent person, but in this particular circumstance, she completely missed the boat.  There are certain principles of scriptural interpretation that one must always keep in mind when interpreting, or exegeting, Sacred Scripture, in order to come up with a valid and sensible interpretation of any given passage, and the author of this article seems to have completely ignored most of these principles.

For example, one principle that you have to keep in mind when interpreting Scripture - or any type of literature, for that matter - is to be mindful of the context.  What is the context of this passage from Matthew 25?  Well, first we see that Matthew 25 starts with the phrase, “Then the Kingdom of Heaven shall be compared to…”  So, we should expect to find in this chapter information regarding the Kingdom of Heaven.  And, the first parable of the chapter does not disappoint.  It is the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids.  Five of the bridesmaids carry extra oil with them, five do not.  When the bridegroom is late in coming, the five who didn’t bring extra oil have to go buy more and they end up being locked out of the wedding feast. In this parable, the bridegroom is Jesus and the bridegroom’s coming is pointing to the return of Christ at the end of time where the faithful will join Him for the eternal wedding feast of the Lamb in Heaven.  It signifies the prudence of those Christians who live with a view to the return of the Bridegroom.  

The last portion of Matthew 25 is a description of the Last Judgment.  And it starts off with, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory…”  In other words, it, too, is all about the return of Christ and, as we see, the eternal reward of the Kingdom of Heaven for those who have rightly conducted themselves.  Just like the opening parable of the chapter.

So, Matthew 25 begins with a parable about the Kingdom of Heaven and the return of Christ, and it ends with a description of the Kingdom of Heaven and the return of Christ, yet the author of “Unmasking Greed” wants us to believe that sandwiched in between those two is a parable that has nothing to do with the Kingdom of Heaven and that the master who goes away and then returns is not representative of Christ, but rather it is a parable about how an individual can undermine an unjust economic system?  Sorry, but that dog don’t hunt.  

Next week: More on the Parable of the Talents…

About John Martignoni John Martignoni is the Director of the Office of Evangelization for the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama and also the President of the Bible Christian Society. John's column, Apologetics 101, appears regularly in the diocesan newspaper, the One Voice.  If you have a question about the Catholic Faith, please send an email to: jmartignoni@bhmdiocese.org.  And check out John's free audio and written apologetics materials at: www.biblechristiansociety.com.