The Third Servant

24 Then the one who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Sir, I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered, ‘Evil and lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I didn’t sow and gather where I didn’t scatter? 27 Then you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received my money back with interest! 28 Therefore take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten. 29 For the one who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 30 And throw that worthless slave into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’” Matthew 25:24-30

This one is going to be quite a departure for me.  I am certainly not a person who is overt in religion, nor do I speak of religion very often.  I was raised in a very liberal Catholic parish with a very liberal Catholic family.  I attended Catholic school for twelve years and studied the religion each and every one of those years.  You could say that my religious background and training was probably at least as rigorous, if not more so, than most.

Yet, perhaps in spite of that, or perhaps because of it, I find myself drifting in my faith.  Many of my problems stem from profound and fundamental differences with the teachings of the Catholic Church, especially the teachings both on spiritual and worldly matters coming out of the Vatican of our current Pope.  Other differences are more due to my own understandings of God, the world, the afterlife, which I believe may be more profound, but still in keeping with the teachings of Christian religion, but what many would hear as anything but.

Be that as it may, I find myself in an almost continual process of returning and then once again fleeing from the Church and religion in general.  Sometimes I seriously and deeply miss the Church.  Sometimes I find that my life is perfectly content without it.

But every once in a while I am so struck by something that I hear when attending Mass that it literally overwhelms me, excites me and makes me long for the Church in which I was raised.

Such an event happened this past Sunday.  I was attending Mass with my wife and daughter and my wife's parents at their parish in High Point.  The Gospel reading was the Parable of the Talents.  Many of us have heard this Gospel reading tens if not hundreds of times in our life.  The gist goes like this -- the Master sends out three of his servants (slaves, really) each with a certain number of Talents (a denomination of money) and asks them to be fruitful in their investment of it.  The first two when the return have doubled their money and give their Master the money with interest and are rewarded by sharing in the masters wealth.  The third servant, however, returns with the one Talent he was given and what happens from there is not good for the servant as quoted above at the beginning of the post.

Every time I remember this being read at Mass, the homily that followed was some variation on one of the two following themes: 1) you must be faithful to God when entrusted by Him and if you are you will be rewarded with great happiness in Heaven; 2) using Talents metaphorically, use your talents in the community and spread them throughout and you will be justly rewarded.  In both of these interpretations, it is clear (as it has been taught my whole life) that the first two servants are the ones to emulate if you want happiness.

What always bothered me about this, is that the Master never seemed like a very good person.  First off, he owned slaves.  God was certainly never shown anywhere else that I can recall as a slave master and his disciples were never called slaves.  The other thing was that the master in addition to being a slave master was also a pretty bad guy -- he sows where he does not reap and he gathers where he has not scattered.  In other words, he's a thief.  I also found it disconcerting that he is apparently advising the third servant to invest the money in a bank for interest, which must be a Roman bank, since lending at interest violates Talmudic law -- so on top of everything else, the dude's a bad Jew (or worse yet an occupying foreigner and oppressor).

The priest in my in-laws church stated in his Homily that he also had the same problems with this particular parable.  But, when he was shown a different interpretation by a priest who was an expert in the Gospels and especially the parables, the reading took on a whole new and powerful meaning.  I want to share it with you.

The Third Servant is the good guy.  The Palestine of Christ's day was similar is some ways to the world today in that the vast majority of wealth was kept in the hands of a very few.  The Masters grew their wealth through the means of sending out their minions to increase their wealth in whatever way they could, usually through unethical and illegal means (thus the reaping where he has not sown and gathering where he has not scattered).  What the Third Servant does is refuse to take part in a corrupted and unjust system in order to benefit his Master to the detriment of others.  As a result of refusing to take part in this system, he suffers great personal destruction, being thrown out into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The priest went on to explain that this was a way to prepare his followers for the immense deprivations and attacks they would receive for refusing to take part in the system against which Christ's teachings were standing.  Perhaps he was even preparing them for His own death wherein he was taken from the walls of Jerusalem a mere week after arriving to loud Hosannas and celebrations, to be crucified on a wooden cross.

What is most significant about this interpretation, and I will say that it immediately struck a chord in me to the point where I am convinced that this is the correct interpretation of this story, is that I know there are many who will or who have used this story to justify their own greed or exploitation of others.  I can see Herman Cain quoting this to explain that if you are poor it's because you are lazy just like the Third Servant.  But this interpretation pulls back the curtain on this wrong-headed argument and shows how it is not the Master who should be emulated, but it is the Master who should be condemned by us for his greed, opulence and exploitation.

The parallels to what is going on today are obvious.  Those who are taking a stand against a system which doles out unearned and unjustified riches to the Masters who reap where they have not sown are suffering greatly.  In New York, Oakland, Portland, Chapel Hill and elsewhere in the United States they are paying through arrest, deprivation of rights and sometimes physical injury.  In Damascus, Cairo, Tripoli, Yemen and across other parts of the world they have paid and are paying for it with their lives.

But the fight is the right one.  Will we be like the First two servants going on blithely supporting our Masters and enriching them for our short term gain supporting a system which will inevitably result in our destruction?  Or will we be like the Third Servant suffering the deprivations of ostricisation we will receive by refusing this system, only to achieve greater rewards when our Masters are brought to justice?  The choice is ours.