Matthew 25:14-30 continues the parables of Jesus reaching back to 24:3. It might be good to review these previous parables to get a sense of development of them. How does the “parable of the talents” continue the parable of the bridesmaids?

We often make the mistake of separating this parable from what precedes it. The Greek reads at the beginning of the parable “for it is as if a man, going on a journey” rather than the additions that many English translations put into the text. The parable continues the question of the same type of preparation that the bridegrooms provided. Which characters in the first parable relate to parallel characters in the second?

After you work through the parable, and then the passages which follow, see how well you think Stanley Hauerwas reads the passage:

“No parable has been misused than Jesus’ parable of the talents. Once any parable is abstracted from Jesus proclamation of the kingdom . . . misreading is inevitable. . . . Speculative uses of the parable have even been employed to justify economic practices that are antithetical to Jesus’s clear judgment that we cannot serve God and mammon. Jesus is no using this parable to recommend that we should work hard, make all we can, to give all we can. Rather, the parable is a clear judgment against those who think they deserve what they have earned, as wll as those who do not know how precious is the gift they have been given.” (Matthew, pp. 209-10).

He goes on to write, “the one with on talent assumed that he or she was part of a zero-sum game. Those who assume that life is a zero-sum game think that if one person receives an honor then someone else is made poorer. So the slave with one talent feared losing what he had been given, with the result htat he tried to turn the gift into a possession. In contrast, the first two slaves recognized that to try to secure the gifts they had been given means that the gifts would be lost. They joy of the wedding banquet and the joy into which the m aster invites his slaves that had not tried to protect what they had been given is the joy that comes from learning to receive a gift without regret. . . . Each of these parables teach us how to wait patently as those who have received the gift of being called to be a disciple of Jesus. Jesus’s disciples are not called to do great things, although great things may happen. Rather, Jesus’ disciples are called to do the work that Jesus has given us to do—work as simple and hard as learning to tell the truth and to love our enemies. Such work is the joy that our master invites us to share” (p. 210).