In the nineteenth century, communist leaders like Karl Marx introduced the slogan “each according to need” where they used class need analysis as their basic method for understanding society. (in his writing Critique of the Gotha program, published in 1875). Communists and Marxists recognize that fairness has a lot to do with the need of the society. They advocate that the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth should be owned or regulated by the community or the government. There is no privately owned property because they believe individual ownership will result in inequality and suffering. Wealth should be redistributed based on need. Individuals have a sense of entitlement from the society. Capitalism on the other hand encourages private ownership for profit, rather than controlled by the state. Individuals have freedom to choose what to do, and make a profit or not. It involves accountability and hard work.
In this story a wealthy man goes on a long journey and leaves three servants in charge of his money without any strings attached except to do business with it. The master made these servants his business partners. They had complete control over large amounts of money for a period that was probably many years. The owner determined who got how much on the basis of their abilities and gave five, two and one each. He knew the talents of his workers workers and gave each according to ability. We’re not told of any instructions he gives them. They seem to have been given the right to do whatever they saw fit with the money. The master was generous in giving them the opportunity by risking his own money. He himself was taking a great risk. He did not have to do it. It also shows his respect towards his employees.
Two of the servants go to work immediately with the money doubled what they had. They’ve done quite well – 100% return on the master’s investment. They took risks. They worked hard with what they had. The one who had been given one talent went and buried the talent in the ground and the master’s response was swift and harsh and said that he should have invested that money with the bankers that would have earned some interest. The master ordered that the talent be taken away from the lazy servant and given to the one with the ten talents. The value of a free talent becomes huge when compared with the loss of investment opportunity. Free gifts of life are not cheap. When you lose your eye sight, the value becomes precious. When you lose the ability to move around, you recognize the value of good feet. You notice your ability to breathe only when you get a shortness of breath. We take a lot of things for granted. Be thankful that the Master is a generous master.
Our talents are gifts from the master, freely given without condition. Life is a gift of time filled with opportunities and possibilities. It may not be always equally distributed. The first two were driven by the joy of gain; they had vision, faith in themselves and trust in God. Great stewardship leads to great success. The ones who put to use the money the master gave them were given even more and were invited to share in the Master’s joy. We cannot get results without effort. Success does not come without sacrifice. You cannot get good grades without studying hard. A blessed marriage is a result of commitment and faithfulness. To keep a healthy body we need to listen to the doctor and keep up with the exercise and the diet discipline. Rewards and raises are given to finishers, not starters.
The man with the one talent was driven by the fear of loss rather than the joy of gain. The alternative to profit is loss, and surely the loss of wealth, especially when it is due to a lack of initiative. Churches can more often be paralyzed by the fear of loss than joy of gain. Many churches avoid taking bold steps to reach out to the needy. The last talent is the hardest one to let go of. We are afraid if we fail, we lose everything. The opposite of gain is loss. We lose the souls that need Jesus, we lose opportunities around us to bring people to Jesus. He also had a wrong view of the master. “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid.”
A fairness ethic pervades in the form of equal distribution in the world today. We are taught that the inequality that exists among people are somehow not natural. The fact is that diversity is woven into the fabric of creation. We are not all created with equal abilities. There is equality found in this parable in that the returns expected by the master were based on the investment. It takes just as much work for the five-talent servant to produce five more talents as it does the two-talent servant to produce two more talents. This is why the reward given by the master is the same. The master measures success by degrees of effort. The prophet Isaiah wrote on we are given talents to help each other. , “The Carpenter and encouraged the goldsmith” (Isaiah 41 7). The one who smooths with the hammer encourages the one who strikes the anvil. The Carpenter operates on wood to the goldsmith on gold. One uses a hammer and chisel the other works with the fine instruments you might think the goldsmith is higher skilled and inspired the carpenter but it is the other way around. Our callings are different; our talents are different.
This parable has good resemblance to the parable of the talents in Luke 19:11-26, where the landlord gave one talent to each of the servants. One servant made ten out of the one, and another made five out of the one. But one hid it under a cloth. Certain things are given to us equally. All of us have been given 24 hours a day, most of us can see, walk, and have reasonable ability to move around. These are unmerited gifts, given before we asked. He does not condemn the one who returned only five times against the one who returned ten times. Jesus said, "Work while it is day. The night is coming when you won’t be able to work anymore. So roll up your sleeves. Get busy, and don’t stop."
We live for a greater purpose than ourselves. God has placed an investment in the valuable life in this world. Make use of it to bless the people around and the world at large. We are stewards of the time. The money or the profit are not ours to keep. We leave all these at the time of death. We should maximize the use of our talents not for our own purposes, but to honor God.
Blessings
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