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Matt 25:14-30
The Parable of the Talents
"Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money."After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.'
"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
"The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.'
"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
"Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.'
"His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
" 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A few mew thoughts that struck me, even as we're discussing the parable through:
1) It is written that the master came back after a long time. The first thing that struck me was why did the master took such a long time. Then I remembered the amount of wealth that he entrusted to his servants. It's not exactly a small sum of money. Our facilitator mentioned that in those days, a talent is roughly equivalent to 5 years' of wages. Some more the first servant received 5 talents, that's 25 year's worth of "moola" and "ching ching"!*
If the master came back, maybe after a week or two, and demanded an accounting, then the third servant's accusation of the master being a "hard man" would be justified. So I think the master took his time to come back, not only because he had already entrusted his property to his three "amigoes", but because he wanted to give them enough time to earn back on their investments.
2) We always tend to look at the third servant and say "Tsk tsk, how can he be like that?" But many times we are exactly like the thrid servant. Like one of our co-workers said, it's interesting that we can have two different kind of responses from the three servants. Sometimes we can just miss the point, even when we've been a long time with our Master.
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* Let say in modern times, a worker received $3,000 per month. That's $36,000 a year. So the first servant was given a whopping 900,000 "big kahuna" to invest, the second servant was given 360,000 "ching ching" to work with; and the third servant 36,000
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