“11 While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. 12 He said: “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. 13 So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. ‘Put this money to work,’ he said, ‘until I come back.’
14 “But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king.’ 15 “He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.
16 “The first one came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned ten more.’ 17 “‘Well done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.’ 18 “The second came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned five more.’ 19 “His master answered, ‘You take charge of five cities.’ 20 “Then another servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. 21 I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not
sow.’ 22 “His master replied, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? 23 Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could
have collected it with interest?’
24 “Then he said to those standing by, ‘Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.’25 “‘Sir,’ they said, ‘he already has ten!’ 26 “He replied, ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. 27 But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over
them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.’ ””
The banking industry was about to change dramatically due to deregulation. This previously sleepy, protected trade was about to become cutthroat. Bank of America went into panic mode seeing nothing but adversity. Wells Fargo saw something else. Wells Fargo saw opportunity in the deregulation and took it. Bank of America saw adversity in deregulation and took that. Wells Fargo wound up, at one point, outperforming Bank of America 5 to 1. A challenge can be an adversity or an opportunity depending on how you take it.
How do we take it? Are life’s challenges merely adversities or are there opportunities within? There’s more to life than that but this slice of life is relevant for tonight’s parable. In our recent parables, Jesus has been showing that we tend to miss the point of life badly and to our destruction. Last week we saw that regarding security. This week we see it regarding opportunity. God sets us in situations not unlike the deregulation for banking—full of challenges. Are they merely adversity or do we see opportunity? That’s actually your life. Your life is your opportunity and that’s the claim of this sermon: your life is your opportunity.
We will study this in two points. First: the parable itself. Second: lessons. In verses 11-27, we see the parable itself. We then consider additional lessons from this teaching.
We see the different responses in the parable; that’s our first point: the parable itself. The gospel of Luke takes a long geographical journey stopping in town after town before Jesus arrives in Jerusalem; here in chapter 19 we are nearing the end of the travelogue. Jesus knows what’s next and so he tells his fellow travelers this parable; verse 1, “[Jesus] went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.”
Just like us with these parables, these people had been listening to Jesus teach on the kingdom. They, like good Jews, assumed that the kingdom would come when the king entered Jerusalem, which is where they were going. Jesus tapped into that with the beginning of this parable, “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return.”
The Jews were familiar with such practice. Herod the Great went to Rome where he was proclaimed king of Judea. One of his sons, Archelaus, went to Rome to receive the kingship after his father died. Fifty Jews from Israel and 8,000 there in Rome met with Caesar to warn him that Archelaus would be a terrible ruler; look at verse 14, ‘But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, “We don’t want this man to be our king.”’ Caesar wound up dividing the region with Archelaus ruling only part.
As we saw two weeks ago, Jesus knew his current events and used them to make his points. The point here is that he, not Archelaus, is the real king and many didn’t want him to be king either. You see that with the Herodians, Sadducees, Pharisees, and zealots; these groups, who we’ve seen, were often Jesus’ conversation partners in his talks about the kingdom.
Contrary to any of their expectations, there would be a delay in this coming kingdom and this parable is about that interval. It’s about what we do with the time that we’re given. The time until then is taken up by a given challenge from the king. Will we see it as an adversity or opportunity? That’s verse 13, ‘So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. “Put this money to work,” he said, “until I come back.”’
A mina was about four month’s wages. The amount in Matthew’s version is a “talent” which is about twenty year’s wages. That word “talent” has caused confusion because the way we use that word has changed over the years. The confusion, though, isn’t all that important because our use of the word “talent” fits as well as money because this is a parable about what we do with what’s given us—be it talents or money; it has to do with opportunity. This king was using these to these servants to gauge their leadership capabilities for positions upon his return.
You and I were created for such positions. Jesus’ kingdom harkens back to the way it was supposed to be at the beginning. Adam and Eve were given dominion over creation. We humans were created to rule and be responsible for God’s world for Him and with Him.
We, like these servants in this parable, will answer for what we have done with that; verse 15, “he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it. The first one came and said, “Sir, your mina has earned ten more.” “Well done, my good servant! his master replied. “Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.” The second came and said, “Sir, your mina has earned five more.” “His master answered, “You take charge of five cities.” This is proportional. Investing the ten minas creatively so as to get ten more nets ten cities and gaining five gains you five cities.
These two men saw the king’s challenge as an opportunity. Like Wells Fargo, they saw that changes were coming with this new king whether they liked it or not; they saw the opportunities in this and took them. That pleased the king. That pleases Jesus. He is pleased when you act as if he is and will be king. He is pleased when you make decisions assuming the future he promises. He is pleased when you see opportunity in the changes he brings.
Trusting Jesus brought challenge to the early church—challenges they wouldn’t have if they went with the zealots as to how the kingdom would come or the Pharisees or Sadducees or Herodians. They were expelled from the synagogues by the religious establishment and called traitors by both the political rebels and establishment. Those are challenges. They could take all that as mere adversity or see the opportunity in it. They saw opportunity among Gentiles who were more interested in salvation than in Jewish infightings. They saw opportunity among the disenfranchised who didn’t have the all too familiar vested interest in preserving their piece of the societal pie. They invested wisely in light of the fact that Jesus was now king.
The fact of the matter is that you and I are already doing something with our minas. We are embracing, refusing, misusing, accepting or abusing opportunities or perhaps we are just dismissing them altogether as adversities. We are responding to the coming kingdom the way Bank of America was responding to deregulation or the way Wells Fargo did or in some other way entirely, but we are responding.
Bank deregulation is such an apt analogy because we sinners secretly want spirituality to work the way banking worked before deregulation. There were so many protections there weren’t real consequences. That’s why Bank of America ran around like the sky was falling once deregulation hit. There were about to be consequences for wisdom and for foolishness. They wanted to go back to no chance for failure even if it meant no chance for success.
That is precisely the spirit you see the next servant seen in verse 20, ‘Then another servant came and said, “Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.” This servant kicked back hard against the new administration with its coming consequences. He’d rather not have the chance than fail even if it meant he wouldn’t succeed. He assumed that if he wisely invested the king’s resources, the king would just take the net anyway and if he lost what the king gave him, he would face the king’s wrath; so, why try?
He stashed the mina away for safe keeping thinking that the king would be happy to at least not have lost it. Now ask yourself, if that was the king’s goal—not to lose the mina—how could have known for certain that he wouldn’t lose it? Don’t give any of the servants any of them. This servant couldn’t see that it was never about the mina. It was about gauging them for more responsibility.
That’s true for us too. Life is rarely about what we assume. Last week that brother and that farmer thought it was about resources but it was really about their attempts to secure security. This week the ingredients of our lives, the opportunities, are the contexts in which Jesus is assessing our souls. It’s not really about your checkbook. It’s about you and God. Your marriage is not, in the end, about what you do with your spouse. It is about you and God and your spouse and God. It’s not really about you and I communicating in this moment; it’s about both of us dealing with God. All of life is really about Him and all the stuff of life is just the raw ingredients expressing that relationship—caring for cows, caring for children, honoring your parents, making a friend; it’s all the king gauging you and working with you. That can seem like adversity or that can seem like opportunity. We all make our choices in this. Choose wisely.
We’ve seen that this servant who just kept the mina safe didn’t understand the challenge. He didn’t understand the king either. He was worried that the king wouldn’t reward work; “you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow,” as he put it. You know that is not the case and this servant should have known. How? How could this servant have known he was wrong about the king? The king just gave ten cities to a fellow servant who worked the money and five to another. This third servant doesn’t know the king, but he is sticking with his expectations rather than revising them in light of reality.
Parables are designed to pull the rug out from under that all too human response. We don’t know God like we think we do. We don’t know Jesus like we think we do. The best we can ever do—as we saw on back to church Sunday—is to keep asking to know Him better—that assumes a sort of humility that this servant did not have. The anxiety you see in this servant is his own form of pride in his read on the situation. “Fear is, in many ways, the worst thing that happens to people,” as Dallas Willard put it thinking about this parable.
The king saw through this servant even though this servant had yet to see through himself; verse 22, ‘His master replied, “I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could
have collected it with interest?”’ In other words, if you really was just about making the money grow, why didn’t you take the absolute easiest way to make the money grow? Every explanation we humans give other than obedience will prove enough to damn us. We think we are very clever in our justifications. We aren’t. All our self-justifications will be used not in our defense on the final day in our prosecution. Far better to throw ourselves on the mercy of the court.
This servant won’t through himself on mercy and so the mina and any other esteem he has been given is taken away—“for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away,” as the king declares. This startles us because we want the spiritual security of banking before deregulation. There are consequences, though—grave or delightful depending. It now gets very grave; verse 27, “But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over
them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.”
When Archelaus returned home king not over all of Judea but over a portion, he dealt viciously with those Jews asking that he not be made king. Not surprisingly those who oppose the reign of the king face the wrath of the king. That’s true whether it’s Archelaus or Jesus not because they have anywhere near the same morality but because that’s the nature of reality. If you waste the opportunity that is your life, you lose your life. Life is serious. It’s not the unnatural utopia of banking before deregulation—no winners or losers, no consequences. Bank of America lost and one of the main reasons they are still around is because they began to hire people from Wells Fargo who saw opportunity rather than begin paralyzed by the adversity.
With the time that’s remaining we are going to put a bow on this with a few over all lessons; we’ve seen many as we’ve moved along but now we take a step back in our final point: lessons. First, it’s worth considering the placement of this parable. If you have your Bible open, what comes before it? The story of Zaccheus. Why did Jesus know that salvation had come to Zaccheus? He repented and began investing his resources along kingdom lines. Zaccheus is a picture of someone who saw opportunity with Jesus whereas the crowd muttered about king Jesus decision to invest in Zaccheus. The lesson is that your name and my name are in similar stories—our own stories. What parts do we play?
Second, it’s worth recognizing that we sinners are sadly creative in finding reasons to oppose king Jesus. You can see why the Jews wouldn’t want Archelaus to take power, but why not Jesus? Well, without continual correction we aren’t all that different from that third servant who came up with inane reasons to call a generous king vindictive. Our fallen minds are factories working overtime manufacturing worries, entitlements, and other spiritual idiocies. Parables are designed to stop that machinery so we can start producing other thoughts—realistic thoughts about Jesus the king.
Third, the reward for a job well done is more work to do well. The man who earned ten more minas now had ten cities to govern. Those cities weren’t merely a reward; they were a trust from the king which that man was to govern well. Now as fallen people in a cursed world in which work, as seen in Genesis 3, is cursed, the idea that the reward for a job well done is more work to do is, understandably, met with concern. In this life, there is something right about keeping your nose to the grindstone, but also you need an awareness that, as Edwin Friedman put it, “keep your nose to the grindstone and you’ll wind up with a flat face.” Work in this life is a mixed bag. This is where we need to remember, though, that Jesus in this parable is taking us back to the beginning where we are co-regents with God in His creation. That’s how it will be in the next creation too; as the last chapter of the Bible says about us, “They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.” Then it will be only opportunity. We could also talk about the place of eternal Sabbath, but the goal of heaven is not to join an eternal leisure class. There is good work to be done and we humans are happiest when we are doing the good work. It’s what we were created for; it’s what we were saved for.
Fourth, and finally we learn yet again in the parables that judgment is not as we would expect. The man who abuses his opportunity not only winds up with no minas, he is executed. His behavior shows him to be among those who didn’t want this man king. The money that had been entrusted to him was given to one who already had twenty minas and now ten cities. How is that fair? Well, should Bank of America’s stock have been artificially made equal to Wells Fargo’s when Wells Fargo was outperforming them 5:1? Grace is continually unexpected but it is never to be presumed upon to make life go as would seem best to our fallen minds. That’s just a new rigidity which this parable also breaks.
That’s a lot of lessons for one parable but what will you do with it. Your life, after all, is your opportunity. Amen.