Proverbs --> Parable of the Talents --> Evil Q&A
Introduction to the Book of Proverbs
Proverbs is an anthology of collections of sayings and instructions. The primary purpose of the book is to teach wisdom, not only to the young and inexperienced but also to the advanced. Wisdom in the ancient Middle East was not so much theoretical knowledge as practical expertise. For instance, kings who made their kingdoms peaceful and prosperous were wise. Even tradesmen were considered wise by applying these instructions. Ultimately wisdom, or “sound guidance,” is about the formation of character.
Today’s reading is entitled, “Poem On The Woman of Worth.”
Proverbs 31:10-12,16,20,25-31
Who can find a woman of worth?
Far beyond jewels is her value.
Her husband trusts her judgment; he has an unfailing prize.
She picks out a field and acquires it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She makes garments and sells them, and stocks the merchants with belts.
She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy.
She is clothed with strength and dignity, and laughs at the days to come.
She opens her mouth in wisdom; kindly instruction is on her tongue.
She watches over the affairs of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband, too, praises her:
Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting; the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Give her acclaim for her labors, and let her deeds praise her at the city gates.
Q: What is the important message?
Work! Works with her hands. Works with her mind. Works with her heart. Works with God.
Q: Did humans always have work? What about before the Fall?
Yes, Adam worked before the Fall. Afterwards was just harder. In both cases, Adam was called to collaborate with God in creation. This bears repeating: we are called to collaborate with God in creation. We only have two choices: the things we do are either in collaboration with ourselves or in collaboration with God. From Adam onward, we are called to do it with God.
Strength and dignity are her clothes.
Where did she get her strength? Her strength (both inner and outer) came from her work.
Where did she get her dignity/respect? From her work.
She opens her mouth and gives instruction and wisdom.
Where did she get her ability to give instruction? Her work.
Where did she get her wisdom? Her work in collaboration with God.
John Paul II, referring to his writings, used to say his desk was his intellectual workbench. Collaboration with the Lord in creating.
She reaches out her hands to the poor and extends her arms to the needy.
She has compassion for her fellow man.
She reaches out with her hands and arms. This means personally involved, acting, doing. That is charity. This is agape love.
Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting; the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Inner beauty has value, exterior not so much. It is the Lord’s connection with her work that causes her to be who she really is.
She fears the Lord? What does that mean? (more on this below)
She receives great acclaim at the city gates. What does this mean?
The City Gates are where the town elders and wise met to discuss the most important matters of the city. In those days, it would be the men. This would mean her husband spoke very highly of her in front of everyone. Wisdom says all good husbands should do the same.
Connection with the Parable of the Talents:
She is like the servant with 5 or 10 (or 20!) talents. She is diligent, hard-working, helps the poor, she is full of wisdom and inner beauty, and she has a relationship with God.
Psalm 128:1-2
Blessed are you who fear the LORD, who walk in his ways! For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork; blessed shall you be, and favored.
Fear again?
First reading: “the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.”
Proverbs 9:10: “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God.”
Psalm 128: “Blessed are you who fear the Lord.
What’s going on with this fear thing? Didn’t Jesus not say, “Fear not”?
The definition of fear: 1) to be afraid 2) to be in awe of. Although knowing that it also refers to “awe” is helpful, there’s more to it. What differentiates these two?
Fear must be understood in two ways: perfect and imperfect fear.
Think of these on a sliding scale.
________________________________________
Imperfect Fear Perfect Fear
This sliding scale happens to parallel – and be connected to – our spiritual growth.
A good comparison of this is with raising a child.
With children, you might warn them “DO NOT TOUCH THE STOVE.” Hopefully, you instill enough fear in them so they don’t touch it again and burn themselves.
You warn them and instill fear in them for their own good, because you love them.
So, when child is young, this kind of fear can be protective and good?
As the child matures, we can begin to appeal to his reason and his love for others in order to encourage good behavior. The child develops a respect for fire and even learns that fire can do awesome things. It can heat our home, cook our food, and we can enjoy sitting in front of the fireplace.
Should a mature child – or even an adult – retain a healthy respect for, and fear of, fire? I hope so! If it is abused, it can cause death.
When God warned primitive man to not kill or steal, he was instilling in him an important fear about something morally good. Like the child and the stove.
Like the maturing child, as we mature spiritually we begin to recognize God’s warnings are out of love and for our own good, and we begin to see him as a loving father. What we learn from God is now seen as wisdom. The closer we get to God, the more respect and awe we discover. The more this happens, the more we fear the loss of our relationship with God.
Think of your own child or loved one who decides to leave you for good. It’s heartbreaking like nothing else. In this case, do you “fear” them leaving you? Of course you do. This fear out of love is the perfect fear.
From this perspective, I frankly can’t think of anything I would fear more than permanently losing my relationship with God.
Q: What then does Jesus mean when he tells us not to fear?
Jesus is telling us not to fear the things of this world.
Why? Because he is with us. Because we are with him.
When Jesus says do not fear he who can destroy the body, just he who can destroy the soul, he’s referring to our physical/material/temporal life vs our spiritual/eternal life.
How can we destroy our soul? To answer that, we need to first recognize: What is the purpose of our soul? It is union with God. To destroy the soul is to be separate from God.
The opposite of worldly fear is found in the story of Jesus sleeping in the boat when the storm is about to capsize the apostles’ boat. The apostles feared for their lives until they woke Jesus up. Jesus can’t help us and be in our lives if we don’t invite him in. As soon as they sought his help, he stopped the storm. The apostles needed to realize that, with Jesus, they were in the safest place on earth, storm or no storm. To be perfectly honest, we’d be better off being with Jesus in the boat even if the boat went down!
Context of Gospel
“The Kingdom of God is like…” is the preface to the parable of the Talents. This tells us the story is about the Kingdom.
Q: Refresher: What is a talent?
A: A “talent” was a unit of weight of approximately 80 lbs. When used as money – i.e., 80 lbs of silver – it was worth 6000 denarii. A denarii was the usual payment for a day’s labor, so 6000 days labor (one Talent) would be worth a little more than 15 years of pay.
There’s no point in calculating how much each servant was given because the story isn’t about money. It is about the gifts we’ve been given, starting with our spiritual natures, our talents, our parents/upbringing, or where in the world we might have been born. God has given us all different talents/gifts.
The question isn’t what ‘talents’ we were or weren’t given; the only question God will ask is what will we do with the gifts we were given? In God’s eyes, a doorman can multiple his ‘talents’ far beyond a CEO of GM or Apple.
Matthew 25:14-30
Jesus told his disciples this parable:
A man going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one -- to each according to his ability. Then he went away.
Immediately the one who received five talents went and traded with them, and made another five.
Likewise, the one who received two made another two.
But the man who received one went off and dug a hole in the ground and buried his master's money.
After a long time the master of those servants came back and settled accounts with them.
The one who had received five talents came forward bringing the additional five. He said, “Master, you gave me five talents. See, I have made five more.”
His master said to him, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master's joy.”
Then the one who had received two talents also came forward and said, “Master, you gave me two talents. See, I have made two more.”
His master said to him, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master's joy.”
Then the one who had received the one talent came forward and said, “Master, I knew you were a demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter; so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground. Here it is back.”
His master said to him in reply,
“You wicked, lazy servant. So you knew that I harvest where I did not plant and gather where I did not scatter?
Should you not then have put my money in the bank so that I could have got it back with interest on my return?
Now then! Take the talent from him and give it to the one with ten.
For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
And throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth."
Twists: Remember, in all Jesus’ parables, there are “twists,” which are things that don’t make sense. These indicate that something is going on, that there’s a different meaning involved.
Q: Who is the “Master”?
God
Q: Who are the servants?
Us
Q: What is the First Twist?
The Master gives the servants different talents, each according to his ability. This refers to their natural abilities, which is our first indication that we are not talking about money. Secondly, God (the master) is acknowledging that not everyone has equal gifts/abilities. More coming on that.
The Master returns from his journey, and the servant with 10 Talents returns 20 talents to his master. The master is very happy and says: “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master's joy.”
Q: What is his “master’s joy”?
The kingdom of heaven.
Q: What do you think the greater responsibilities are?
We don’t know exactly, but as I have said before, the idea that we will just be playing harps all day in heaven is false. Not sure how apt this is, but you get the idea: C.S. Lewis said pure joy here on earth compared to heaven is like comparing chocolates to sex.
But if you look at what Jesus said, “Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities,” you can sense things won’t be idle!
Then the 2nd servant who had 5 talents does the same thing and God replies the same. So far, notice there is great joy and happiness on all sides.
Q: Then servant #3 comes up and what happens?
It’s kind of amazing so let’s break this down:
“Master, I knew you were a demanding person…” – is he accusing the Master of being a hard taskmaster? A man to be feared? What happens when trust is absent? Fear. Btw, didn’t the Master “give” the servant his Talent? The Talent itself is a “gift.” Isn’t that generosity?
“…harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter…” Say what? Is he accusing the Master of being a thief? It’s kind of amazing how someone who has no faith sees God.
“…so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground. Here it is back.” Rather than put his talent to work for God’s glory and goodness, he buried it. In other words, he did absolutely nothing with it.
One could recall Adam and Eve; when they were selfish and sinned, what did they do?
They hid themselves. Jesus says goodness is our light, and we shouldn’t put it under a basket but high up so that your goodness brightens the world.
Q: What does this mean: And throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth."
This is a common, OT reference to being separated from God.
When we think of sin, we usually think of acts of commission, right? Don’t lie, cheat, steal, cheat, betray... But what sin is this 3rd servant guilty of?
Wasn’t it an act (life) of omission? Not of doing bad, but of not ever doing any good.
Q: This sin has a name. It is one of the 7 Deadly Sins. What is it?
Sloth. We don’t usually give much thought to “sloth,” thinking perhaps it is just physical laziness. But we are talking about spiritual laziness, and that is one of the 7 Deadly Sins.
Nimshaw: Once again, parables have a final statement, a kind of “zinger” that tells you the secret of the parable. The Jews called this the “Nimshaw.”
Q: What was the Nimshaw of the parable, and what does it mean?
“For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one
who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
For everyone who has generated more love and good with their spiritual gifts will grow rich in heavenly rewards.
Q: For those who generate no love or good with their gifts, they will lose what they have. What is that?
Their relationship with God. God will ultimately honor your desire for separation.
The ultimate message is that it doesn’t matter one iota what cards (talents) we’ve been dealt, it’s what love and good we do with them. Thus, someone with one talent can strike it rich in heaven, and someone with 100 talents can find himself on the outside.
Maranatha!
Ron
Comentarii