This coming Sunday is the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. Our gospel is the Parable of the Talents: Immediately 16 the one who received five talents went and traded with them, and made another five. 17 Likewise, the one who received two made another two. 18 But the man who received one went off and dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money. 19 After a long time the master of those servants came back and settled accounts with them.

The first servant eagerness is a model for enthusiastic discipleship. He and his first colleague achieved spectacular results (100% profit), but clearly there was a risk involved, which their other coworker was unwilling to face. No doubt he would have justified his action as prudent rather than lazy (his master’s term for it, v. 26), but his prudence results in no benefit to his master.  Of course there is some benefit to simply maintaining the status quo. A contemporary rabbinic axiom was “Money can only be kept safe by placing it in the earth.” (b. B. Meṣiʿa 42a).

The “long time” in this parable corresponds to the delay in 24:48 and 25:5. There is time for life (and trade) to take its normal course. What exact course is taken depends on the servant. The settling of accounts immediately on the master’s return indicates what the opening scene has not made explicit: that the master was expecting his money to have been put to good use in the interval.

20 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.’ 21 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.’ 22 (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.’ 23 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.’ 

Note that the master’s response to the first two servants does not depend upon the initial endowment. He welcomes each of them regardless of their abilities, what they were given to begin with, or even the final margin of gain. Consider the workers in the vineyard (20:1–16) where some did not have the opportunity to work as long as others, but all were equally rewarded. These servants are commended, like the servant of 24:45, as “faithful:” they have done what was expected of them. But the reward for reliability, as for the servant in 24:47, is not to be released from responsibility but to be given more of it. You don’t “retire” from being a disciple. If a sum such as five talents is “small matters,” the great things which follow will be a huge responsibility indeed. But along with the added responsibility goes a significant change of status, the new relationship of sharing the master’s joy.

In the story of the Rich Young Man, 19:28 suggests that in the “new age” the reward for faithfulness will be to share the authority of the enthroned Son of Man. Is it reading too much into our parable to envisage heaven as a state not of relaxed pleasure but of active cooperation with the purpose of God as well as enjoyment of his favor?

Image credit: The Parable of the Talents by Willem de Porter, 17th century, National Gallery of Prague, PD-US