Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
Since parables are usually about something other than what they seem, you can read one as a metaphor for other things, like our relationship with God or something. But it may also be a once-upon-a-time story that’s “about” exactly what it says it’s about. Jesus told some stories like that, like in Matthew 25.14-3.
Once there was this guy who had a ton of money. (One of the 1%. Of course Jesus didn’t say a “ton,” he said a “talent,” which was a measure of weight– a lot of it. A talent of money is actually the equivalent of fifteen year’s wages.) So he’s got about $120 million to play with. (You don’t suppose he earned that by his own honest, hard labor do you? Working overtime, maybe? Or was it more likely by using other people, gaming the system, paying the lowest possible wages, oppressing workers, skimping on safety and environmental measures, lobbying for fewer regulations, taking advantage where his money and power allowed him to?…)
Anyway. He lines up his money managers. To one he assigns $75 million, to another $30 million, and to another $15 million. The first two play the game. They invest his money. (In struggling family farms? Probably not. More likely where the real money is: armaments, oil, speculative banking, loan sharking via credit cards…)
But the third manager won’t play along. He joins the Occupy Galilee protest. When the rich guy demands his take, the manager returns his $15 million and says, “Do you know how afraid people are of you? You steal money that’s not yours. You rake in money you didn’t earn. You cut the needy out of your budgets. Well, I’m not going to participate in your economic game. I’m not going to work for you. So I buried your money in a shallow grave, a place of death. Here. Go get an honest job and make your own money.”
God bless the ones with the guts to peak out against injustice. Because, of course, the rich guy fires him. And of course he gives his account to the manager who’s made the most money for him, the one who’s already deep in the system. The rich get richer, don’t they?– and the poor get poorer. The one who has everything gets more, and from the one who has nothing, even what he has is taken away.
The end.
You don’t like this story? Well, it’s true. What are you going to do about it?
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
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Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net