Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary
There is a clear divide among scholars about how best to interpret Jesus’ eschatological parable of the three servants and the talents. The divide turns on what one makes of the third servant’s description of the master who has returned after a long absence: “a harsh man,” who “reaps where he does not sow and harvests where he did not plant.”
Traditional interpretations of this parable read it as a characterization of faithful discipleship between resurrection and Parousia. Dissenters contend that the third servant’s characterization of the master renders this impossible; clearly, they say, this master is utterly this-worldly—greedy, scheming, obsessed with making his vast portfolio fatter still. They suggest that the third servant actually represents Jesus. Refusing to participate in the master’s greedy enterprise, he himself is cast into “outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
The chief difficulty with this interpretation is that it asks us to believe that Matthew deliberately scrambles the consistent semantic coding he has used for faithfulness and judgment throughout his gospel to this point. The parable would function in direct semantic conflict with the parable of the wedding feast (22:1-14), as well as Matthew’s three other eschatological parables (the faithful and unfaithful servant, 24:45-51; the bridesmaids with their lamps going to a joyful wedding feast, 25:1-14; and the final judgment, 25: 31-46). Being cast into outer darkness, Mt’s signature trope for divine judgment, becomes a tool of oppressors. “Good and faithful servant” and “enter into the joy of your master” become perverse accolades bestowed by a wicked man on his henchmen.
I propose that there is a way to hear this parable that not only sustains a more plausible relation to Matthew’s established semantic coding, but actually allows the parable to foreground, not obscure, the utterly subversive value system of Jesus, who has indeed made it quite clear that truly valuable treasure is neither silver nor gold, but love, mercy, and justice.
What if we are meant to recognize on the basis of everything Jesus has taught to this point that, when the failed servant blurts out his notion of the master’s character, he is dead wrong? If he is, we easily enough recognize a sardonic tone in the frustrated master’s response. We add mental scare quotes around words like “knew” and “harsh:” “You ‘knew,’ did you, that I am a ‘harsh man,’. . . ?” Likewise sardonic is the master’s suggestion that the servant’s talent might have been loaned at interest. This would be usury according to Jewish law—surely just the sort of thing that would delight a greedy, unethical master of the sort that the unproductive servant imagines.
Remember that Jesus’ audience at this point in Mt is his disciples and close followers. Jesus has long been teaching them about the reign of heaven and its value system. He has clearly detached himself from the wealth-based systems and assumptions of this world (see 6:19-21, 24-33). Attentive disciples would recognize that the failed servant is dead wrong about the master. They would recognize, too, that the vast treasure entrusted to these servants is not monetary; rather, this master’s treasure is abundant compassion, justice, and mercy. Servants acting in the name of such a master will be passionate about these things—as Jesus’ last eschatological parable will confirm.
Only by slicing this parable out of its larger Matthean context, and more particularly, by isolating it from its immediate eschatological context, can we imagine that the third servant rightly describes the master as a harsh cheat, obsessed with wealth. If, like the unproductive servant, we fail to pursue wholeheartedly what the heavenly master treasures—compassion and justice—it will be no surprise when we inherit a merciless world filled with weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Good news: the master is still on his journey; there is time! We, in our own time and place, have been entrusted with our master’s priceless treasure: mercy, inclusion, and justice. Like our master, and in the master’s good name, we can sow compassion and reap justice, invest in acts of mercy and ignite hope, until that day when the master’s joy—and ours, too—will be complete.
Insights into Biblical Greek Grammar and Syntax 