tl;dr: What if the rich man in the parable of the talents isn't meant to represent God?
One of Jesus' parables is typically referred to as The Parable of the Talents. Some translations will turn that into a better phrase like "valuable coins" instead of "talents" which I actually think helps with what I'm going to get into. This is the text in the Common English Bible (CEB) translation:
14 "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who was leaving on a trip. He called his servants and handed his possessions over to them. 15 To one he gave five valuable coins, and to another he gave two, and to another he gave one. He gave to each servant according to that servant's ability. Then he left on his journey. 16 "After the man left, the servant who had five valuable coins took them and went to work doing business with them. He gained five more. 17 In the same way, the one who had two valuable coins gained two more. 18 But the servant who had received the one valuable coin dug a hole in the ground and buried his master's money. 19 "Now after a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20 The one who had received five valuable coins came forward with five additional coins. He said, 'Master, you gave me five valuable coins. Look, I've gained five more.' 21 "His master replied, 'Excellent! You are a good and faithful servant! You've been faithful over a little. I'll put you in charge of much. Come, celebrate with me.' 22 "The second servant also came forward and said, 'Master, you gave me two valuable coins. Look, I've gained two more.' 23 "His master replied, 'Well done! You are a good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a little. I'll put you in charge of much. Come, celebrate with me.' 24 "Now the one who had received one valuable coin came and said, 'Master, I knew that you are a hard man. You harvest grain where you haven't sown. You gather crops where you haven't spread seed. 25 So I was afraid. And I hid my valuable coin in the ground. Here, you have what's yours.' 26 "His master replied, 'You evil and lazy servant! You knew that I harvest grain where I haven't sown and that I gather crops where I haven't spread seed? 27 In that case, you should have turned my money over to the bankers so that when I returned, you could give me what belonged to me with interest. 28 Therefore, take from him the valuable coin and give it to the one who has ten coins. 29 Those who have much will receive more, and they will have more than they need. But as for those who don't have much, even the little bit they have will be taken away from them. 30 Now take the worthless servant and throw him out into the farthest darkness.' "People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth.
The Standard Lesson
The most common interpretation I've encountered in 21st Century Canada ends up something along the lines of: "use the talents and material goods that God has given you to create even more good from it." At that level, that lesson is fine. There is nothing wrong with that message. It's important to use your money and your skills for the good of others.
But that interpretation has a couple of problems.
The first small one is that this isn't talking about talents in the way we use that word today, as skills that we can leverage for the greater good. That's not what it meant here. This is talking about money. Could we expand it to also mean skills? Sure, why not? Parables are not meant to be super literal strict interpretations; they are more like poetry with wide ranges of interpretation possible. It's fine if you want to say "this is about money but it could also be about talents in the way we use the word now" as long as you aren't completely skipping over the money part.
The bigger problem, though, is how the rich man (or "landowner" in some translations) behaves. To put it bluntly, he's a tyrant who only cares about making money off the work of others. He is known for being harsh. He is known for extracting wealth even when he isn't doing any of the work; he even brags about how he harvests grain he hasn't sown or gathered crops he didn't spread the seed for. He is quick to an extreme punishment for anybody who does not sufficiently generate wealth on his behalf. He refers to a person as worthless. He celebrates that the rich will be made richer and the poor will be made poorer.
Before I go farther, I want to make a quick tangent on profit vs rent. Profit is when you invest some money and make a good or provide a service, then charge a little more than your expenses which you get to keep for yourself. Rent is when you own something that people need to survive and you force them to pay for it, while you continue to own it. Our world is increasingly dominated by rent-seeking approaches. Everything is a subscription, often ones that are very hard to get out of, so that you can never actually own a good. The rich cling to their wealth more and more and charge us for the privilege of occasionally using some of it to survive. I do not see profit in and of itself to be a problem - it can be a way to motivate each of us creating mutually-beneficial goods and services. I do see rent-seeking as a problem since it is fundamentally about those who have lots exploiting those who don't.
Anyway, in the common reading, it may be left unspoken but very hard to avoid the conclusion that the rich man is supposed to be God. It's not just that you are supposed to use your gifts well. It is also that God is concerned with accumulating wealth off the work of others, letting the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. This God will reward you with more if you just prioritize playing along with the exploitation, and will punish you with physical violence if you do not. Is that we see God as? Do we think God's priorities and ways of treating those less privileged align with those of the rich man here? Should it be what we see God as?
In my upbringing, the answer to this was usually something about how metaphors should only be taken so far. That is fair, to a point. Metaphors do all have their limits and we rarely should consider every comparison to be a 1:1 exact match. But in this case I really do feel like it is the punchline of the story that we are throwing out in order to only focus on that "use your gifts well" message.
The Father of the Prodigal Son
I want to compare how that parable ends with how the parable of the prodigal son goes:
11 Jesus said, "A certain man had two sons. 12 The younger son said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the inheritance.' Then the father divided his estate between them. 13 Soon afterward, the younger son gathered everything together and took a trip to a land far away. There, he wasted his wealth through extravagant living. 14 "When he had used up his resources, a severe food shortage arose in that country and he began to be in need. 15 He hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to eat his fill from what the pigs ate, but no one gave him anything. 17 When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have more than enough food, but I'm starving to death! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I no longer deserve to be called your son. Take me on as one of your hired hands."' 20 So he got up and went to his father. "While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion. His father ran to him, hugged him, and kissed him. 21 Then his son said, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.' 22 But the father said to his servants, 'Quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him! Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet! 23 Fetch the fattened calf and slaughter it. We must celebrate with feasting 24 because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life! He was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.
In that story, the prodigal son is indisputably much worse than the "unproductive" servant from the parable of the talents. The son completely wastes his inheritance that he should not have even been given yet and has to go back begging to his father. This son wasn't just kind of bad at business. This son committed some extreme violations directly harming his father.
(Side note: this parable does also have a rich landowner who wants to exploit his labourers, not even giving the son enough food to get by, but I am not suggesting that is a primary focus of the story.)
The father responds with extreme generosity, welcoming him back instantly.
It is standard to see the father as representing God, or at least a God-like way of acting. So how do we reconcile that vision of God with the rich man in the parable of the talents?
The Generous Landowner
Some might argue there's another big difference for the prodigal son. The parallel is not the best one because it is also about family. Fathers can be more generous when dealing with children, even those who explicitly do a lot of harm.
So what about comparing the rich man in the parable of the talents to another rich man and his relations with labour in Matthew 20:1-16? This comes right after Jesus is visited by a rich man who Jesus encourages to give up his wealth, but the rich man went away sad because he cared about about his wealth.
"The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 After he agreed with the workers to pay them a denarion, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 "Then he went out around nine in the morning and saw others standing around the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and I'll pay you whatever is right.' 5 And they went. "Again around noon and then at three in the afternoon, he did the same thing. 6 Around five in the afternoon he went and found others standing around, and he said to them, 'Why are you just standing around here doing nothing all day long?' 7 "'Because nobody has hired us,' they replied. "He responded, 'You also go into the vineyard.' 8 "When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the workers and give them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and moving on finally to the first.' 9 When those who were hired at five in the afternoon came, each one received a denarion. 10 Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more. But each of them also received a denarion. 11 When they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 'These who were hired last worked one hour, and they received the same pay as we did even though we had to work the whole day in the hot sun.' 13 "But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I did you no wrong. Didn't I agree to pay you a denarion? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I want to give to this one who was hired last the same as I give to you. 15 Don't I have the right to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you resentful because I'm generous?' 16 So those who are last will be first. And those who are first will be last."
We have another rich man/landowner. We have some more people that this rich man is having do some work for him. But this rich man seems to be more actively involved in the work himself, routinely going out to find the help he needs, not off on a trip and expecting others to build his wealth for him. There is no suggestion that he makes any profit at all from this - he probably does but it isn't seen as a priority to the parable. Instead, the key point is that he pays people what they needed. Some would say that those who only worked half a day didn't deserve a whole day's wage, or at least that those who worked longer should get a bonus. The rich man doesn't do that, instead choosing to give them a day's wage because that is what they needed to survive, after spending the earlier parts of the day unable to get any work. We might call this a living wage today.
Furthermore, he warns the labourers who were there all day about the risks of envy. They should not be seeing the other labourers as competition in a quest to get more. They got what they needed and what was fairly agreed to. Most rich men would play the labourers off of each other, in order to convince some to accept less and allow the rich man to keep more himself. That's why unions are a thing, to help enable solidarity among the labourers instead of that envious competition that can be manipulated by the rich. We even see that in the parable of the talents, where the rich man explicitly operates on a carrot and stick system that encourages labourers to outdo each other in making more money for him.
A New Interpretation
Interpreters at least in my experience tend to equate the rich man/father in all these stories to God, even though the one in the parable of the talents has wildly opposed character to the other two. If you accept these are both a good God, they have wildly opposed lessons on wealth or more generally on how we relate to each other.
So I can't help but wonder, what if they aren't supposed to all be God? In our world where wealth is typically celebrated, we rush to assume that the guy with power and wealth is the good guy. In that context, though, "rich = good" was not a safe assumption. This was the same tradition that gave us James 5:1-6, for example:
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
That is certainly not an assumption that having wealth means you did something right. See also Jesus' saying that it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. It seems to suggest that much (if not all) of the time, you can't be super wealthy without doing some large-scale exploitation of others that runs fundamentally opposed to the way of God.
Maybe this rich man isn't God. Maybe there's meant to be a contrast between them, with the father and the generous vineyard owner representing the way of God and the rich man representing an opposite.
The Tyrant
I propose that God is the radically generous father who spreads his kingdom slowly like a mustard seed growing into a large tree, who gives generously according to our needs and tries to stop us from competing with each other for more.
I think the tyrant rich man is meant to be seen as the opposite of that God. The tyrant rules through fear and demands rent - a constant growth of his own power even while not doing work - and lashes out at anybody who refuses or is too afraid to play his game. Those kinds of tyrants always exist. They were certainly easy to see in 1st Century Judea under the rule of the Roman Empire. Only one generation later, that Roman Empire would wipe out the whole Temple and scatter the Jewish people after a rebellion. Depending on when you date the writing of Matthew, that may have already happened or may be soon to happen. Jesus is warning them about the consequences of that way of being.
Those Roman leaders were probably not interested in what this Jesus guy had to say. If they did, they might have heard a lesson about how ruling through fear does have its limits. There is only so far that you can force people to make money for you because they fear you. Yes, some of the servants do play along with this fear-driven rule, but no matter how hard you try, there will be some who defy you.
The other two groups are where it gets really interesting.
The Collaborators
Rome was mostly not that directly involved in governing Judea, but they left people like Pilate there to maintain their power and collect taxes. Some of the religious leaders and others who collaborate with Rome were acting like the first two servants. They already had some small amount of power, but not much compared to the rich man / Roman Empire. They wanted to win the favour of the Empire and come out with even more than they started with, even if it meant making their oppressor even more powerful.
The two richer servants win this round, or so it seems. They had some wealth at the start. They end up with more. They also get rid of one of their competitors, that other servant, who is no longer in the picture.
But did they really win? They're still being governed by the fear of violence, which the "unproductive" servant has now exposed (more on that next). It is worth noting that in both Matthew and Luke this is one parable among several closer to the crucifixion that suggest judgement specifically against some of the religious leaders of Jesus' day who are about to be a big part in getting Jesus crucified.
We do need to be careful about stepping over into antisemitism. This isn't a condemnation of all Jewish people doomed to Hell for eternity or anything remotely like that. It is a prediction that some of the religious leaders of the time are about to play a part in getting Jesus crucified. I don't want to understate that the Romans ultimately had the power and made the decision, but at least in the Gospel accounts some of the religious leaders did not like the way that Jesus challenged their authority and they pressured those Romans - siding with the oppressive Empire rather than with God - to take care of this guy who was challenging both Rome and those leaders.
I have now concluded that Jesus is warning them with this and the other surrounding parables. Maybe you are the "good and faithful servant" to the Empire right now, but it will not last. These systems of domination and fear and exploiting the poor to make the rich richer will come for you next. Now that the "unproductive" servant is out of the way, the servant who had 2 talents and made 2 more has to realize he's next. He's the next most poor that can be exploited. The rich man has promised that the rich will be made richer. The 2 talent servant is no longer the rich by comparison. He's now the one who has "a little bit," and if we take the rich man's words seriously, that will be taken away from him. This happens in every one of these domination systems throughout history: once they eliminate one scapegoat minority, they will find another to target next or will expand who falls in that category, like how Germans during the Holocaust started being a lot more paranoid that maybe they have some Jewish ancestry and they could be targeted next. Once you are trapped in a cycle of fear and domination, you do not simply break out of it after harming one target. Even if you "win" in this system right now, there are no winners in this way of being in the long run. It will come for you next.
The only way to stop the system from coming for you is to break that system. These collaborators instead feed that system. They will feel the consequences of that.
We cannot simply ignore that judgement is a big part of these stories, but I do not believe that God is the violent tyrant lashing out at anybody who does not sufficiently enrich him. Instead, I believe that we mean by God's judgement here is simply this: God allows us to experience the consequences of the harms that we have inflicted upon ourselves and others.
The "Unproductive" Servant
Finally, what does that mean for the "unproductive" servant. I think there are two ways to read him:
- The most straightforward reading of his response to the rich man is that he was afraid. Maybe he wanted to support his tyrant master's scheme, but he was more scared of losing his master's money than he was of a likely punishment, so much so that he couldn't even bring himself to earn a baseline interest on it. I don't think this makes him evil or lazy. It does make him a victim following this fear-driven rule to its extreme conclusion.
- An alternative is that he was intentionally opting out. In that case, this was an act of bravery, refusing to increase his tyrant master's wealth for him. He pays the price for this courage. This is realistic. When we do stand up to evil systems, sometimes we get punished. That doesn't mean that we are wrong to do it.
I suggest that this is meant to represent Jesus and his disciples, most of who will be murdered by state violence because they have non-violently drawn attention to the evil fear-driven rule of the Empire. They will have acted in line with the teachings of the sermon on the mount:
38 "You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. 39 But I say to you that you must not oppose those who want to hurt you. If people slap you on your right cheek, you must turn the left cheek to them as well. 40 When they wish to haul you to court and take your shirt, let them have your coat too. 41 When they force you to go one mile, go with them two. 42 Give to those who ask, and don’t refuse those who wish to borrow from you.
All three of these in that context were not about being a doormat. They were about drawing attention to the injustice of the situation. It is a tactic that has been used by other non-violent protestors throughout the centuries, including the US Civil Rights movement.
Yes, they will die, but they will also have undermined the system. They will prove that there are other ways of being and that this way is unjust. That is the part that the Kingdom of Heaven is like, not the cruelty of the rich man and not the collaborators who feed into the violent system as they compete with each other for more wealth.