I am temporally at sea today, awash in the tides of chronology. My calendar tells me it’s Monday, January 2, but it doesn’t feel like Monday, January 2. That’s partly because although today is a holiday, it’s not January first (I suppose), and partly because of the energy drain caused by a weekend spent mostly with people. I spent much of this day certain I had a dentist appointment this afternoon, and it was only when my cell phone alarm failed to go off that I realized the appointment is actually for tomorrow. January two and twos-day; you can see how I got confused.
Time is the the great puzzler, God’s subtlest joke, in my opinion. And yet, it’s deadly serious. Take Jesus’ parable of the stewards and the talents (Matthew 25:14-30):
“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability….”
“Talent” is a Greek term for a sum of money, and our own English use of talent as meaning a special, inborn ability comes from an interpretation of that passage.
But although I wouldn’t go so far as to call that interpretation entirely mistaken, I think there’s a simpler meaning. I suspect the Lord’s intention when He spoke of the talents was simply “time.” Each of us is given some—some of us more, some less. But whatever we’ve got, we’re responsible for. We may complain that we have no great gifts or abilities, but we always have some time, up until the day we die. And we can choose whether to use that time constructively or not, boldly or cautiously. The real targets of the parable are people who are lazy and cowardly.
In other words, it’s directed precisely at me. As for any application to you, you may judge for yourself.
A blessed new year to you.
A lazy librarian would be content to manage books and not write his own.
Or the lazy librarian would be content to just sit and watch his many stacks….. never to “live” in them….. But to me, a writer, AH! There can be one of the best of God’s creations if he doesn’t abuse his …talent….
In that parable, which our church quotes often, I often wondered if the master got it right….
Two of the three gambled with the master’s money and luckily they won. The third fellow protected the talent he was given and was able to produce it whole when the master came back.. He was not foolish enough to gamble with it. Yet, he was punished….. Is this one other way to look at it?
Well, I think that’s just the point. It’s consistent with Jesus’ whole teaching. He was always urging radical action, all-or-nothing commitments. By implication, He is less offended by a big failure than by cautious, by-the-book obedience.
Of course, the whole point was not to show us how to be saved, but to drive us to despair. After despair comes repentance and grace.
Thank you. Reading this yesterday prompted me to go and do something I knew I was supposed to but that I’d been shirking.
And your theory about talents=time seems obvious now that I’ve read it, and yet I never thought of it that way before. I think you’re right.
Thank you. And also for your kind review.
Lars: Of course, the whole point was not to show us how to be saved, but to drive us to despair. After despair comes repentance and grace.
Ori: This is why from a Jewish perspective Christianity appears monstrous. We believe that the Mitzvot are a fair test, not a rigged one.
Deuteronomy 30:11-14: 11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
I understand that, and don’t really have a good answer. But what are we to do with, “You shall be holy, as the Lord your God is holy?” A likeness of kind seems to be implied.
Good point. In context (Leviticus 11:40-15), I think it emphasizes the particular Mitzvah of dietary limitations, but I can’t prove it.
I think I can make a further circumlocution, if you like. The mystery of human nature is that nothing in the law is impossible, and yet we don’t keep it. Look at any particular obedience, and we can say, “Yes, that’s do-able.” And yet, taking the law as a whole, nobody ever does.
True, nobody gets 100% on the test. But is 85% a failed grade?