To read the texts click on the texts:1 Cor 1:26-31; Mt 25:14-30
A talent is a large sum of money, equal to the wages of a day
labourer for fifteen years. (In Lk 19:12-28, the figures are much
smaller. There are ten servants and each receives a “mina” which was only one
sixtieth of a talent, and worth 100 denarii and translated “pound”)
In Matthew,
however, there are three servants and they receive different amounts. The first
receives five, the second two, and the third, one. The first and the second use
the money to earn similar amounts in return. The third, buries it in the
ground.
The point that the parable seems to make here is that we are called not
merely to “passive waiting” or strict obedience to clear instructions, but
active responsibility that take initiative and risk. Each must decide how to
use what he/she has been given.
Often times, our understanding of Christianity has been one in
which we are content if we have not done “any wrong”, but rarely ask whether we
have done “any right”. We are content like the third servant to give only
grudgingly, and not with the freedom that we are meant to have.
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