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Transcript of Homily
Are you ready for your morning Greek lesson?
Good.
'Cause you can't understand this unless
you understand a little Greek.
This parable, I think drives everyone who
hears it a little crazy.
I mean, it just isn't fair.
I mean...
This.. Poor schlep of a servant, he just...
He's got... first of all... the master
gives , gives the talents.
What's a talent?
It's a Greek word of course.
And it isn't, it isn't a denomination or
a coin, it's a weight of sliver.
It's so much silver, it was probably a
silver tombs, those were the most common.
But it was so much silver that it had to
be weighed out.
It was a weight of silver.
So this was in the thousands, of thousands
of dollars.
It's kind of hard to say what it would
be in modern terms.
But it was a huge amount of money.
One of the servants gets ten talents, one
gets five.
These are the servants who are pretty sharp.
But the third one, remember the master
who gave, according to his ability.
this was one was the loser of the
group.
He wasn't that smart. He gets one talent.
So he's pretty incompetent to begin with.
And the master comes back and takes account.
And the one, the servant who had a pretty
good estimate of his own abilities..
He brings the one talent, he says "here's
your money back''
And the master becomes angry. He says,
"You know I was hard man. You
should have at least given it to the bankers
where there'd be some
interest."
And he says "take that talent, take that
measure of silver, and give
it to the one who has ten. Because the
one who has will get more and
the one who has not will have everything
taken away."
He then says throws that servant that useless
servant outside...
I mean, that's pretty harsh.
I mean really.
The word isn't servant, I don't know where
it's servant.
The word in Greek is ( ? ? ) which means
slave.
This is a slave.
And that changes the whole context.
A man going on a journey called in his
slaves and intrusted his
possessions to him.
A man is going to intrust his possessions
to his slaves?
That's kinda odd.
You have to understand what slave means
in the ancient world.
Our most recent experience with slavery
in this country.... is a race
slavery. Where people of African origin
were kidnaped in Africa and
were sold into slavery in the Americas.
And it was one of the most outrages institutions
in history. They had
no rights what so ever.
There were different kinds of slavery in
the ancient world.
And it's important for this parable to
understand the context in which
Jesus said it.
There were different types of slave in
the ancient world.
There was war-slavery, in other words,
you'd be captured in battle and
sold into slavery.
That's where generals made most of their
money.
By selling captives caught in battle.
And that meant you'd never see your homeland
again, most probably.
It was a very harsh kind of slavery.
There was political slavery, which was
also unbelievably harsh.
As a political punishment you were sold
into hard bondage and it was
often in the galies and in the mines and
it was a certain death
sentence... and you'd be dead within six
months if you were sold into
slavery in the mines.
But the most common kind of slavery that
Jesus would have been talking
about in the nearest was the dept-slavery.
In other words you maxed out your ancient
roman credit card, or
whatever they did it with, and well..
You sold yourself into slavery to pay
the dept.
There was another kind of slavery, that
was very unusual.
People who had talent, if you had ability.
A talent in our sense.
They would themselves into slavery in order
to eat.
Seriously.
For instance, especially well-educated
greeks would sell themselves
into slavery to wealthy Roman families
as tutors for the children as
kind of the ... the librarian for household,
the teacher for the
household.
Because eating in the ancient world was
a real problem.
This is something we don't perceive
Coming from such a wealthy, wealthy country
and a wealthy world.
Eating was a serious problem.
You lived in a village and you lived in,
what was essentially a mud
hut, and well... if the rains didn't come
for a year, you starve to
death.
Death by hunger was a very common way to
die in the ancient world.
And if you had anything going for you it
was just smarter to be a
slave in a wealthy household.
Slaves in wealthy households lived better
than freemen in outline
country-villages.
So if you were a scholar, had any talent
or ability, you might
seriously self yourself into slavery and
save the money you made by
the purchase and you might make tips and
little money here, you might
have a few concerns here..
There were even stories in Rome with slaves
owning slaves.
And then you saved enough, you bought your
freedom, and had a nice retirement.
So slavery was different in the ancient
world. There were different
kinds of slavery.
So was Jesus is talking about probably
is dept-slavery.
And this was a social contract.
That's why St. Paul says "Slaves honor
your master" you entered into a
contract.
Dept-slavery, was in a certain sense, voluntarily.
And it had it's responsibilities.
Now...
In that context...
Think about this.
Jesus told this parable, a man going into
a journey, called in his
slaves and intrusted his possessions to
them.
Then one makes ....one doubles the talents
of the five, he makes five
talents, he tdoubles it to another two,
he doubles it.
And the third one, he does nothing with
it.
Then the master calls him in and says "wicked,
lazy slave."
Now, when we think of slavery, a lazy slave
was a good idea... why
slave for this person?
Well, remember, this was a different kind
of slavery, most probably.
It was a slavery of social contract.
It's very interseting to notice the punishment
for the wicked and lazy slave.
Have you ever noticed that? It seems, it
seems... harsh that he says
well... take the silver... the talent
from the one who made nothing
and give it to the one who made ten.
Think about this.
Those slaves.... had nothing that did not
first belong to their master.
They belong to their master... and the
silver he had given them was theirs.
In other words that master took nothing
from the slave that belonged
to the slave.
He took what was his own and gave it to
someone who would do well with it.
This isn't a gift.
This isn't "here take this talent and have
a good time with it".
...noo, you're in charge with that silver.
And I want you now ... you've got five,
you invested it, you got 5
more, now you got 11.
You take care of that money.
So nothing was taken from the slave, but
one talent.
But what's the ultimate punishment?
Throw this useless servant outside where
there will be wailing and
grinding of teeth.
And here in, what I think is the most important
message for us.
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