The masters’ heart

“It will be as when a man who was going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one." (Matthew 25:14-15a)

This is where the story starts, a man going on a journey gives three employees some cash. The tale ends successfully for the first two who did something with it, but disaster for the third guy who buried his bit in the backyard, thinking his boss was a harsh, unforgiving jerk who expected a fat return even when he didn’t invest.

The story is one of Jesus’ judgment parables. At its end, the first two guys “enter into the joy” of their master, Jesus says. The third is consigned to the outer darkness far from the master’s joy and generosity.

And this is what he ... and most Christians ... don’t understand. They don’t understand where the story begins, with the generosity and hope of the master, who is not harsh or unforgiving. He is trusting and full-hearted, giving some of his substance that his servants might do something good with it ... even as he has.

The first two servants took risks. One supposes they could have lost it all, but they knew what the third servant failed to recognize. The master is not harsh but has a magnanimous heart so that failure is not fatal but forgivable.

They trusted the master and engaged what they were given, even as we can engage what we are given. “Talents” the parable calls them. We might better call them life. We are given life, breath, material reality, genetic inheritance of one sort or another and the inimitable, inherent potential that unfolds through millions of encounters large and small for as long our bodies last.

The trajectory of our lives is in large part determined by whether we live in the outer darkness of fear, like the guy digging up the master’s cash in the backyard, or whether we live in joyful freedom, knowing the master’s heart.

David L. Miller