It would seem natural, indeed predictable, for two of Christ’s parables to share some common threads. Having heard a sermon on the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which insightfully focused on the elder son rather than the “lost son” (indeed, they are both lost in the story, but only one is found), I was reminded very much of the Parable of the Talents. I will deal with each separately, and then attempt to coalesce their messages around a common conclusion.
In modern society, our natural inclination (largely a product of ‘nurture’ rather than ‘nature’ per se, but disputably related to both) is for one of ‘social equality’. It is often debated whether fairness in society entails equality of endowments, income, or opportunities, corresponding to communist, socialist and liberal outlooks respectively. For adherents of any of these schools, the message of the Parable of the Talents is therefore surprising, and certainly uncomfortable: ‘For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.’ This certainly does not conform to our ‘Robin Hood’ sentiments of social justice.
Conversely, the modern version of social justice also includes punishment. Although the justice system exists to protect the innocent and to rehabilitate the guilty, its own philosophical justification rests on the moral correctness of social reprimand. We feel that it is right for wrong-doers to be punished. Schools of thoughts disagree about the extent and manner of punishment, the most extreme advocating the death penalty and the most liberal espousing a sort of community rehabilitation. For anybody in today’s society, then, the Parable of the Prodigal Son is bewildering. How can the profligate son receive such unmerited grace? And how can the elder son, who has worked his entire life, remain overshadowed by the return of his younger sibling?
Juxtaposing these parables is informative. We have situations whereby: man is rewarded for stewardship and punished for profligacy, and one in which man is forgiven for a similar type of profligacy. In both stories, the master/father figure endows a slave/son with resources, which are then either multiplied or squandered. And yet the morality conveyed seems to be contradictory.
I would propose a solution to the dilemma. Notice that in the Parable of the Talents, the master returns to the slaves, whereas the Prodigal Son returns home. The man who squandered his one talent by burying it is unrepentant, and would probably prefer to bury himself as well, than for the master to return. The Son, on the other hand, is left with nothing – not even one talent. He is obligated to return. It is our reaction that determines our sentence, and this conforms to the idea that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We are better off with nothing, as we are forced back to God, than to even have a small fraction of earthly treasure to which we pathetically cling.
Moreover, these two parables may be elucidating two separate aspects of our relationship with God. We are his slaves, but thanks to Christ, we are also his sons. In terms of slavery, we must pick up our cross daily to follow him. In terms of family, a father disciplines his son if he loves him. Finally, the surprising aspects of the second parable, that the son got let off the hook, is only so because we would expect something resembling the Talent story. I think this is a valid point: we deserve to have everything taken away, but we are shown grace. Grace is by definition receiving something that we don’t deserve: it cannot exist without a counterpart of punishment.
And so the two conclusions are not irreconcilable.
