matthew 25 network

polToday I learned that there was a Christian PAC called the Matthew 25 Network that tries to reach out. That came as Good News. But when I plugged in, I found that it is more a PAC than an "evangelical" network embracing an open approach to solving the issues of our time. This was not lost on some of its early readers. In July an on-line conversation was begun that questioned the accuracy of the PAC's interpretation of Matthew 25's "parable of the talents" (that ends chapter 25) because it had been taken out of the context of the entire chapter as well as out of the context of Christ's "teaching in parables" which was, allegedly, done to "hide" the message from those who would not hear it. Another saw the parable as a justification for defending capitalism.
When my father read from the bible after dinner, parables were among his favorite choices and so they were of the teachers in my "School with the Bible" grade school in the Netherlands. I do not remember the concept of "hiding the message" from unbelievers or from people with closed minds or the recalcitrant. Rather, the idea that I carried away from my father's choices and from my grade school bible-class was that the parables were used to make the message in them better understood and more memorable. My father was not a "liberal" but for one reason or another he was tolerant and loath to condemn, an attitude for which he found support in the Lord's Prayer.
As a teacher the idea of the "parable of the talents" was a source of inspiration. I used it to tease students who were impatient with "unnecessary course requirements" that interfered with their working at getting good grades in those courses that mattered for admission to graduate programs, law school or medical chool. They were the ones that took the "talents of silver" handed out to the servants to take care of, as monetary values whereas I was taught that the talents were instead abilities or fitness as in "one has a gift" or "a real talent for." To which I added another of my father's favorite encouragements, a text from one of the Letters of Paul "to examine all things and retain what is good." The useless courses, I agreed, might be useless as preparation for a narrowly designed career, but most aimed at confronting the student with "the common human experience" of which, for example, the Declaration of Independence and the Constituion are also praiseworthy results. And not a few students, having arrived with a (parentally) predetermined career goal switched majors because they were caught up in new subjects.
The parable was sometimes also a support for my frequently challenged patience with the less talented where my task was not to let them bury the little ability they had (or had come to believe they had); sometimes they met with a success they had not thought possible. I found them often easier to guide along than the smart ones who saw guidance as rather an insult to their native intelligence, etc.
No doubt that July critic of the Network would fault me for having gone beyond the text of the parable which condemns the servant who had buried his one talent for fear of loosing it and not being able to return it. But were the servants perhaps entrusted with the 5, 3 and 1 talent according to their previously demonstrated succesfull exercise of tasks? Did the servant receiving only 1 talent have less experience, less success, and had he actually failed in more difficult assignments and thus lost confidence in his abilities? Indeed, the parable does not mention any of these considerations, but, it appeared to me, that rather than let the less gifted servant bury his talent, I should encourage the servant to use it. The critic supports his censorship by citing other texts supporting a strict interpretation of a given text, including the "parable of the wise and foolish virgins" (that opens Matthew 25). There too I remember a different message: the foolish virgins who were not admitted to the wedding, were those that had not prepared themselves for the coming of the bridegroom; they disregarded the knowledge that all of these virgins had, wise and foolish alike. Thus, the beginning of ch. 25 forms a whole with its end and its advise is to act according to the knowledge one is given (to examine all things and retain what is good). And then there's my father's gentle smile as he quoted Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13, about us being only able to "look through a glass darkly," meanwhile relying on "faith, hope and charity." And that is not limited to theology, but works pretty well in secular life also.

The main July critic also wrote that he used the King James Version of the bible because it was chronologically closest to the original. This is one of the criteria for evaluating the validity of an historical document. In this case it is also a bit odd, for there are many versions of the bible closer in time to the original, for example the edition of the New Testament by Erasmus or the versions arrived at by Carolingian scholars who tried to base their work on that of the "fathers of the church" and its ecumenical councils which decided which books to accept as "the bible." (For ex., the Book of Revelation, so beloved by several Christian groups, was not accpted until the 4th century by the Greek Church and even later by the Latin Church) . But, even for secular scholars, the bible is a living document, albeit in a different sense than that favored by Evangelicals. The language preferred by scholarly editors is always conditioned by the connotation of a word in the temporal context of their age. For example, in an age of emerging royal absolutism (i.e. King James') the concept of dominion (given in Genesis to Adam and Eve over the creation, could imply lordship as in ownership or "lording it over." In the Middle Ages on the other hand, with its political structure of feudalism, dominion was given on a contractual basis and could thus be taken away, no permanent ownership was intended and account was to be rendered by the receiver of the dominion. The "parable of the talents" of Matth. 25, as I see it, admirably illustrates that relationship which has been better described as a stewardship requiring a rendering of accounts with, in this case, an improvement of the things entrusted. Simple conservation of what was given (i.e. a greater or lesser part of the Creation) is apparently not enough and what had been given was therefore taken away. It seems likely that we, as the latest stewards will be able to return even less than the parable's servant who received but 1 talent.











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