Fearful Prudence, Reflection on Matthew 25:14-18

I think that I always interpreted the word "talent" in this parable as meaning "talent." I mean although I understood that Matthew was talking about money, I just assumed that he had an allegorical intent. So, I was surprised to read in Boring & Craddock that the use of the term "talent" came into the English language in the Middle Ages. Matthew was talking about money. I find that I can't let go of the allegorical meaning anyway.

Yet, I am able to read the term as including money. And it's a lot of money. A talent would have taken a laborer fifteen years to earn.

Can we sympathize with that third slave? His master had entrusted him with an amount of wealth that he would never have been able to accumulate on his own. Shouldn't he be careful?

How willing are we to restrict our actions and speech because we fear the cost of saying and doing something that will offend our financial supporters?

Ann Weems, in her Kneeling in Jerusalem, begins the poem "Stewardship,"

The pew preached to the pulpit, all the while clutching its checkbook
.....
If the boat is rocked, it is the poor who will be drowned
....

(thanks to Resources for Preaching and Worship, Year A, edited by Ward and Wild, for the Weems reference.

Lectio Divina: Matthew 25:18