The Subversive Parables 3
Nothing Changed

Matthew 18:23-34

This is another parable that appears only in Matthew.

If the traditional understanding of parables as allegory or metaphor is applied to this parable then you get something like this:

You’ll notice that I did not include the moral after the parable that makes it clear that this is how God will be. Most scholars agree that it is not part of the original parable but was added as an explanation.

When we take this explanation away that places a theological context on the parable away, we see a story that was a commonplace experience of the people of that day. While the writer of Matthew’s gospel felt a need to editorialize about the meaning of the parable, the power of this story is found within the story itself.

During this time period, it was the “business as usual” approach for the elite – like a king or a Roman-appointed ruler – to exact tribute from the people to support the lifestyle of the rulers. The way to do this required the acquiring of more subjects, land and taxes. To collect these tributes another class of people emerged known as the “retainers”. Our scripture calls these persons “servants” and that is more descriptive of their relationship to the king of the story. In the ancient understanding, everyone in the realm was the servant of the king. But these servants were actually retainers hired by the king to collect the tribute and make sure the peasants stayed in their place. The way the retainers did this was through intimidation, bribes, blackmail, spies, moles and any other method they could use to keep themselves in their position of power while at the same time preventing someone else from taking their position away through an end run. It was run like a Jewish mafia because always you had to watch your back. It was a delicate position. You were appointed by the king and served as a servant to the king so you had to keep the king’s favor because the king had absolute power of life and death in these cultures. You also had to wield control of a peasant class that hated you while making sure some other retainer wasn’t getting the king’s ear and taking your job away from you.

This parable occurs in Matthew after Jesus told the famous “seventy times seven” reference to forgiving so it has been placed here, many scholars believe, to serve to illustrate that ideal. However, the parable in and of itself doesn’t really end up illustrating forgiveness if we turn this into a story about God. The king sends the forgiven man to torture. That, some would say, is exactly how God is. That is not the God Jesus described.

So let’s suspend our biased understanding of this parable and try to listen to it with a first century ear without the editorializing around it. The fact that the parable tells us the retainer owed the king ten thousand talents is a clue that this story is hyperbole. Whole nations rarely paid ten thousand talents in tribute. This was a huge sum.

A king had absolute power but was also always guarding against those who would try to usurp that power – both other rulers and the people that worked for the king. The people working for the king were always competing for the king’s favor because that is how they kept their jobs and padded their pockets. And the peasants were always on the look out for competing retainers to keep the collectors from being extreme in their collection methods. This is the world into which this parable was spoken. This is the world into which the realm of God has come… and nothing changed. The king tried to show mercy and to forgive, thinking that if he did that, then there would be a “trickle down effect” and all of his subjects would follow suit. The result was the opposite. The first retainer is so undone by the experience with the king that he tries to solidify his station with those who report to him. The result is the same violence and intimidation that had always happened. When the king hears about this, the king reverts to his knee-jerk way of reacting and sentences the retainer to torture. Everyone listening to this story would have immediately thought to themselves, “How does the reign of God make any difference? The same things ended up happening anyway.”

The parable is challenging the common assumptions of that day that when the reign of God comes, it will be a political solution. The popular assumption was that the Romans will be overthrown and the land will be restored to the people. This parable challenges that notion and shows that the realm of God must be lived out in each of us and it must be ongoing. You and I bring the realm of God into every situation of our day. Every day we have hundreds of opportunities to live out the realm of God or to revert back to our knee-jerk reactions. When we forgive, heal, love, give voice to the silenced, have courage in the face of trial, then we experience the realm of God in our world. God is not some outside power to be imposed upon a situation, but is that healing presence that is invited into every situation. When we pray the “Lord’s Prayer” and say “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” or as we say it here “thy dominion come, thy will be done” we’re not telling God something God needs to do. We’re reminding ourselves that it is up to us to help create that dominion, that realm, which is the will of God.

Next Wednesday, we will look at the parable in Luke 18:9-14 which I like to call the Parable of the Deviant Toll Collector.

Source:
Herzog, William R. II. “Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed.” (Westminster/John Knox Press: Louisville) 1994.

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