NOTES for Luk 19:12-28

When considering the parable of the money entrusted to the servants, both we and the original hearers might ask a question: all right, some of those who put the money to work made a profit, while the servant who did not want to take a risk added nothing to the starting capital. But why does the parable not consider the situation in which a person invests the capital unsuccessfully and suffers a loss? Does that not happen?

Of course it happens; no one is protected from failure when taking a business risk. But what the Heavenly Father has entrusted to us differs from earthly money precisely in that it cannot produce a loss. Our abilities and opportunities differ, so we are not equally able to influence the profit that will result from investing the gifts we have received from Him. Yet success in works that He blesses is certain. That is why the parable does not consider the possibility of bankruptcy as a consequence of enterprise. Avoiding the use of the abilities we have received, however, leads to ruin—and is itself already ruin. For a time, it is possible to emerge from this state of ruin, but we should not delay...

The image of a harsh master who "takes what he did not deposit and reaps what he did not sow" may seem somewhat strange. Indeed, according to the general meaning of the parable, the issue is not a person, but God. But everyone sees God in his own way, usually according to his own spiritual state.

Indeed, even if we confine ourselves only to the text of the parable and keep in mind the image of the master that we see there, one can hardly speak of him as greedy and cruel. Of course, leaving a certain sum to his servants, he hopes for a corresponding profit on his return, but that is the essence of money: it must be in circulation, otherwise the very possession of any more or less large sum loses all meaning.

Of course, there is risk here, but the master is not against those to whom he entrusted his money taking risks. We do not know what the master's reaction would have been to losses from an unsuccessful investment, but his reaction to the refusal to put the entrusted sums into circulation is described in the parable with complete clarity. And as in every parable, the money put into circulation here symbolizes something related to spiritual life. Moreover, one should probably speak not even of money as such, but precisely of the readiness to put it into circulation. Of that dynamic without which money ceases to have meaning.

God gives a person life so that it may exist in constant dynamic movement. Life, in all its manifestations, from the highest and spiritual to the most ordinary and natural, can exist only dynamically. And only a person's openness to the world and trust in God can make this dynamic real. The servant who preferred to hide the money had neither one nor the other. He was sure that the master was giving him the money so that later he would have the opportunity to demand an account from his servant and get his own back. It never occurred to him that benefit from the master's money was possible both for himself and for his master.

He was sure that nothing good at all could be expected from the master. And he received according to his expectations. God gives a person life not in order to find one more occasion to reproach or punish him, but so that this life may grow in him to the fullness that the person can contain. But if a person sees a trap in God's gift, he will find himself in a trap. And it is not God who drives a person there. A person walks into his own trap himself. By his own choice.

These are the closing words of the parable about three servants who received different sums from their master and used them in different ways. The parable itself is inseparable from the context in which the Lord tells it. He offers it to the disciples precisely while going up to Jerusalem, and this means that He compares His coming to Jerusalem for the Passion with the master's return to his servants. It is precisely now that the day of God's visitation comes, as the Lord Himself called this moment. It is precisely at the Cross that it becomes clear what you have done with the life God entrusted to you. Our faithfulness to Him is tested not when people want to "take" Jesus unexpectedly and "make Him King." On the contrary, faithfulness to God is required of us when He is humiliated and diminished before people, when the human race mocks its Creator and derides Him.

The main demand placed on the servants in the parable is to use what was given to them to manage in the way the master himself would have done. What matters is not even the increase of the wealth given to them to manage: the master makes no complaint if the growth is not very great. Judging from what is said to the last, negligent servant, what matters is precisely conformity to the master's way of acting. And another essential aspect of the parable is that it does not even occur to any of the servants that the silver left with them belongs not to the master, but to themselves. Indeed, such a thought would be obviously mistaken. Since the silver here serves as a symbol of a person's life and possibilities, what is said can be extended to them. Neither life nor the ability to act in this world belongs to us ourselves; it is a gift we receive from God in order to use it according to His image and likeness. We are given the freedom necessary for this, but together with it responsibility is laid on us for how we dispose of the life given to us.

The Lord tells us that the fate of the gift of life we have received depends on how we use it. The one who does this in accordance with the Lord's design receives in abundance. The one who acts otherwise loses everything. These words frighten us and often provoke protest. The fate of the negligent servant terrifies us, and therefore the master's sentence seems unjust. But the silver in the parable and our life in reality do not belong to us, so there is only one way not to fall under the fate of the negligent servant: to be faithful. This is a choice that must be made and answered for, but after all, one cannot really refuse this responsibility.

Entering Jerusalem, Jesus weeps over its fate. He clearly foresees the city's sad destiny: in A.D. 70, after the anti-Roman revolt raised by the Zealots and the war that followed, Jerusalem will be razed to the ground by the Roman army sent to suppress the revolt. In the Middle Ages, and partly also in modern times, an opinion was widespread and popular among Christians that this catastrophe became a punishment for the Jewish people's rejection of the Messiah sent to them. Yet Jesus Himself looks at the situation differently. For Him this is above all a tragedy, a national catastrophe. He does not look at it as just retribution. For Him it is rather a rejected and therefore missed opportunity.

In the lives both of individuals and of whole peoples, there are crossroads at which the direction of further spiritual movement is determined and set for years ahead, if we are speaking about a person, or for centuries ahead, if we are speaking about a people. There is nothing predetermined here, no program written in advance, no fate or doom. On the contrary, such a crossroads is always a moment of highest freedom. A moment of that choice when the person himself or the people themselves choose and determine what later may look to them like doom or fate. The day of the Savior's entry into Jerusalem became such a moment for the Jewish people.

Of course, one can say that the enthusiasm with which the crowd met Him in the streets of Jerusalem was not worth much: the enthusiasm of crowds never lasts long. But the people did have the possibility of a choice, a serious choice determining further history for centuries ahead, and Jesus understands this perfectly. He also understands something else: like all such choices, this one essentially comes down to whether to follow God or one's own opinions, traditions, and habits. And the second option is always catastrophic. The only question is how soon this catastrophe will come. That it will come is beyond doubt: missed opportunities always exact a price, and the greater the opportunity, the more terrible the catastrophe will be if that opportunity is missed.

That is why Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. He understands as no one else does what has been given and what has been missed. And He also understands what the consequences will be.

The evangelist combines in one account Jesus' triumphal entry into the holy city, when praise and joy cannot be restrained by any force, so that even the stones are ready to sing glory to the coming King, and Jesus' sorrowful weeping over Jerusalem. The city of promise here becomes a collective image of all who wait for Christ, who cannot live without Him, but who do not recognize Him and cannot believe that their hope is being fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. Before our eyes there is both triumph and catastrophe, because the city, the people, and individual persons are given the long-awaited opportunity to see, recognize, and meet their dream, but they "do not know the time of visitation."

Deep down, we would probably like this time to be clear, obvious to everyone, or at least for it to be optional, not for everyone. But such a time does happen, and what is most terrible is that it can be missed: one can fail to recognize God when He passes nearby...

In today’s reading there is the rejoicing of the disciples and the sorrow of the Lord Jesus.

Indeed, true and genuine faith is always joyful. This does not mean that a Christian must always be in high spirits, but even amid trials and sin our darkness must not smother the light. If joy seems incompatible to us with reverent fear of God, the seriousness of prayer, and penitential weeping, then we resemble the Pharisees “from among the crowd,” to whom the Lord said that if we did not rejoice, the stones would have to do it for us!

The second aspect of this encounter between God and humanity is Jesus’ sorrow over Jerusalem, which failed to recognize His coming. This sorrow is one expression of His love for sinful people. The Lord does not grow angry, curse the city, or punish it; He only weeps. He brought us life, and we turned away from His gift. The memory of these tears often restrains us from sin far more powerfully than fear of punishment or God’s wrath. We encounter God in prayer, in reading Scripture, and in worship almost every day. Let us therefore remember the rejoicing and the tears in today’s chapter.

The people of Judea greet Jesus as He enters Jerusalem as the King who comes in the name of the Lord. This is true, but not at all in the sense that those greeting Him attach to these words: the Kingdom He is coming to establish is unlike any earthly kingdom. For now, Jesus has influence comparable to the authority of the people’s leaders. He can put the Temple in order, and no one can hinder Him because the people listen to Him without ceasing. Unfortunately, though they listened, not all of them heard Him. That is why tears are in His eyes at the very height of the celebration: even those who place their hope in Him seek an entirely different salvation from the one Christ wishes to give, and therefore many of them will very soon turn away from Him.

And what do we today expect and desire from Him? Is it what He wishes to bring us, or what we project onto His image because we want to see Him as an expression of our own moods and whims? And do we desire Him Himself?..

What do the silver minas, or talents in another version, mean in this parable? They are not simply “talents,” such as the ability to play the violin or multiply four-digit numbers in one’s head. Clearly, they are everything we have been given. (And what have we not been given?) Every good thing that appears in our lives, even only occasionally, can serve as suitable currency for acquiring the Kingdom of God. Not that it can be bought, but one can “invest” in it. Zacchaeus, for example, did not spare his money or his reputation as a respectable “bandit,” as people might say today. Many did not spare their lives, or at least their comfort and “worldly happiness.” Yet we often begrudge even a smile to someone we meet. We begrudge the effort needed to help those close to us and the time needed to stop amid the bustle and think about eternity. Spiritual stinginess leads to bankruptcy even faster than material stinginess. This is because, first, the return on spiritual transactions is much higher and, second, spiritual values cannot be kept as cash—they quickly lose their value. Thus, the Gospel calls us to put someone else’s “capital” into circulation as quickly as possible, especially since we have nothing of our own.

If earlier Jesus displeased pious people by associating with tax collectors, that is, tax farmers, and sinners, those who openly did not keep the law, now He crosses every boundary: He enters the house of the chief extortioner and declares forgiveness of sins to him simply because he promised to change his ways. He explains this by saying that Zacchaeus too is, after all, a "son of Abraham." In that language this means that he too is a human being, that God created him for Himself, for life and joy.

In theory, we too know that "man is created for happiness," but for us humanity is still divided into those who have deserved this happiness and those who have not, into the worthy and the unworthy. We ourselves, of course, end up among the "better part"; that is why the Pharisees, like all normal people, "began to grumble" when Christ turned out to be in the house of a "sinful man." The Lord knows how to see a human being in everyone, and this is a skill that should be learned.

Most Christians usually understand the parable of the minas precisely as a parable about minas - perhaps not about money in the strict sense, but certainly as a parable about the gifts God gives a person. About the fact that the talents God gives cannot be left undeveloped: after all, on the day of Judgment one must return everything to Him with a profit. But this is only one, outer side of the situation described by the parable. It also has a deeper layer of meaning. And it is no accident that the Savior uses money as the central image of His parable, money entrusted to different people so that they would put it into circulation. Everyone knows that money must work. It must be in circulation. In constant motion. Otherwise, in one way or another, it loses value.

The value of money is maintained by the dynamics of its circulation. And it is precisely this, paradoxical as it may sound, that makes money most resemble that breath of the Kingdom which we call grace. What they have in common is precisely dynamics. As money can function normally only while in circulation, so the breath of the Kingdom, grace, can exist only in constant movement. A person receives this breath from God freely, but its further existence is determined as much by God as by the person. This is understandable: breathing is a process; it cannot be limited to one inhalation and exhalation. And this process cannot be sustained without human participation.

Meanwhile, a person's spiritual life depends on the intensity of this process. Or, more precisely, this process itself is spiritual life. A person's participation in it gradually turns the participant into a bearer of the breath of the Kingdom, turning his heart into a vessel that contains this breath. And it determines what a person will bring to God on the day of Judgment.

It is no wonder that the one who returned the whole sum to his master without profit lost what had been given to him. He had not changed. He remained the same. There was no merit of his in the breath of the Kingdom that breathed within him: he had received it freely. And he did nothing so that it would touch him in any measure. So that it would in some way change his own life. By the end of the path this man remained just as he had been at the beginning. And he was left with nothing. A sad but fitting outcome.