NOTES for Luk 19:20-22
The image of the harsh master who "takes what he did not deposit and reaps what he did not sow" may appear somewhat strange. Indeed, according to the general meaning of the parable, the subject is not a man but God. Yet each person sees God in his own way, usually according to his own spiritual condition.
Indeed, even if we limit ourselves to the text of the parable alone and keep in mind the image of the master that we see there, it is hardly possible to speak of him as greedy and cruel. Of course, when he leaves his servants a certain sum, he hopes for corresponding income when he returns, but that is the essence of money: it must be in circulation, otherwise the very possession of any fairly 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. It is unknown 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 quite clearly. And as in every parable, the money put into circulation symbolizes here something related to spiritual life. Moreover, the question should probably be not so much about money as such, but precisely about the readiness to put it into circulation. About 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 natural ones, can exist only in dynamic movement. 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 gave him money so that later he would have an opportunity to demand an account from his servant and get back what was his. It never occurred to him that his master's money could be of use both to him and to his master.
He was sure that nothing good could be expected from the master at all. And he received according to his expectations. God gives a person life not at all in order to find another reason to reproach or punish him, but so that this life may grow in him to the fullness a person is able to contain. But if a person sees a trap in God's gift, then he will end up in a trap. And it is not God who drives a person there. A person goes into his own trap himself. By his own choice.