NOTES for Luk 19:20-22
The image of the harsh master who "takes what he did not put down and reaps what he did not sow" can seem somewhat strange. Indeed, according to the general meaning of the parable, the matter concerns not a human being, but God. Yet everyone sees God in his own way, usually according to his own spiritual state.
Indeed, even if we limit ourselves only to the text of the parable and keep in mind the image of the master that we see there, it is hardly possible to speak of him as a greedy and cruel man. Of course, when leaving his servants a certain sum, 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 fairly large sum loses all meaning.
Of course there is risk here, but the master is not opposed to 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 here symbolizes something connected with spiritual life. Moreover, one should speak not so much of money as such, but precisely of the readiness to put it into circulation. Of that dynamism without which money ceases to have meaning.
God gives a person life so that it may exist in constant dynamism. Life in all its manifestations, from the highest and spiritual to the most ordinary and natural, can exist only in dynamism. And only a person's openness to the world and trust in God can make this dynamism real. The servant who preferred to hide the money had neither. He was sure that the master was giving him money so that later he would have the opportunity to demand an accounting from his servant and get back what was his. It never entered his head that the master's money could benefit both him and 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 one more reason 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 the person there. The person goes into his own trap himself. By his own choice.