NOTES for Luk 19:20-22
20 And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin: |
21 For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. |
22 And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow: |
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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.
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