Everyone more or less acknowledges that in a Christian
framework our possessions and assets do not actually belong to us but to God
Himself.
And at that point all agreement ends.
What does this term mean? What are the implications of stewardship for the Christian life?
Historically the Christian groups that have rejected wealth
and power have said our possessions are not our own and therefore we are to be
free in their distribution. Non- and Anti-Materialism are ethical mandates. As
commanded in the Sermon on the Mount, we are not to think of tomorrow but to
give to those in need and thus lay up treasures in heaven.
This also profoundly changes how we are to view wealth
acquisition and our use of time in this life. These things become secondary at
best. The credo that insists that time is the equivalent of money is at best
worldly wisdom and in fact may be a rejection of Christ's command.
Another school of thought says that 'stewardship' suggests
that we are more like financial managers. Our job is to promote and stimulate
growth. We are to take our money and cause it to increase and thereby we can
supposedly give away more.
But like the manager of a trust you never want to dole out
too much where you run the risk of hurting the principal investment. The more
you accumulate, the more you'll have to 'give' or 'spend'.
The original investment itself becomes critical to this way
of thinking. You only give away what is 'extra', that which is made on top of
the original amount thus maintaining the principal. Of course figuring in costs
and the rate of inflation means that even that principal amount needs to grow a
bit in order to maintain its relative value.
Many Christians have wholeheartedly embraced this way of
thinking as normative. It's the world we live in and this how you have to think
to get by, let alone be successful. The other group insists that this is the
sanctioning of the world and its system and we're to think in entirely
different categories. Some would even suggest that making money in this fashion
is unethical and exploitative. They would suggest that it's not a matter of
being financially small minded and unsophisticated, but that we're called to
simplicity and to live from the labour of our hands, not skimming off the
labour of other's hands.
They would insist the financial stewardship or investment
model is perilously mistaken. In fact it's a totally different mindset and the
polar opposite of say, the widow putting in her two mites. That was reckless
stewardship! Of course I've also heard some tortured Dominionist interpretations
that suggest Christ was actually being critical of the widow or mocking her. So
foreign is this spiritual mindset to them that they literally cannot understand
Christ's point. Such anti-materialism they must at once label Gnostic in order
to reassure themselves.
Of course the parable of the talents will also be appealed
to at this point. This is the 'investment' parable. Both camps appeal to Scripture
for support but someone has evidently misread it on a massive scale. The
parable of the talents, it is argued, teaches the validity of investment as the
servant who didn't invest and earn interest is condemned.
Is this about money?
Some of course have misinterpreted 'talents' for gifts of
proficiency and have created a whole theology based on this misread. This can
be seen on any given Sunday in most Evangelical Churches as the 'talent'
interpretation has led to performance and entertainment which according to
their beliefs are necessitated by the application of this passage. For Bill to
not play the guitar and for Sally not to sing, well they would be squandering
their gifts. You're sinning and causing them to sin by suggesting they
shouldn't! There are problems with this viewpoint on many levels and the
argument also rests on many faulty assumptions regarding what is worship and
good works. But that's another topic for another time.
Others rightly understand that the 'talents' referred to are
sums of money denominated by weight. Thus the parable is using money as the
referent.
But is it about money?
Most will agree that wasn't the primary import of the
parable. It would be primarily about Christian growth and the advancement of
God's Kingdom. Again some think this means talent to play guitar builds the
Kingdom etc... More sober exegetes will acknowledge it refers to gifts in the
sense of teaching, works as defined by Scripture, and lifestyle.
Some, particularly those of a certain theological mindset,
would say the acquisition of wealth and power can play a part in the
advancement of the Kingdom. Most interpreters would acknowledge that's not
exactly what Christ was talking about.
But for the parable to make sense it is argued, for Him to
use the referent it has to follow that the monetary lesson also stands. Thus
whatever the spiritual meaning, the principle of investment, the idea of
loaning capital to a bank or business and receiving cash payments or dividends
in return, must therefore be Biblically sanctioned.
I would argue this is not at all the case.
Christ explicitly said the parables were only for those with
spiritual eyes and ears. The plain and regular meaning of the parable was not
the actual point.
In Luke 8 we read,
9 Then His disciples asked Him, saying, "What does this
parable mean?"
10 And He said, "To you it has been given to know the
mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that
'Seeing they
may not see, and hearing they may not understand.'
Or as expanded in Mark 4,
11 And He said to them, "To you it has been given to
know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all
things come in parables,
12 "so that
'Seeing they
may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand; Lest
they should turn, and their sins be forgiven them.'
In both passages, Christ is quoting from Isaiah 6 when the
prophet was commissioned to speak even though (virtually) no one would hear.
Christ was speaking in terms of the cultural context, using
examples that people could understand, but at the same time the lessons far transcend
these meanings to the point that regular people couldn't understand what he was
actually talking about. If you understand the parable prima facie, as one would
literally sense it, then you are guaranteed to misunderstand its message.
You're interpreting it the way a lost person would, who lacks eyes to see and
ears to hear.
This is also instructive in terms of the argument commonly
heard that stories and illustrations are to be encouraged in the pulpit because
Jesus spoke in parables.
In fact the opposite is the case. While it may be okay to
use some stories and illustrations, this notion that sermons can be large-scale
parables is to misunderstand what a Gospel Parable actually was.
I would say that using the model of the Parable is actually
inappropriate for the Church context. The Church is comprised of believers and
we don't need to speak in type and shadow but with light and clarity. This does
negate the pulpit illustration, but the sanctioning of the popular method of
endless stories is founded on a misunderstanding. In the parables Jesus was not
being 'earthy' and speaking to people in the vernacular.
Using parables to derive economic and sociological
principles is to use them in precisely the way Jesus seemed to indicate they
would be understood by lost people. This is to invert the parable, to turn it
on its head.
Jesus wasn't laying down principles of investment or the
rules of labour negotiation.
If this was the case consider another parable, that of the
Wheat and the Tares (Matthew 13). If we are to derive sociological principles
from this then it must be argued that all pesticides and/or the weeding of
gardens is sinful.
He did say to let the wheat and tares grow together right?
Of course no one would argue this and rightly so. Even the
most strident advocates of organic farming wouldn't go so far as to appeal to
the parable for support.
Or perhaps Christ meant to teach economic inefficiency in
the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15)? Any businessman would say you don't
use your resources to find one lost sheep out of a hundred. It doesn't make
economic sense to do so. It's not efficient. Was Jesus teaching a principle of
inefficiency. Should we spend $100 to make a $25 product? Is this a principle
we're meant to follow in our economics and the running of our businesses?
No one would argue this.
The problem with Parable Inversion is that not only does it
miss the true nature of the parable it can actually derive rather erroneous
ideals.
Jesus wasn't sanctioning or condemning the ethics he
presented in the parable narratives. That wasn't his point or purpose. He was
simply providing an illustration using characters and settings that would be
familiar to the audience. His point was transcendent, wholly outside the simple
temporal context.
I might tell a story using an Iphone as a prop, but that doesn't
mean I want everyone to go out and buy one. God forbid! Why would I use it
then? It's something that's part of our cultural context, something that would
make sense to people even if I took the story in an unusual direction.
What is growth? What does it mean to increase your talents?
This of course is about laying up treasures in heaven. We do
this when we repent, believe, worship, pray, show kindness to the orphan and
widow, show love to the stranger etc... The New Testament is replete with
examples of what good works are.
Dominionism has distorted this teaching and has incorporated
ideas like building a business or perhaps even fighting in a war. In a
Dominionist scheme, these works and others like them can also be reckoned 'good
works' even though the New Testament knows nothing of this.
This is not to say that it's inherently wrong to run a
business or trim the bushes along your driveway. But these aren't 'good works'
as the Scripture defines them. We do all to the glory of God and that may mean
that we don't put profits first, that we pay employees a reasonable wage that
ignores the market. It might mean that we ignore the yard for a time because we
have greater priorities. It means that time is not money because money should
be of little account to us. A house is not an investment or a status symbol,
but merely a shelter to keep us out of the rain and snow.
It means thinking about all of these questions in a very
different way.
The parable regarding the workers in the vineyard (Matthew
20) isn't about the rules of contracting labour. It's not a prohibition against
a minimum wage. It's a picture of grace at work.
Yes, the thief on the cross gets to be in the same Kingdom
as the apostle Paul.
Is that fair? If we reckon our salvation in terms of grace
and our works in terms of grateful fruit then indeed it's quite fair. This
doesn't mean there won't be a differentiation in heaven with regard to these
rewards but this is above and beyond the grace of salvation.
In terms of the world it doesn't seem fair that the dying
thief has the same reward as the Apostle Paul. And that's because the Kingdom
is operating on a different level. The parable is in fact more about the
gentile inclusion, an elaboration of redemptive history than it is about even
the idea of grace at work in individual salvation. It's effectively the same
issue that Paul is dealing with in Romans 9-11 wherein he deals with the
question of the Jews and the nature of the True Israel.
But of course these passages aren't generally understood
either.
Paying the workers who laboured for an hour the same wage as
those who laboured all day isn't fair. That was the deal, but the owner did
show considerably more favour to the workers at the end of the day.
By definition that's not fair or just. Maybe it's legally
okay. That's not the point of the parable. Jesus wasn't commenting on the
whether or not that's right in terms of contract labour.
He was using the imagery to teach a point about grace. The
parable is actually meant to demonstrate a situation that isn't fair. In terms
of our human relations, to reject fairness is no virtue. But the parable isn't
about human relations but the Kingdom of God.
And thankfully for us Grace isn't fair. If God was fair we'd
all be condemned. Grace isn't unjust but thankfully for us it is the suspension
of justice as it were. The judgment is suspended because a substitute bears the
judgment due to us.
To read the parable in terms of sociology and economics is
to interpret it as a worldling, a lost person. To read it thus is to reject its
demonstration of a 'grace' arrangement. If the Dominionist interpretation is
correct, it would be teaching an unjust version of salvation by works.
No one says that of course. So what they would say is that
it teaches a spiritual lesson about Grace but at the same time teaches a
temporal economic principle. Of course this is also a problem when Dominionism
teaches the Kingdom grows and advances in temporal terms. Then the
literal/worldly reading of the parable also becomes a spiritual maxim.
Dominionism has substituted the spiritual Kingdom for a worldly
one and thus falls right into this trap. They are consistent in their complete
misreading of the parables. They invert them and use them as justification for
their worldly programme.
That is, when it's convenient. When it's not, they choose to
interpret the parables solely in spiritual terms.
While this seems to be a minor issue of interpretation it
plays out on a grand scale.
CONTINUE READING PART 2/Conclusion
CONTINUE READING PART 2/Conclusion