A Lifeline After the End

by: Monica Miller

A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds,[a] and said to them, ‘Do business with these until I come back.’ But the citizens of his country hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to rule over us.’  When he returned, having received royal power, he ordered these slaves, to whom he had given the money, to be summoned so that he might find out what they had gained by trading. The first came forward and said, ‘Lord, your pound has made ten more pounds.’ He said to him, ‘Well done, good slave! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small thing, take charge of ten cities.’ Then the second came, saying, ‘Lord, your pound has made five pounds.’ He said to him, ‘And you, rule over five cities.’ Then the other came, saying, ‘Lord, here is your pound. I wrapped it up in a piece of cloth, for I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man; you take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.’ He said to him, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! You knew, did you, that I was a harsh man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money into the bank? Then when I returned, I could have collected it with interest.’ He said to the bystanders, ‘Take the pound from him and give it to the one who has ten pounds.’ (And they said to him, ‘Lord, he has ten pounds!’) ‘I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.’”1

Don’t we all love a good underdog story? The scrappy little kid takes down the big, mean bully. The cash-strapped startup topples the industry giant. The grass-roots organizers mobilize an ocean of supporters to finally upend a violent regime. Those David-and-Goliath stories get us all amped up with righteous zeal. Good triumphs over evil. The winners win, the losers lose. There’s no question who’s who. The right side secures the happy ending and we feel vindicated, satisfied, inspired.

This parable is not one of those stories. At least, not at first glance. Not even at second glance. The bad guy gets the last word. The bad guy gets his revenge on the laughably weak hero. The bad guy orders the massacre of anyone who stands in his way to power. At every step of the way from beginning to end, the bad guy wins.

Jesus, why did you tell us this parable? Why this parable where the righteous but weak one loses and the wicked but strong one wins? There’s such a long tradition from Genesis to Revelation of God choosing the weak, the young, the inexperienced, the outcast, the underdog to triumph in the face of impossible odds thanks to God’s wisdom and strength. Jesus, this parable doesn’t fit that mold. This parable flies in the face of that mold. Jesus, why have you given us this discouraging parable in which the only ones who live happily ever after are the cold, heartless sociopath and his cronies?

​This terrible parable of violence, exploitation, and oppression is not an easy one to tackle. So would you hold space with me for a few minutes as we sink into this terrible parable, grappling with its difficulty, buckling under its weight, struggling through its despair, because then and only then can we begin to trace the faintest thread of hope as it leads us toward resurrection victory. When our Good Shepherd leads us through the valley of the shadow of death, we fear no evil. Let us descend into the valley with Jesus as he tells this terrible parable.
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​Just how terrible is this parable?

Tell me if you’ve seen this pattern before. One person has more resources than the next person which gives them a little more leverage to operate within society. They can then use that leverage to begin to steer and call the shots for what does and doesn’t happen in the community. And in all likelihood one of the results is that the person garners more resources—whether that’s economic capital or a rosier reputation or more responsibility, which gives them more leverage and power, which they can use to exercise more control and direct more resources to themselves, giving them more power to control more resources and more power and more control and more resources, and it spirals.

This connection between economics and politics is too often bathed in some sort of violence, whether that violence is overt or more subtly manipulative, regardless of whether it’s intentional or not. As we scale this up, we might call to mind Martin Luther King Jr.’s giant triplets of racism, militarism, and materialism, recognizing that racism is a monopoly on a type of social and political power. Political and social power backed by the strong arm of militarism—whether officially sanctioned by the state or simply violence the state turns a blind eye to—to control the flow of goods and accrue as many resources to oneself as possible. Challenging those giant triplets was at the core of MLK’s later work. Those three were inseparable to him: politics, economics, and state violence: an unholy trinity of oppression and suffering. And while MLK’s social critiques were perceptive and penetrating, they weren’t fundamentally new.

Jesus was no less observant and carried on the tradition of Old Testament prophets who also saw straight through that tangled trinity. This terrible parable captures that perfectly, so in case you didn’t catch it as I read the parable earlier, let me recap what this villainous main character does in terms that are, perhaps, a little more familiar:

The main character is born into prestige and social privilege and he jumps through the hoops to legitimize his power and formally step into the political office that was handed to him because of his family connections. He already had economic means before; he easily hands out loans to ten of his servants. Once he assumes his political office, he has enough political and economic means to hand out entire cities as door prizes. He uses his power to set the rules and regulations for how the economic system is going to work from now on, namely to funnel economic resources away from his detractors (forcing them into destitution and homelessness) and toward his favorite yes-men, whom he also appoints to his cabinet. Then he flexes his military strength that came with his political office and orders that his detractors be rounded up and lynched in broad daylight: that strange fruit left for all to see as a show of force and brutality. No remorse whatsoever. And he’s just getting started.

It’s sickening. And oh-so timeless.

All of the characters with any shred of moral decency—every last one of them—try to derail his plans and call him out but to no avail. Some he silences, some he consigns to poverty, and some he orders to be slaughtered. This terrible parable starts and ends with this evil man who controls every line of the story, and so long as we stay within the confines of his story, we’re caught in his grasp. Like quicksand, we’re sucked in and doomed unless someone from outside throws us a lifeline… which is exactly what the writer of Luke does.

The writer of Luke has added a preface to this parable that’s a little unusual, because not every parable comes with a preface. Verse 11: “As the disciples listened to this, Jesus told them another parable because he was near Jerusalem and they thought God’s kingdom would appear right away.” The writer of Luke has thrown us not one but two lifelines. Something about Jerusalem and something about the timing of God’s kingdom. What do these mean? Let’s grab onto the second one first: the timing of God’s kingdom.

God’s kingdom. The writer of Luke is letting us know this parable has something to do with God’s kingdom. Well, it’s pretty clear that the evil man’s kingdom in this parable is not God’s kingdom. It’s like the opposite of God’s kingdom. We’re not comparing how the two are similar; we’re contrasting the two. The evil man’s kingdom is the poster child for that unholy trinity of oppression and suffering. It’s an example of political abuse, economic injustice, and violence. That doesn’t fly in God’s kingdom—that’s not how it’s supposed to be—and in this parable, we have one servant who speaks up and basically says as much. Let’s listen in.

The evil man gave the servant a loan and expected the servant to use that money to work the economic system and get a lot more. Here’s the thing about that—nowadays we may operate under the assumption that there’s essentially an infinite amount of money that can be acquired; you can invest and multiply it—that was not the case back then. If someone had more, it was a direct result of their neighbor having less. If someone accumulated wealth, it was at the expense of their neighbors. Money didn’t multiply; it merely changed hands. What the man was expecting the servant to do was bordering on fraud and scamming for his own economic gain. The servant refused. When the man came to collect on the loan, the servant mustered up the courage to call him out and speak truth to power. “You withdraw what you haven’t deposited and you harvest what you haven’t planted.” You take things that don’t belong to you. You use your power to steal from other people. I want no part of that.

The servant is saying, “The way things are in your kingdom is not how a kingdom is supposed to be.” We know from our lifeline that this parable is about God’s kingdom. God’s kingdom is the way things are supposed to be, and this evil man’s kingdom ain’t it. That servant flags that for us, loud and clear.

The second part of that same lifeline is that Jesus’s disciples thought God’s kingdom would appear right away. What happens to this servant in the parable illustrates that it does not appear right away. Where timing is concerned, God’s kingdom is… delayed. The servant speaks truth to power to try to hold the evil man accountable to God’s values and it doesn’t work. The man essentially replies, “Yeah, that’s not news to me. I’m fully aware that I take things that belong to other people. But by naming it out loud, you’ve crossed the line, my friend.” And he punishes the servant, setting him on a trajectory to homelessness. God’s kingdom hasn’t come yet for the servant; he’ll live and die in the evil man’s kingdom. This is a terrible parable, after all.

What about us? God’s kingdom is already but not yet here. In many ways we’re in a similar boat. We know what God’s kingdom is supposed to look like and we know this ain’t it. How do we live in the meantime? How do we remain faithful to God’s kingdom before it’s fully here? What did the good people in this parable do? They organized, they spoke truth to power, and they engaged in nonviolent noncompliance.

At the beginning of this parable when the evil man was still in the process of securing political power, his constituents, who paid enough attention to know he was not a good man, organized themselves as a community, signed a petition, and sent that with a representative saying, “We don’t want this man to hold public office over us.”

The servant who stood up to him named his problematic behavior to his face in front of other people. The servant spoke truth to power. The man punished him for doing so; he had his money taken away and given to one of his wealthiest yes-men. And then the bystanders of this exchange—the other people who were in the room for this—even they spoke up and followed the servant’s lead, emboldened by the servant’s courage, and the bystanders said, “But why give the 1% more wealth? They already have more than enough.” Their pushback—the servant’s pushback and the bystanders’ pushback—put the man on the spot and forced him to explicitly name and own the injustice he was perpetrating. Now, this sociopath didn’t even flinch at that, but the injustice got named, and it was out in the open where there could be no more underhanded deception. The cat was out of the bag.

And finally, the nonviolent noncompliance. This servant was given a loan; this servant was given all the tools and permissions and everything he needed to participate in the economic injustice. All he needed to do was just… do it. That’s what the rest of the servants did. But this one… he knew it was wrong.

Now, pay attention to what he did not do, because this servant walked a very fine line. This servant did not use the loan to earn more money in the least unjust way possible. He didn’t weigh his range of options, which were varying degrees of bad, and just choose the lesser of the evils. He didn’t do that. He also didn’t become a Robin Hood figure and distribute the loan to needy people. He knew the man was going to come back to collect on that loan, and there would be serious consequences if he didn’t have it. The servant even admits to being afraid of the man. Rather, he kept the loan safe not as an act of cowardice but to send a message: “To the man who unjustly reaps what he has not sown, here, reap this money, recoup this loan, exactly as much as what you sowed. No more, no less.”

It’s certainly a verbal attack on the evil man’s character, but it’s not an outright sabotage. It’s just a little crafty; it’s a creative, nonviolent noncompliance. The servant didn’t do anything wrong, per se. The evil man wasn’t any poorer for it; he got back exactly as much as he put in. The servant wasn’t about to play this man’s game and comply with this man’s unfair rules, but neither did he co-opt the game for his own gain. He didn’t co-opt the evil man’s tactics and use them against the evil man to give him a taste of his own medicine. He didn’t try to beat the man at his own game. No, the servant essentially replied, “I’d prefer not to play this game at all, actually. I’d rather play something else entirely. Here’s your game piece back; here’s the starter cash back. I know you cheat when we play Monopoly so you always win, so I’d rather not play Monopoly with you. Can we play something else, please?”

Unfortunately for the servant, the evil man doubles down. The community organizing didn’t work, speaking truth to power didn’t bring any apology or change, nonviolent noncompliance didn’t make a difference. There may have been glimmers of God’s kingdom in each of these actions, but make no mistake, God’s kingdom wasn’t fully there yet. In this oppressive game of Whack-a-Mole, the evil man hit every single mole, coming down with a knee on their neck, cold indifference in his eyes. The curtains close. The lights come up. Show’s over, folks. That’s how it ends. That’s how this terrible parable ends.

Even with a lifeline the author of Luke throws to us, we keep sinking deeper in the quicksand no matter how tightly we hold on. Jesus, I thought it wasn’t supposed to end this way, but it did.

And this brings us to the other lifeline from the preface to this terrible parable, the other lifeline the author of Luke throws us. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. To drive this lifeline home even further the author of Luke brings it up again right after this parable. If you stick around after the credits there’s one more scene. There’s a spoiler you won’t want to miss. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. Not just any trip to Jerusalem: his final trip to Jerusalem.

Immediately after this parable, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, the triumphal entry of the King into God’s kingdom. His first order of business inside Jerusalem is to turn the tables in the temple, to upend the economic exploitation happening within the temple walls, to say, “You cheat when we play this game; can we play something else, please?”

Later in that visit, Jesus would be arrested after sundown by a mob and lynched on a cross. Jesus died. The curtains close. The lights come up. Show’s over, folks.

But we don’t need a lifeline to know the story doesn’t end there. We don’t need a lifeline to know we should stick around until after the credits. We don’t need a lifeline to know it wasn’t over when Jesus breathed his last. We don’t need a lifeline to know the stone wasn’t gonna stay in front of his tomb. We don’t need a lifeline to know the grave clothes weren’t gonna keep him bound. We don’t need a lifeline to know that death does not have the final word. We don’t need a lifeline to know that Jesus rose from the grave. We don’t need a lifeline to know that he ascended into heaven. We don’t need a lifeline to know that he sits victorious, at the right hand of God. We don’t need a lifeline to know that Jerusalem was where Jesus became our lifeline.

​So when we do need a lifeline, when we do get overwhelmed by the terrible parables of this life, remember the parable’s preface, remember what the writer of Luke made clear from the beginning: God’s kingdom isn’t here yet, but Jesus is well on his way to Jerusalem, so this terrible parable doesn’t end when it says it ends. We have a lifeline coming after the end.

Notes:

1. ​Luke 19:11-28 NRSV

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Monica Miller

(she/her) worked in a variety of capacities with churches and church plants across the United States and in Germany before recently settling in as one of the pastors at First Mennonite Church of Indianapolis, IN. When she's not cooking up the next sermon or devouring the next book, you might find her baking pies for social justice.