Twinkling Stars
Sometimes things aren't so obvious.
As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. So he said, '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, 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." - Luke 19:11-14
The parable in today's Gospel is one I believe Jesus intended to be confusing and misleading.
It is so because the it is set up by Luke to be related to Jesus going to Jerusalem where he will leave them to go about their business without him, just like the nobleman. And like the nobleman, there was a contingent that didn't want Jesus to rule.
So, it does explain that there would be some who would resist, just like the slave who failed to use the money he received to make more money.
Yet if the nobleman is supposed to be Jesus, how do we account for the slave's account? He tells the nobleman that he knew the man was harsh and dishonest. Would that be an expected assessment of Jesus?
Commentaries explain this parable in very simple terms. The reward of the kingdom that the followers expect will be delayed. But I think there is much more to this than that.
Jesus wanted his disciples to dig deeper into the meaning, to ask questions, to wonder how they fit into the puzzle.
Stars blink in the night sky because the wind blows and the trees move, blocking the light for an instant and then revealing it again. If we do not feel the wind and can't see the trees, we believe the stars blink on their own.
So it is with the situation with Jesus' disciples. They cannot see everything that is taking place, so they presume to know what is and what will be. Jesus needs them to think differently, to search for what is unseen and listen for what the wind can tell them.
To survive on their own, without him, they need to be able to carry the Word, to carry Him with them.
At the end of the parable, the nobleman tells the bystanders to slaughter his enemies in his presence. If we believe Jesus is the nobleman, and the slaves are his disciples, then who are the bystanders?
If we were to come together to discuss this, we would probably come up with several possibilities, and I believe that is what Jesus would want us to do.
Until we get engaged in the Gospel, we are just staring at blinking lights, twinkling stars. But when we delve deeper, we discover there are other forces involved, and what we thought we knew is not the whole story.
More to come...