The current movement Occupy Wall Street has taken hold throughout the country and is now extended in many parts of the world. As protesters gather and speak our against corporate greed, lack of employment opportunities, and banks run amok the question for people of faith becomes: what would Jesus have to say about all of this? Does our Christian faith have anything to offer? There are some Christians who claim that Jesus was only interested in spiritual issues, others are convinced that Jesus would fully support capitalists, but if we take the scriptures seriously we cannot avoid that fact that Jesus speaks frequently and vehemently against greed and the love of money.
The parables of Jesus are often misunderstood to be moralistic teachings or simple analogies for faithful living. While these interpretations are valid they often do not take into account the historical reality of Jesus' life and ministry. Jesus spent his time with the poor and the oppressed. He spoke out prophetically against the spiritual and economic oppression that the people endured. While Jesus was certainly concerned with the spiritual lives of people, he was deeply concerned and committed to speaking out against injustice. The parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) offers us such an example.
In the parable a rich landowner chooses three slaves to care for his property while he goes on an extended journey. "To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability." (Matthew 25:15) A talent was an enormously large amount of money and it was given to the servants who had earned the most trust with the master with the hope that they would find a way to increase the money. The owner is driven by greed and is willing to enlist the servants to help increase his wealth while he is away. The first two servants quickly go out and double the amount by "trading" with them. The acquisition of wealth was most often done in ways that exploited the poor and the weak. Any additional profit that was made would be understood as "honest graft" for the servants. In this way the wealthy landowner co-opts the servants into the game of building wealth through the exploitation of other peasants. The two servants thus become like their master even as they do their master's bidding.
The third servant refuses to invest the master's money but inside buries the talent in the ground. When the master returns he praises the first two servants: "Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master." (Matthew 25:21) Their shrewd maneuvering and managing of their master's money has earned them higher praise and standing. The third servant speaks out against the landowner in a daring and prophetic way:
The parables of Jesus are often misunderstood to be moralistic teachings or simple analogies for faithful living. While these interpretations are valid they often do not take into account the historical reality of Jesus' life and ministry. Jesus spent his time with the poor and the oppressed. He spoke out prophetically against the spiritual and economic oppression that the people endured. While Jesus was certainly concerned with the spiritual lives of people, he was deeply concerned and committed to speaking out against injustice. The parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) offers us such an example.
In the parable a rich landowner chooses three slaves to care for his property while he goes on an extended journey. "To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability." (Matthew 25:15) A talent was an enormously large amount of money and it was given to the servants who had earned the most trust with the master with the hope that they would find a way to increase the money. The owner is driven by greed and is willing to enlist the servants to help increase his wealth while he is away. The first two servants quickly go out and double the amount by "trading" with them. The acquisition of wealth was most often done in ways that exploited the poor and the weak. Any additional profit that was made would be understood as "honest graft" for the servants. In this way the wealthy landowner co-opts the servants into the game of building wealth through the exploitation of other peasants. The two servants thus become like their master even as they do their master's bidding.
The third servant refuses to invest the master's money but inside buries the talent in the ground. When the master returns he praises the first two servants: "Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master." (Matthew 25:21) Their shrewd maneuvering and managing of their master's money has earned them higher praise and standing. The third servant speaks out against the landowner in a daring and prophetic way:
Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ (Matthew 25:24-25)
The servant has named the sins of the oppressive and exploitative landowner and in doing so has spoken for an entire peasant class that has been preyed upon by the wealthy elite. The third servant is not a "wicked and lazy slave" but functions as a whistleblower who speaks the truth to power. The parable concludes with the third slave being cast out into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Jesus is sharing this parable with the poor and the oppressed of his day and it is his way of sharing the good news of God. With this interpretation God cannot be understood as the wealthy landowner, rather the third servant is the hero of the parable because he speaks out against injustice and oppression. He suffers the same fate as Jesus himself, death at the hands of oppressive power.
We too live in a time of tremendous economic inequality. While corporate profits are at an all-time high, unemployment remains intractable at over 9%, as many jobs are shipped overseas. While big banks are Wall Street firms were deemed "too big to fail" and received a government bailout, ordinary Americans are losing jobs and losing their homes. The protesters on Wall Street and here in Detroit understand that things are not as they ought to be and like the whisteblower they are compelled to speak out.
The question for us is whether we will stand with those who speak for justice or allow ourselves to be co-opted by the seductive power of wealth. For just as the first two servants are given incentives to play the master's game of exploitative wealth gathering, we too are incentivized to play the master's game of debt and wealth acquisition. For those of us who have retirement accounts and pensions have relied upon the wall street traders to secure our future. We chose to buy homes we could not afford, we chose to live beyond our means and now find ourselves enslaved in a cycle of debt and dependency.
And even if we see the "game" of debt and wealth for what it is, the game itself is rigged for those in power. You cannot buy a home without good credit and you cannot get good credit without going into debt. You must play the game of building debt in order to build credit. Try buying a house or car without a credit history. Unless you have the cash you must get a loan and then banks own you. Unless and until we can speak the truth to power and even more speak the truth to ourselves we will find ourselves cast into the outer darkness.
As Jesus shared this parable he was not only championing the heroics of whistleblower he was also sounding the bell for collective action and awareness. If the other faithful and trusted servants were willing to stand up for justice and one another, they could negate the master's exploitative game. The master is after all dependent upon the servants to acquire his wealth. If the servants stand with the peasants and refuse to play the master's games under the master's rules then real change can take place. Similarly, if we stand up and take collective action for the greater good then those in power will have to take notice (which is why I recently left Bank of America for a local credit union). It may sound crazy and we may be cast out into the darkness, but we are doing a good job of it ourselves.
For more insight on the parables see: Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed William Herzog
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