Led to slaughter

Luke 19:11-27

This section contains Luke’s version of the parable of the talents. It’s messier than the version in Matthew 25, so it’s understandable that Matthew has the more well-known version. For instance, in Luke the ruler gives money to 10 slaves, but in the end he gets reports back from just 3. Not clear what happened to the other 7.

Luke also adds a twist. It turns out the people of the country hate the ruler and don’t want him to rule over them. So when he gets back, first he takes care of rewarding the servants who invested and chastises the one who wrapped up the money in cloth. The ones who invested get assigned to rule over 10 and 5 cities. The guy who buried the money has to give it to the one who made 10 pounds. “Them that’s got shall get.” But Luke’s version involves a bunch of bystanders, who exclaim “Lord he has ten pounds” when this decision comes down. A little Greek chorus that isn't exactly following what the protangonist is up to.

The ruler goes one step further in Luke, based on the different set up. “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.” It’s one thing to waste the gift, another thing to actively resist the authority of the gift-giver. But the reaction. If the master was cruel in Matthew, Luke amps it up and makes him absolutely bloodthirsty.

This ruler, cruel, reaping what he did not sow, demanding and uncomforting, howling for the blood of his enemies, what an unattractive metaphor for God. Why would God allow himself to be described this way? God comes across like the terrifying deities of Tibetan Buddhism, gods as monsters. Of course, these deities symbolize a spiritual process of destroying the urges and desires of worldly life to achieve spiritual release. A ruthlessness on the plane of spiritual practice is required.

It’s not clear that the vengeful master plays the same metaphorical role at the Tibetan gods, although it is clear that the money stands in for spiritual gifts, God’s love and grace which people can take up as an opportunity to extend grace in the world or squander. Moving outside the parable’s metaphorical realm, into something like concrete life, the investment we are asked to make occurs significantly with our actions towards others. Actually, its not that different from a monetary investment, which occurs by letting someone else use the money.

In terms of the investment of some sort of spiritual gifts, it makes sense to strip God’s grace from the person who does nothing with it, and increase the endowment of a person who extends that grace throughout the human realm—although it’s not clear what that stripping away looks like. I’m not certain God can take away the portion of grace given. When grace is experienced, it has been experienced. He can refuse to renew it, and I guess that slide into a state of non-grace is a condemnation that makes sense in the parable’s terms.

Slaughtering the opponents is harder to reconcile in terms of God’s actions in our world. This application of the ultimate punishment to God’s enemies may just represent the severity of damnation. But it seems unduly bloodthirsty. The ruler wants to see it done, like it’s a kind of entertainment. The undercurrent of sadistic pleasure seems out of character for a God whom we believe would rue the fall of any person. This passage is filled with judgment, very little hint of mercy. God has many dimensions and moods, has all of them, and we have to accept this. You could say that an infinite being will not always be to our liking because He will encompass all facets of human personality. But that takes you down a slippery slope in which God is engaged in evil because it is part of that full range of experience.

This one line never quite resolves itself completely. Every time you think you've straightened out the interpretation, you run into a place where the line still sticks.