What would you think of a sermon on the Parable of the Minas (Luke 19:11-26) with these four points?

• Wondrous Gift
• Ongoing Challenge
• Reckoning Will Come
• Killed or Commended

They spell out work. Considering the parable, that doesn’t sound too far off. After all, the nobleman had said, “put this money to work.” The two that obeyed were commended, the one that did not. It seems to be saying that those that work hard will be rewarded. In many ways, this percursory reading is pretty accurate.

For a good analysis of the text, read Bob Deffinbaugh has written a detailed study. I do not agree with his conclusion about what minahs represent, but that is not as central to the message that Jesus is getting across. Bob has a Masters of Theology, but what he does to examine the text is not so much ‘intellectual’ as just reading what it says and expounding on clue in the text.

Considering the part of the parable that receives the most attention, I tend to believe the point of this parable is found with the king speaking to the wicked servant. The two that are rewarded are mentioned briefly. The other seven servants are not mentioned at all. (Ever wonder what they did with their minahs?) The nobleman/king doesn’t refer to himself very much and there is only enough background to set the scene.

As far as the background, a nobleman going to a far country is not so strange to those that heard this parable firsthand. Herod the Great went to Rome to become the recognized ruler over Palestine. Agrippa, his grandson, did the same. The nobleman was not going away to become king of a distant land, but the land he was already living in. His journey was a recongnition that any authority in the land he lived was not his own. In the same way, Herod went to Rome to meet with the emperor in order to be recognized as ‘king’ and to be given authority over that region.

One important note in the background comes with the odd mention of the nobleman’s lack of popularity. In fact, the people send someone to testify against the nobleman in the hope that he will not become king. Again, this would be familiar to the people around Jesus, they had just sneered at Zaccheus, a tax collector. Zaccheus, in essence, was an agent of Rome and seen as a traitor to the Jewish nation. Working for the Roman government was akin to saying that Rome, not God, was his king.

Lastly, the parable was told because the people expected the Kingdom of God to come all at once. Much has been written about the expectations of some Jewish people for a David-like Messiah to come and overthrow the Romans, so I won’t detail it here. But this detail is important because it speaks to the reason for the parable: the Kingdom of God will not come all at once.