A number of months in the past, I met a clergy colleague for espresso, and as so usually occurs in church life, the subject of congregational funds got here up. My colleague mentioned the necessity for higher stewardship campaigns, the exigencies of budgets, and concerning cash, the final have to make much more of it. At one level, whereas referring to getting higher returns on a parish’s endowment portfolio, he briefly referenced: “You recognize, like within the parable of the abilities” (Matthew 25:14–30). Whereas a passing remark, it stood out to me as a result of 1) it was the one reference to Scripture in our hour-long dialog and a pair of) it assumed I agreed along with his wealth-forward interpretation.
As transient because it was, that transient reference to the Parable of the Abilities has stayed with me. In lots of settings, this parable has turn out to be a go-to textual content in discussions of congregational funds, used to justify all the pieces from maximizing funding returns to, I’d argue, undergirding a usually pro-wealth posture amongst mainline church buildings as we speak. On a floor stage, that is comprehensible. The Parable of the Abilities is probably the one place within the Gospels the place Jesus speaks favorably about bankers and funding: “Then you definitely must have invested my cash with the bankers, and on my return I’d have obtained what was my very own with curiosity” (Matthew 25:27). And since it’s the servant who fails to take a position the abilities who’s condemned, the textual content gives a biblical rationale for capital funding and maximizing returns.
Certainly, this interpretation is so frequent that Trinity Wall Road — the wealthiest church on this planet, with an actual property and funding portfolio valued at over six billion {dollars} — has implicitly framed the Parable of the Abilities as its theology of cash. In 2022, Trinity made the parable the topic of a brand new stained-glass window on its foremost entrance façade. Designed to be seen from the road, it was chosen to speak how the church understands its function and duty in rising and utilizing its wealth. In a web-based discussion board, the rector, the Rev. Phillip Jackson, defined that whereas some within the congregation had urged him to ship a difficult message to Wall Road, he selected the Parable of the Abilities to specific Trinity’s accountable stewardship of its assets. Standing earlier than the window final 12 months, I couldn’t assist however marvel how in a different way issues might need been had Trinity chosen the parable of Lazarus on the Gate, for example, and I famous how comfortably the window sits simply sixty paces from the New York Inventory Trade.
The Parable of the Abilities has, not less than functionally, come to be interpreted by way of the lens of congregational finance and wealth stewardship. In lots of locations, it’s emphasised as a consoling textual content that softens and contextualizes different, tougher issues Jesus stated about wealth: not having the ability to serve each God and mammon (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13), his instruction to the wealthy younger man to promote his possessions and provides to the poor (Matthew 19:16–24; Mark 10:17–25; Luke 18:18–25), his critique of inequality within the parable of Lazarus on the gate (Luke 16:19–31), his ridiculing of the wealthy man who saved all his items in barns (Luke 12:16–21), and, notably difficult for the New York Inventory Trade, his command to lend with out anticipating curiosity (Luke 6:34–35). In distinction to those and plenty of different examples, the Parable of the Abilities is that uncommon second within the Gospel the place Jesus seems to reward wealth accumulation. And so the query stays: is that this what the Parable of the Abilities actually means?
