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Gospel reflection for Nov. 15, 2026, 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
We are in the final days of the ministry of Jesus and he is preaching in the Temple precincts and we have a series of loosely connected parables. Following the parable of the Ten Virgins is the parable of the talents. A talent is a unit of weight, equal to about 70 pounds, or the value of about 20 years of wages for an ordinary worker. One attendant receives 100 years of wages, to another 40, and to the third 20. The first two doubled the amount while the third earned nothing. The man in the parable praises the first two and admonishes the third. We do have to wonder, though, who Jesus intended to be the real hero in the parable.
We generally tend to view this parable through a capitalist lens where making as much money is a highly laudable virtue. In fact, this parable has been seen this way for so long that the word talent – which simply meant a quantity of a precious metal, usually silver – to be a personal asset or trait which someone possesses. Therefore, to invest one’s talents well becomes the primary objective.
Jesus was not, and did not think like, a modern capitalist. At no point in his preaching does he laud wealth, or the sort of productivity that results in extensive financial gain. This was not a quality he would espouse, nor would his listeners be particularly drawn to it.
Jesus does use examples of extreme gain in some parables when he is speaking of the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven. A sower hopes to yield one hundred times his planting when he reaps his harvest. But, Jesus also warns against the vices of avarice and the exploitation of the weak.
This parable nests between the one we heard last week – the Parable of the Ten Virgins – and the message we will hear next week for the Solemnity of Christ the King, that of the final judgment and the separation of the sheep and the goats. The prior parable praised preparation – the five virgins who brought enough oil chose not to share it with those who did not. The conservation of a finite resource was a noble act. They were prepared and were careful to protect what they had, even as it meant that others would be shut out. The next parable rewards those who took care of those who are in genuine need: they fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, shelter to those exposed, and visited those imprisoned. Those who were selfish or miserly are cast aside, and do not share in the Kingdom.
Now we have a parable where a cruel landowner who takes advantage of others and even steals what is not his, gives a considerable amount of money to three of his servants; five talents to one, two to another, and the third one talent. A talent was a unit of measure, equal in Roman terms to just over 71 pounds, which means that the servant who received one talent had the rough equivalent of $50,000.
He did not value the money, desired to protect what he was given, decided not to risk losing it, so he buried it. This was a common practice in the ancient world, and Jesus told another parable about a man who located a buried treasure and sold all that he had in order to purchase the field in which it was buried.
While the other two had doubled the money they had received, and were thus rewarded for their shrewdness, the third man simply returned the money he had received. He was harshly rebuked and thrown out of his employment.
In a world where financial gain, working for tyrannical corporations, and the marginalization of the individual is normative, being on the outside and not on the inside is where a disciple of Jesus more authentically belongs.
That is not an easy message. We are told to make the most of what we have been given, and so we should. But we must also take great care and exercise our due diligence in prudently expending our time and treasure.
Many a disciple has chosen family, volunteer service, healthy recreation, or a life of prayer and faith over making money for a corporation, running roughshod over the vulnerable, or making the lives of others unnecessarily difficult.
Prudence is always needed, and, given the context of these three parables, perhaps the man who chose to bury the talent, made the better choice.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.