'The Challenge of Delay'

 Luke 19:11–27 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR3DbFZaam8

The crowd and the disciples have heard Jesus’ statement that salvation had come to the wealthy tax-collector Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus gives half of his possessions to the poor and is willing to repay fourfold anyone he had cheated. Jesus calls Zacchaeus a ‘son of Abraham’ and declares that the ‘son of man’ had come to seek and to save what was lost (19:10). Now Jesus tells a parable because they were thinking that the kingdom of God was going to come all at once. Jesus was approaching Jerusalem, and they thought the kingdom of God would be established all at once; Jesus would be enthroned and Israel would be liberated from Roman oppression. Jesus tells a parable warning them that the Messiah would be rejected and then go away for a time and his followers were to remain faithful and be useful in the master’s absence until his return (19:11).

In the parable of a man of noble birth goes to a far off country to be appointed king and then return. He calls ten servants and gives them ten minas which they are to put to work until he returns. His subjects hate him and send a delegation after him saying they don’t want him to be there king (Luke 19:12-14). The story would remind them of how Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great, went to Rome be confirmed as his father’s successor. But a delegation of Jewish leaders protested to the emperor: ‘We don’t want this man to be our king’. The emperor Augustus decided to severely limited Archelaus’ powers. Jesus was likely drawing on this incident, though Jesus’ parable ends very differently.

This parable addresses the rebellious subjects but emphasizes the ten servants that were each given a mina. A mina was something like three months wages and the servants were to use it to make a profit while the master was away. The citizens hate the nobleman and they sent a delegation to saying that they don’t want him to rule over them. The nobleman was made king, and he returned home. The king sends for his servants to find out what they had gained with their mina. The first servant gained ten more mina and the master rewarded the servant’s faithfulness in a small matter by putting him in charge of ten cities. A second servant earned five more mina and was put in charge of five cities. Each servant was given one mina and each servant had faithfully put their mina to good use and both were generously rewarded (19:12-19).

Then another servant came, but this one hid the mina away in a cloth because he saw the master as a hard man. The servant described the master as someone who took what he didn’t put in and reaped what others had sowed. The master called the servant ‘wicked’ and said that the servant’s own words condemn him. If the master was a hard man, then the servant should have put the master’s money on deposit, so the master could have collected it with interest (19:20-23). The master tells those standing by to take is mina away and to give it to the servant with ten minas. Although he already had ‘ten mina’ the master said that those who have will be given more, while those who have nothing and what they have will be taken away from them. Then master also called for his enemies who didn’t want him to be king to be brought before him and killed. (19:24-27) The two useful servants were generously rewarded, while the one who hid the mina and criticized his master for being a harsh man had his mina taken away from him.

Luke presents a “delay” between Jesus’ enthronement and his return to reign and rule. Luke makes it clear that Jesus taught there would be an interval between their arriving in Jerusalem, his enthronement as God’s anointed king and his return when servants are rewarded and enemies are judged. The kingdom of God would not come immediately or all at once (19:11; cf. Acts 1:6). They should be aware of the “delay” during which their faithfulness would be tested. Matthew also talks about a delay and that Jesus would return “after a long time” (Matt 25:19). Luke elsewhere talks about faithful servants being “watchful” (12:37) and “ready” (12:38). In this parable Luke’s emphasizes that each servant was given the same investment and were rewarded for their putting it to use between Jesus’ enthronement and Jesus’ return. This parable also addresses Jesus’ rejection by the Jewish leadership of his day which is the reason for the judgment and their exclusion from the kingdom.

Like the delegation of Jews who pleaded with Rome that they didn’t want the son of Herod the Great as king, so to the Jewish religious leadership didn’t what Jesus to be their king. The resurrection evidenced that Jesus was God’s Messiah and in his ascension he was enthroned at the right hand of the throne of God (Rom. 1:4, Heb. 12:2). We live in this time when Jesus is enthroned as the world’s true Lord, which we confess by faith and not be sight. In Luke’s parable of the ‘ten servants’ or the ‘ten mina’ each servant received the same thing. The each received one mina and they were expected to use it to produce more. The master entrusted the servants and they were responsible to put the ‘mina’ to good use in the period between the master’s being made king and the king’s return to reward his servants and to judge his enemies (19:27). The mina is likely the gospel message; Jesus is the crucified and resurrected Messiah who is the ascended Lord of all the earth. We know this by faith and are entrusted to make this message known!