Tell it Slant: Parables in Luke’s Gospel 5/6

A nasty nobleman and those he enslaves. This is one of the ones where I struggle the most not to seek one-for-one equivalencies. Does the nobleman = God? (I hope not!) Do the slaves = us? What are the pounds? In Luke, “pound” is a translation of “mina,” about three months’ wages. Other gospels have a similar story with “talents,” or more than fifteen years’ wages. Some people have used an English pun with “talents,” understanding them as our gifts and, well, talents. What will we do with what God has given us? But Luke’s version also includes some violence. This nobleman is not well liked, and he slaughters those who don’t want to be his subjects. Luke says he told this parable “because he was near Jerusalem”—indeed, chronologically and geographically, we are very close to the start of Passion Week in this passage. The very next verse concerns his triumphal entry. What does this parable mean, in that context?

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