Gold, Darkness, and Dwarves

Today we ponder a pretty well-known peril of Jesus that has been misused and abused in unfortunate ways when it is read out of context. This story is about a landowner who gives different sized investments to his servants and then expects them to produce something with the investments. Then based on what they have done with the investment, the landowner rewards or punishes different people. As you can see, this is one of those stories where if you take it out of context, you can just do terrible things with it. BUT when you locate this parable as a warning or challenge that Jesus gives to the leaders of Jerusalem, all kinds of parts of this parable pop out in new ways.