A Revised Parable

A man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; to one he gave £500,000, to another £200,000, to another £100,000, each according to his ability. After a long time he came and settled accounts with them. One said ‘You gave me £500,000 but the bank offering extraordinarily high interest rates in which I first deposited it has gone bust and the money is lost; I have nothing to give you back’. One said ‘I put your £200,000 into a buy for let property, but nobody has let it, its market value is greatly reduced, and I can’t sell the it in the present economic climate anyway; I have nothing to give you back’. The third said ‘I was afraid of you and of what might happen so I hid your £100,000 under my mattress; here it is back and, with inflation so low, worth almost as much as when you gave it to me’. ‘Well done and do not be afraid,’ the master said to the this third one, ‘you are a good and faithful servant unseduced by the temptations to exploit the money and housing markets to make quick profits at other people’s expense; you have been faithful over this small thing and now I will entrust you with great things; enter into the joy of your master; as for these other exploitative, predatory, worthless servants, cast them out.’

The picture is the half frozen boating lake at Cleethorpes a week or so ago. The words are based on the version retold yesterday by the local Methodist Superintendent Minister at the Churches Together event for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.