In the Parable of the Talents, there are 3 servants listed: the really successful one, the not as successful one, and the fearful failure. Jesus taught in parables, leaving room to interpret. I’m taking some liberties, I know, though I expect I’m not the first one to think of it.
The consensus is that Jesus was speaking against the Jewish religious leaders. I have heard this parable used as a righteous mirror for Christians and the church.
I was thinking about the 4th servant. This is not the ideal servant, but the bare minimum servant. This is the servant as the fearful failure should have been. This is the depositing servant. This “unspoken” servant did the bare minimum. He invested with the bank to earn interest. Unlike the fearful one, he didn’t bury the money. Unlike the successful servants, he didn’t make a lot of money. He did the bare minimum. He didn’t make wild, speculative risks to double the money.
Is this the church? Is this American Christianity? Yes, there are missionaries. I’m not talking about them. In many respects, the missionary system is actually the biggest risk mitigation system. Send a few without impacting or endangering the principle.
We US Christians are likely very guilty of doing the bare minimum. We’re doing just enough to not get called out, but are we doing enough to bring joy to God?