ison- with the vast wealth that he would have at his disposal when he returned in glory, but substantial enough to test the faithfulness of his servants and their sense of responsibility. In the short term, that is what the future holds for them. He is not offering them immediate access to messianic power and glory. What he is offering them is an opportunity for service.
Here then is Jesus' answer to the dreaded Monday morning feeling. Put this money to work until I come back.' This, if you like, is the Bible's work ethic. Notice, it is grounded not in mere moral duty, but in future hope. We are to put his money to work until he comes back. The final phrase is desperately important.
The world is going somewhere, the king is returning. Make the most, then, of the opportunities and the resources you have to invest in his kingdom by working hard for him. That is Jesus' message.
People divide themselves into three broad categories, depending on how they respond to that challenge. At one extreme are those who identify themselves as rebels; his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, 'We don't want this man to be our king' (Luke 19:14). Jesus' fellow countrymen would relate very easily to this scenario, because just a few years before, after the death of Herod the Great, his son Archelaus went to Rome to ask Augustus Caesar to make him king over Judea. But Herod the Great's dynasty was very unpopular among many of the Jews. The Jews therefore sent a delegation of fifty senior men to oppose the appointment. It may very well be that this rebellion in the story resonated with the Herod affair in the memories of many Jews at that time. Jesus is saying that people would reject God's Messiah too, resenting his interference in their affairs.
Some of them might cloak their rebellion in the guise of doubt or ignorance. But Jesus is adamant that the root of this resistance to his rule is not intellectual but moral. It
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