Parables updated - Parable of the Talents

Why? I recently took part in a small group, and one of the exercises was to take a couple parables and update them to examples Jesus might have used today.

Luke 19:12-27

The owner of a company flew off on a business trip to open a new branch and then return. Before flying out, he called his employees into his office and gave them budgets. "Keep building the business until I return" he said.

But several employees hated him and sent an email message after him saying "HA-HA! You're fired".

Regardless, he set up the new branch and came home. The employees hadn't fired him with Board approval, so he was still the owner despite their email. He then called a meeting to find out what they had been up to.

The first one showed a great presentation with charts and graphs about how she'd taken the budget and using her own idea, she hired software engineers and created a phone app which showed a return on the investment 10 times over the budget she'd been given!

"Great work!" the owner said, "Why don't you see what you can do with these other 10 ideas and matching budget?"

The second one showed an excel spreadsheet and accounts showing his idea of opening a burger franchise had a return of 5 time over the budget he'd been given.

The owner asked him to try opening another 5 franchises.

Then another employee stood up and said "I have all the budget still here, you know there was a market crash and it seemed like a bad time to take any risks because I know you have the Midas touch, but I don't." (His insecurity was bleeding all over the room.)

The owner replied "You are right, you don't have the Midas touch because you won't even try and take a single risk, you are paralyzed with fear, even though you saw me step out on faith for this latest venture. You should have transferred the funds into utilities which consistently return well."

Then he said to the security guards, "Take his budget and add it to the phone app creator's budget."

The folks in the meeting said "Whoa, she has plenty of budget already!"

The owner replied "She was willing to take a risk, act on faith. She built her faith by exercising it. So her faith will grow, even when she fails, and she will get more and more opportunities because she actively opens her eyes to them, but the one who risks nothing, even the hope he had will melt away from him because of his inaction.

"But those other employees who wanted to fire me, they are all fired. Escort them from the building this instant, lock them out of all their accounts immediately, and do not take them back to their desks so they can steal their contacts or other company assets."