Mina, Romana, and Americana

The mina was 1/60 of a talent. If a talent was worth 15 years' wages, the mina was 3 months' wages.

This Lukan parable resonates with the one about the talents in Matthew. That one celebrated 100% profit. This one celebrates
1,000% and 500% returns on investment.

But there's more. It also promises death to anyone who opposes the current dispensation.

Empire has been not changed. Its idea of peace has always been peace based on victory in war. Peace based on silencing dissent. Then it was Pax Romana. Today, it is Pax Americana.

Most of Jesus's audience would have known the history behind the parable. Herod Archelaus, Herod the Great's Son, went to Rome to get Caesar's blessing. His enemies went there as well to raise their opposition. Archelaus gets the Empire's blessing and promptly has his enemies killed. Just like the nobleman who became king in the parable.

Jesus was a child when all these happened. His exposure to the evils of greed, lust for power, and systemic violence began early. The same applies to the children in Marawi, in Palestine, in many parts of our world where so many are treated as sub-human, as commodity, as illegals, or as animals.

When Jesus said, God's reign is for children, he envisioned a world that was the complete opposite of Empire.

Patches, wine, and change

One does not use new cloth to patch up a tear in an old garment. Nor does one pour new wine into old wineskins. Does not work. Never did. Never will.

Self explanatory.

But did Jesus mean something else? The parable is possibly an answer to the question about fasting. The Pharisees and John the Baptist and their followers fasted. Jesus and his group did not. Old ways, new ways. One way, another way. Forcing the new into the old does not work. Never did. Never will.

The old will eventually give way to the new.

Again, this is about good and good. There are people who fast. There are people who don't. It's also about change. And about waiting.

We love our old garments. We also love aged wine. Change is hard. For most of us. But it is inevitable. Eventually, we get new garments. And we finish our favorite wine.

The old will eventually give way to the new. Clothes. Wine. Every. Thing.

Many interpretations of this passage pitted the Pharisees, John's group, and Jesus's against each other. And, usually, the Christian way is always the right way. The only way.

But we have to remember, in the first quarter of the First Century, all three were Jewish liberation movements against Roman Occupation. All three were movements for genuine change.

All believed that change was inevitable. It might be protracted but it will come.