Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Build yourself, build society
Build yourself, build society
Apr 2, 2025 12:24 AM

One of Christ’s best-known parables is the Parable of the Talents, but its familiarity disguises just how strange and unsettling its message is. It is a parable of a master who departs on a journey and entrusts three servants, each according to his ability, with his property. Each receives five, two, or one talent(s), respectively.

The ablest servant departed, immediately put the money to work, and doubled his master’s talents. The servant entrusted with two talents did the same. But the servant entrusted with one talent, supposing his master to be a hard man who reaps where he does not sow, fearfully hid his talent in a hole in the ground. When the master returned, mended the first two servants, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23). The master punished the wicked and slothful servant, taking his talent and giving it to the ablest servant saying:

The one who has will be given more,and he will have more than enough. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless slave into the outer darkness,where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 25:29-30).

It seems like a strange parable, because is runs counter to the egalitarian spirit of the age by entrusting the ablest servants with more wealth. This is unsettling, because it is a parable of judgment, reminding us that our actions in this life have eternal ramifications no matter how small our responsibilities.

In his essay, “It’s Time to Build,” entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer Marc Andreessen writes that the tragic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are a sort of judgment for unprepared Western institutions:

Many of us would like to pin the cause on one political party or another, on one government or another. But the harsh reality is that it all failed — no Western country, or state, or city was prepared — and despite hard work and often extraordinary sacrifice by many people within these institutions. So the problem runs deeper than your favorite political opponent or your home nation.

Part of the problem is clearly foresight, a failure of imagination. But the other part of the problem is what we didn’t *do* in advance, and what we’re failing to do now. And that is a failure of action, and specifically our widespread inability to *build*.

In Andreessen’s estimation, we have been wicked and slothful servants. Rather than take what we have inherited and build upon it, we have fearfully hidden our talents in the ground. His analysis of the Western world’s placency echoes much of the analysis in economist Tyler Cowen’s The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream: We are working harder than ever to avoid change rather than doing the difficult work required to embrace it.

He points out that this is not a problem caused by the COVID-19 pandemic but one simply brought into starker relief by it. It has been a persistent problem in housing, healthcare, and education. In spheres of life most fundamental to human flourishing, we have privileged the passions and interests of the political, economic, and cultural status quo over facing our problems:

The problem is desire. We need to *want* these things. The problem is inertia. We need to want these things more than we want to prevent these things. The problem is regulatory capture. We need to want panies to build these things, even if incumbents don’t like it, even if only to force the incumbents to build these things. And the problem is will. We need to build these things.

Andreessen’s entire piece is well worth reading. Toward the end, he gives us a sort of vocational examination of conscience:

Every step of the way, to everyone around us, we should be asking the question, what are you building? What are you building directly, or helping other people to build, or teaching other people to build, or taking care of people who are building?

Our own lives and work can be rendered fruitless by fear like the wicked and slothful servant’s. It is easy to be consumed by criticism or spend our time devaluing and dismissing others. Take these difficult times and turn them into times for building something, because “the Lord is not slow concerning his promise,as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wishfor anyto perish but for all e to repentance” (II Peter 3:9).

Quinn CC BY-SA 2.0.)

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
The Diabolic Comedy
Jeffery C. Pugh has landed every blogger’s dream: the book deal for a best-of collection of his musings. Devil’s Ink: Blog from the Basement Office is an answer to the question “What if Satan kept a blog?”—one of several (the opportunity to pun is apparently irresistible) all of which immediately parison with C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. Pugh anticipates parison in his book’s preface, saying he offers “another way of looking at evil,” a modern way that reflects how the...
The Entrepreneurial Spirit: Judy Hill and High Cotton Ties
A few weeks ago I made a phone call to Judy Hill at High Cotton Ties simply because I had a strong feeling she had pelling witness to offer about entrepreneurship, vocation, and creativity. Picking up the phone was a wise decision. She agreed to an interview for readers of the PowerBlog. I had ordered a few bow ties from High Cotton Ties and was extremely impressed with the unique design and high quality. I had no idea of any...
Fighting Hunger Together
Bread for the World CEO David Beckmann once said, “We can’t food-bank our way to the end of hunger.” As I said then, if “changing the politics of hunger” means that more people are getting food assistance from the government rather than food banks munity efforts, count me out. But on a more hopeful note, this story from NPR tracking how Walmart has partnered with Feeding America, the largest food bank network in the nation, to get food that would...
Gregg: Europe’s Not-So-Revolutionary Youth
The European Union’s finances are in a dismal state, and are requiring governments to revaluate the “welfare state.” Samuel Gregg articulates in his article appearing in The American Spectator, “Europe’s Not-So-Revolutionary Youth,” that a youth movement called les indignés or los indignados, depending on where you are, is resisting the reforms being proposed: This time, however, things are different. With barely-disguised reluctance, governments across Western Europe are proceeding with relatively minor reforms aimed at reducing the European welfare state’s costs....
Gregg: Social Contracts, Human Flourishing, and the Economy
In a new article on Public Discourse, Samuel Gregg explores social contract theory and how that may apply to the current budget battles: In very broad terms, social contract theory is a way of understanding the relationship between governments and the people. It holds that, having agreed upon the need for a government, individuals create a state on the basis of mutual promises. This permits the state to claim that its authority is based on a delegation of people’s rights...
Valedictory: Sacrifice and Financial Success
Earlier this month, I spoke at mencement of Trinity School at Meadow View, a truly impressive private high school school in Falls Church, Va. Most impressive was the valedictory address given by the graduating senior Beau Lovdahl, who is on his way to Princeton in the fall. The story he relates here underscores the philosophy of the Acton Institute in many ways and I wanted to share it with PowerBlog readers. I hope you enjoy reading it. Beau Lovdahl Valedictory...
Vatican banker: Western economies risk ‘continual decline’
On NewsMax, Edward Pentin reports that “the president of the Vatican Bank has said that emerging economies may be the only countries experiencing economic growth over ing decades, while Western nations are crippled by lack of productivity, petitive labor markets, and aging populations.” Ettore Gotti Tedeschi said the “next decades risk seeing exclusively the growth of emerging countries, and not just because of their low cost of production but also due to their advanced technological level and capacity to create...
Key to Economic Flourishing
It is nice to know that we here at Acton have friends in high places. This article at Catholic Exchange by George Weigel points out that Blessed John Paul II had some keen insights into what makes economic life flourish: “John Paul taught that what the Church proposes is not simply the free society, but the free and virtuous society. It takes a certain kind of people, possessed of certain virtues, to make free politics and free economics work toward...
The Poor as Neighbors: Option & Respect
R.R. Reno at First Things has written a moving meditation on the preferential option for the poor: “In the Gospel of Matthew we find Jesus warning us about how our lives will be judged. His words are pointed. We are to feed the hungry, e the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoner. For what we do to the poor and the destitute—“the least of these my brethren,” says Jesus—we do to the Lord himself. It’s a sobering warning,...
Beginning of the End of Corn Ethanol?
Ethanol subsidies, once considered a sacred cow, are facing the possibility of being axed from the budget. The Senate cast a deciding vote, 73-27 in repealing the 45 cent per gallon subsidy to refiners for blending gasoline with ethanol, and the 54 cent per gallon tariff on imported ethanol. Cutting the ethanol subsidy and repealing the tariff still face an uphill battle as it must pass the house and get the signature of President Obama, who has vowed not to...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved