The Gospels as we have them reflect a decades long development with three layers: what Jesus said and did, how the Church remembered that, what the evangelist wrote down. The parable of the talents in St. Matthew has a different twist in St. Luke. We take as revelation the text we have received. St. Luke situates this parable because the people thought that the Kingdom of God would appear there immediately. By the time the gospel was written expectations about the “end time” was skewing the life of the Church. The evangelist shapes the parable to stress that God expects us to live each day with courage and fidelity and not to get distracted by what is going on currently or in the future.
