Two years in the past I used to be listening to Pastor Chip Ingram and one thing he mentioned hit me like a ton of gold bricks. Across the identical time I began Severance, Season 1, and though not in the identical religious “epiphany” class, the present is thought-provoking and expertly crafted. With Season 2 releasing (Episode 1 debuted January 17, 2025), we’ll do a fast, spoiler-free assessment of Severance (you possibly can watch this recap with spoilers) and, extra importantly, discover Jesus’s assertion on every Christian’s fundamental accountability—on what forgotten advantage is definitely foundational and in some sense an ethical preliminary to better issues.
Il(Lumon)ating Enterprise Practices
Lumon’s staff who show themselves competent in entry-level duties are then given the chance to obtain the irreversible severing surgical procedure.
Lumon Industries developed a revolutionary course of the place an implant inserted within the mind cuts an worker’s reminiscences between work and private time. The method is known as “severing,” therefore the title’s witty double entendre (utilizing the enterprise time period “severance,” which is when an worker is compensated for leaving). The associates supposedly take pleasure in a piece/life stability and the corporate retains proprietary data secure. However a cut up thoughts has its share of issues.
The sequence follows the Macrodata Refinement Division which has 4 members: newly-appointed supervisor Mark (performed by Adam Scott), tenacious Dylan (Zach Cherry), by-the-book Irv (John Turturro), and trainee Helly (Britt Decrease). The viewers is launched to the bizarre, typically seemingly nefarious enterprise practices at Lumon by way of Helly’s orientation given by Mark.
The present does a wonderful job asking our questions: what are the refiners engaged on? What ache would drive somebody to separate their thoughts? What qualifies an individual to obtain the surgical procedure? Apparently, Lumon’s staff who show themselves competent in entry-level duties are then given the chance to obtain the irreversible severing surgical procedure. Severance completely illustrates Jesus’s instructing on accountability in line with one’s skills (minus the sinister company tint).
Jesus’s Gold Funding Portfolio
Earlier than delving into Jesus’s instructing, we should ask why He got here to earth. It might look like a foolish query, however apparently, most individuals give barely (or very!) totally different solutions. Was it to be trainer? To die on the cross for our errors? To liberate the oppressed and assist the sick and the poor? All of those are true, however not the principle purpose.
John the Baptist and Jesus Himself repeatedly mentioned that Jesus got here in an effort to deliver the dominion of heaven to earth.1 However what does that imply? It’s a bit nebulous, however in Matthew 25 Jesus tells three parables about what “the dominion of heaven shall be like.”
Typically known as “The Parable of the Skills” or “The Luggage of Gold,” the second story is a few boss using three managers. The boss is occurring an extended journey, giving the primary supervisor 5 luggage of gold, the second two luggage, and the third supervisor one bag, in line with every supervisor’s means. The boss is aware of what every supervisor is able to by way of following directions (obedience) and work ethic, and the managers have shadowed and noticed how the boss does enterprise.
Competent Stewards: The “You” You Are
In Severance, the earlier Macrodata Refinement supervisor, Petey (Yul Vazquez), was a dynamic chief. Productiveness was within the inexperienced and engagement was excessive—as Mark says, “He set the tone.” However when Petey disappears, Mark is given the job. Though Irv was extra skilled and he assists Mark on parts of the orientation, it’s Mark who will get the promotion. Including to the awkwardness, administration doesn’t have full religion in Mark.
Severed staff have a reverence for Lumon Industries’ founder Kier Eagan, typically verging on idolatrous worship. Since his demise, Kier’s guidelines and phrases, developed right into a biblical-style handbook, present steering and elicit loyalty. Mark’s obedient work ethic has served him effectively, however issues have develop into sophisticated for him, as he concurrently manages Helly’s contrarian perspective and handles the division’s discoveries of Lumon’s mysterious practices.
Cash is usually a delicate topic. I all the time felt that if I considered cash, I’d develop into obsessed and/or grasping.
In Jesus’s parable, the primary two managers “put the grasp’s cash to work.” The phrase “work” right here within the Greek is ergazomai, which means “to toil [in a] job or occupation.” The third supervisor buries his gold. “After a very long time” the boss returns, demanding his gold again. The primary two managers (or stewards) have doubled the cash, whereas the final returns the identical bag. The boss is delighted with the primary two managers, giving them extra accountability and welcoming them to “share in his happiness.”
However the boss calls the third supervisor “depraved and lazy.” The boss says that he himself is shrewd, harvesting the place he didn’t plant, and he asks the supervisor, Since you realize this about me, why didn’t you no less than make investments my cash to realize a bit curiosity? The supervisor agrees the boss is crafty, exclaiming he was frightened of shedding any cash; he felt hiding it was the best choice.
Since it is a parable, we’re not given totally fleshed-out motivations for the third supervisor’s conduct aside from that he appears fearful. However one might speculate that such worry and laziness is indicative of (like Lumon’s severed staff) a split-mindedness, an uncertainty about the place to search out one’s identification.
The boss instantly offers the uninvested gold to the primary supervisor, explaining that the individual devoted with a bit shall be given accountability over extra, however whoever is untrue with a bit can have the whole lot taken away. Then, angrily, he instructions that the “nugatory” supervisor be thrown into “outer darkness, the place there shall be weeping and gnashing of tooth.”
Jesus’s parables are open to interpretation, however utilizing the entire steering of Scripture, Tota Scriptura, we are able to perceive and apply Jesus’s which means to our lives. I imagine that in “The Parable of the Luggage of Gold” (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus is represented because the boss, Christians are the managers (with a variety of skills), and luggage of gold are… effectively, cash.
It ought to be mentioned that whereas Jesus’s unique viewers would have unquestionably heard this as “cash,”2 a lot of church historical past has rightly broadened the which means to be something “tithable,” akin to cash, assets, religious presents, time, and so on. However we’re going to concentrate on the cash side as a result of Jesus spoke rather a lot about cash (extra in a bit) and I imagine most trendy Christians don’t perceive what is predicted of them relating to their funds.
Cash is usually a delicate topic. I all the time felt that if I considered cash, I’d develop into obsessed and/or grasping. As Sam McPheeters mentioned, “Monetary literacy itself felt morally suspect.” And perhaps you are feeling like Flo from A Man on the Inside who contends, “I don’t like speaking about cash, it’s a jinx.”3 But when Jesus instructions us to assist Him usher within the kingdom of heaven by utilizing cash, anything is an excuse.
Money is King: If You Don’t Rule Cash, it Guidelines You
And, as Severance teaches us, operating away from our issues is rarely wholesome. Mark struggles balancing his particular person work tasks with managing his group’s assets and interpersonal conflicts. When a coworker makes an attempt suicide, Mark’s boss says it occurred on his watch so it’s his fault. And that he wants to repair it. Mark wrestles with a Western dilemma, deciding how a lot to let work management his life.
And severed staff solely know the half of it (actually). The viewers will get to see parts of their private lives outdoors the workplace and the way Lumon retains tabs on them. The query more and more insinuated is: do the means justify the ends?
In different phrases Jesus is saying, “In the event you can’t discover ways to handle cash properly, I received’t entrust true riches to you.”
Talking on “The Parable of the Skills,” Pastor Chip Ingram emphasizes that Jesus distributed the skills in line with every individual’s means. “And the way in which He evaluated them wasn’t on the tip consequence, it was, ‘What did you do with what I gave you?’”4 That is fully affordable and benevolent of Jesus. If I give my buddy a automobile totally free, it might get in an accident and positively elements will break. However my buddy’s affordable response is to pay for repairs and maintenance and to deal with it effectively.
Pastor Ingram then confirms the significance of correct monetary administration by utilizing Luke 16:10 (“If you’re devoted in little issues, you’ll be devoted in massive ones. However in case you are dishonest in little issues, you received’t be sincere with better duties”) as proof. To make clear, in Luke 16’s parable, Jesus calls cash a “little factor”!
Ingram says, “The rationale Jesus talks a lot about cash is as a result of it’s the cleanest, clearest, most seen, tangible factor the place you possibly can work out the way you’re a steward or not.” In different phrases Jesus is saying, “In the event you can’t discover ways to handle cash properly, I received’t entrust true riches to you.”
That is the place Ingram’s clarification of Jesus’s phrases hit me like a ton of gold bricks. In enterprise practices and secular mindsets, cash is probably the most helpful useful resource, so the better quantity of wealth an individual has or manages, the extra highly effective and influential they’re. However, in a typical biblical distinction, Jesus says cash is a fundamental and low-level commodity to handle. And, to make it extra attention-grabbing, this isn’t the heresy of prosperity doctrine; as an alternative, correct cash administration means rising funds for the sake of being extra beneficiant, which ordinarily decreases one’s private web value.
I slowly started to really perceive that all of my cash was given to me by God and is due to this fact His. The phrase “cash administration” is trendy, and figuring out cash is an idolatrous grasp (Luke 16:13) and the love of cash is the basis of evil (1 Timothy 6:10), we must not ever view inventory return as proof of religious flourishing. As an alternative, being supervisor or steward entails not solely frugality but additionally generosity. The rationale wealth makes it extremely tough to enter heaven (Matthew 19:23-26) is as a result of humanity has a propensity for greed. As wealth will increase, so does the temptation to make use of these riches for private funds and particular person acquire.
Whereas, in God’s financial system, it seems that not solely ought to all financial savings and financial bonuses be funneled towards the dominion (preserving private funds web impartial), however Christians ought to discover new methods to chop bills and provides much more. In order years go by, a Christian’s private wealth is reducing as their joyful generosity will increase.
Filling Out an Utility
Severance juxtaposes the preeminent significance of labor and unquestioning job loyalty with private freedoms, life stability, and wholesome devotion. One of many present’s strengths is figuring out when to feed the viewers (and characters) clues in an effort to unravel its many mysteries (the thrill of that are unimaginable to impart in a spoiler-free assessment).
We should obey by spending our cash properly, oddly sufficient on these with a cut up thoughts, on people who find themselves damage, typically unlovely and a bit dangerous.
Initially, Jesus’s parable was a bit mysterious to me however I’ve been a Christian lengthy sufficient to know, typically you simply should belief what He’s doing even once you don’t perceive. I waited two years to put in writing this text as a result of I needed to make sure I comprehended Jesus’s cash administration command, and that it was each doable and sustainable. And it’s! In the event you’re fascinated about the right way to dwell debt free there are some nice supplies on-line (most well-known are Dave Ramsey’s assets, which have helped many, however typically give off a cultish-inspirational-speaker-salesman vibe). Nonetheless, my concern right here is our coronary heart towards Jesus’s command.
There’s a case to be made for tithing (sure, particularly within the New Testomony age) and concurrently giving to parachurch organizations. And we could also be aware of Jesus’s instructions to provide generously and joyfully. However right here we additionally surprisingly see Jesus encourages risk-taking. I feel it may well apply to how we make investments, akin to within the inventory market or in excessive interest-bearing accounts (each of which I’ve performed totally free on my own). However extra seemingly, the danger is the place we make investments spiritually (i.e. how we spend the cash).
A contemporary analogy for the primary two cash managers’ success may be like me shopping for meals for 2 drug addicts. I give each $5 of meals and invite them to a Have fun Restoration assembly. One turns me down, curses God, and ultimately OD’s. The opposite attends, follows Jesus as his Savior, will get clear, and lives out his life serving to others. I don’t get factors or deductions for the place the addicts spend eternity—that was between them and God. But when Jesus harvested the place He didn’t plant (from underneath Devil’s affect of habit) and my cash administration was utilized by God, then I used to be devoted to assist deliver the dominion of heaven to earth.
As Severance Season 1 concludes, there are some stunning revelations and even larger questions that solely Season 2 can reply (take a look at the forged’s pop-up promo!). However one factor is evident: the Lumon staff live unnaturally with severed minds. Media like Severance is indicative of our tradition’s perception that firms (satirically) deal with their staff poorly when it’s these associates who ship the outcomes.
I feel Jesus’s lesson that it’s unimaginable to serve God and cash extends to related ideas: a enterprise whose main purpose is revenue maximization can’t even have its staff’ greatest pursuits in thoughts. And that is Jesus’s level: don’t count on money-driven decision-making to have the facility or play by the identical life-changing guidelines that God’s financial system of affection and justice and generosity does.
Like many issues in God’s financial system, this parable appears paradoxical: (1) cash is a fundamental accountability, (2) although most of us will be lazy and incompetent we’re nonetheless managers, (3) the “little factor” of cash has a large impression on heaven, and (4) we’re solely accountable for the toiling, that arduous work of investing, not the outcomes.
Being accountable on earth is difficult work however brings better success and extra accountability, blessing, happiness, and eternity in heaven. These irresponsible, the individuals with a cut up thoughts, have an “simpler” life on earth, however slowly have extra taken away and in the end could not even be a Christian, since “outer darkness” and “weeping and gnashing of tooth” sounds rather a lot like a literal hell.
However there’s hope. Our boss will not be Kier Eagan or a ladder-climbing C-Suite sociopath. Jesus is sweet, forgiving, and repeatedly offers instruction. He additionally is aware of precisely what our skills are and solely holds us accountable for what we’re able to. However we should obey by spending our cash properly, oddly sufficient on these with a cut up thoughts, on people who find themselves damage, typically unlovely and a bit dangerous.
- Matthew 3:2, 4:17, 5:3, 5:10; Mark 1:15, and so on. ↩︎
- Jesus makes use of talanton which was a weight making use of worth to cash. Subsequently, as France says, “the Greek talanton is solely a sum of cash.” In actual fact, this Greek phrase is the place English will get its phrase “expertise,” therefore our trendy confusion that Jesus (“erroneously,” per one commentator) meant “skills” as merely one’s pure skills. ↩︎
- Flo (Margaret Avery) on A Man on the Inside, “Presents and Clear Hazard,” Season 1, Episode 5. ↩︎
- Chip Ingram, “Efficient Parenting,” Session 5. ↩︎
