"You know that I am a hard man who reaps where he has not sown.....".

 The message of the Parable of the Dishonest Servant  has a very real message. That message is that life after a long journey of discovery and adventure and failure is about calling in our debts and being hard on ourselves but being generous to others, particularly the underprivileged..

The part about charging interest on a gold talent was added to the parable in the fourth century when usury replaced slavery as the main source of unearned income in Rome. That change was a necessary reworking of the lesson to keep it of contemporary relevance if my religious guide of 1976-77 is accurately brought to mind from distant recall...