Toward a theology of capitalism

I think I am beginning to get a glimpse of the glory of God in the unmasking of capitalism. What I mean is this: Throughout His teachings, Jesus employs the principle of investment and return not as negative things, but as simple reality. Many of the parables late in His ministry turn on this truth. For example, in the parable of the minas (Luke 19:11-27) the two servants who invested their trust and gained a return are given responsibility in proportion to their return, and the one who did not invest becaues he feared is condemned, and his trust is taken from him.

What strikes me is that Jesus doesn't even comment on the market system, in which there is investment and return. Rather, His teachings consistently place Himself as supreme in this context. In the parable of the minas, the point is that we are stewards of what does not belong to us, and that we are called to invest actively and give the returns to the Master, who owns everything. This is the unmasking of capitalism - not that it is wrong to seek profit, that anything we have is a trust (that is to say, not our own), and we will answer for our use of it because all that we have, and all that we gain, belong to the Master.

I am quite sure that there is a spiritual meaning to the parable of the minas (i.e. the trust given is the good news of the Kingdom). Yet I cannot escape the fact that Jesus spoke in terms of money, and that this gives the parable meaning on both a spiritual and a material level.