Like the other Jews of their time, Jesus' disciples expected a political Messiah, and this notion continued even after the Resurrection. Thus, they asked Jesus, just before his Ascension, "Will you now restore the kingdom to Israel?" [Acts 1:6].

During His life, Jesus tried to wean them away from such an idea and towards the vocation which He believed in, that is, the vocation of a suffering servant - a Messiah who would suffer and die for his people. And here in Luke's Gospel, they were near Jerusalem, where they thought the kingdom of God was about to appear.

It is in this context that Jesus told them the parable of the talents: perhaps to remind them, in some way that the coming of the kingdom involved them and everything that was to take place and to happen to Him there.