We are approaching the last Sunday of the liturgical year. Next week is the feast of Christ the King. In preparation, last week and today our gospel readings have been about the end times and our accountability to the late-coming bridegroom (last week) and long-absent master (today). We have also been hearing from Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians.
Paul is writing to the Thessalonians about the end times and Jesus’ return. Today he seems to be answering a question about “times and seasons.” Someone must have asked about the date of the Parousia. The early church expected Jesus’ quick return and previously that seems to have been Paul’ preaching. These days we occasionally still hear of a preacher giving an imminent date and some congregation going to a mountaintop to greet Jesus upon his arrival. Perhaps they should first read I Thess. 5: 1-6 before they quit their jobs and head out for the hills..
Paul may not have known the exact the date of Jesus’ return, but he is sure it will happen — and it will be sudden. He uses a startling image to describe how Jesus will return, “like a thief in the night.” It is an image that also appears in the gospels (Mark 13:35, Luke 12:39 ff). Paul reminds the Thessalonians that their main concern is not the speculation about “times and seasons,” but the need to live in readiness, as if Jesus might come at any moment.
On the other hand, Paul tells the Thessalonians, they must live in a fitting manner, as if the end has already come. Christ is already with us and we are “children of the light and children of the day.” Since we are already blessed by Christ, whose light shines within us, we must show that light to the world by the way in which we live. We are not as concerned about when Jesus will return as we are about living here and now empowered by the future we have already come to experience through our baptism.
Through a parable the gospel also addresses the “long time” we are waiting for Christ. One might have expected that the three servants entrusted with the talents by their master would have a sense of their importance. Don’t you think? After all, they are “entrusted” with their master’s possessions. Isn’t it a gift when someone entrusts what they value to us?
The religious teachers in Jesus’ time were like the servants in the parable. They were entrusted with the religious law and tradition and were to help the community live preparing for God’s advent into their lives. But they became rigid in their teachings and Jesus accused them of not perceiving the kingdom’s presence among them in himself. Like the last of the servants in the parable, they misunderstood what God expected of them.
The three servants seemed to be of different competence, judging from their master’s distribution of money. The “talent” was equivalent to what a poor person could live on for 15 or 20 years. So, each servant, even the one who received the one talent, was given a considerable amount by his master. We derive our current notion of “talent” (a natural gift) from this parable. But in the parable the talent is money invested by a master who then expects a return on his investment. Here is a chance for each servant to prove that his master’s trust in him was justified.
The third servant didn’t fail because he invested foolishly, but because he didn’t invest at all — he didn’t try. It’s not a parable about the servant’s own gifts, “talents,” but about his laziness and fear. Perhaps he was even afraid of the slight risk putting the money in the bank would involve. His solution: take no risk and bury the money.
The parable isn’t concerned with specific talents we might have been given and how we use them. It’s about all that we have. The master expected the money to be invested, hoarding it was a waste. So too for us. Jesus is encouraging us to put all of our lives on the line in his service — not just specific talents. We are to invest ourselves in God’s name, serving God by serving others. It doesn’t matter how much we think we have been given. Each of us baptized into Christ needs to engage in the world, conscious that the One who has entrusted us will be with us as we face life and its challenges as full-fledged Christians.
God is not the mean and demanding master in the parable. This is not an allegory. But it is clear that our life with God starts here and now. Not to live in service to our God is to choose “the darkness outside” now. Living in God’s service, wherever we are called, is a risk, but we are urged to take that risk and not choose a fictional safe and comfortable form of discipleship. We find our life, Jesus tells us, by losing it in his name.
How often does the occasion to speak or act on our faith arise? Dare we step forward as Christians to invest ourselves in Christ’s name? Or, do we think we should just do our best to “keep the faith” neat and clean until Christ comes to call us to an accounting? Religion dies when it clings to the past age and fails to see God present and active in new ways in each generation. A kind word, a loving act, a stand for what is right — whatever is asked of us will also be supplied by Christ who joins his life to our ours in this world. The master criticized the one-talent servant for being a fearful servant and doing nothing. Better to risk, it would seem, then play it safe! What a Risk-Taker we have in our God, who expects each of us to invest ourselves in the challenges we face!
Isn’t it interesting that the servants who did take chances and had profits to show their master weren’t told to “take it easy and enjoy a rest”? Instead, they are given even greater responsibilities! I keep meeting people in parishes who decided to “dip their feet” in some needed ministry: teaching religion classes to teenagers; training lectors; raising funds for a soup kitchen; knitting blankets for new, single mothers; joining a Scripture group; forming a parish social justice committee, etc. It never fails. They all say they are much more involved than they expected — and they love it! These are servants who have already heard the Lord say to them, “Well done, my good and faithful servant” — and they have also heard, “I will give you great responsibilities.”
The wonder is that these servants seem to relish the extra labors they have been given. They trust in the enveloping and supportive love of God as they throw themselves in the risks of discipleship. They already share in their master’s joy. These “good and faithful” servants don’t view God as a general issuing orders and expecting exact obedience. Some people seem to imagine God that way. Instead, they stepped out into a part of the vineyard they had never been before and set to work. They trusted the responsibilities they had been given and the Gift-Giver who backed them up.
A33 OT – NO GAIN NO PAIN – Mat. 25:14-30
The parable of the talents is, certainly, one of the better known stories from the Gospel. A rich man, before leaving for a trip abroad, entrusted his property to three of his servants. Today we would speak of loans or investing our assets. Two of those three employees got to work with or invest the money they were entrusted with. A long time after, when their master returned from abroad, those servants handed over their accounts: two of those three servants had doubled their value. Their boss praised their efforts for having surpassed his expectations.
The third servant, however, did not please the hard master. He had been afraid of losing what did not belong to him and had buried the money in the ground. “Here it is; it was yours, you have it back.” His master condemned him and said: “You wicked and lazy servant!” He should have done better. He was too worried about his own security.
Jesus’ message is clear. He is against conservatism, and in favour of creativity. Jesus is against death and sterility, and all for pro-life and the Creator. He doesn’t want us to be obsessed only with safety, at the risk of failing to transform our world. God does not want our faith to be buried under the tombstones of conformism; he wants us to imitate his total commitment to the cause.
That is a temptation for many of us: avoiding risks and looking for safety and security. We don’t want to commit ourselves to anything that can risk or complicate our lives, or endanger our own little world. In other words, we don’t want to risk or invest with our own selves.
The same thing happens with our own Christian lives. We are not so much worried with our dogmas or afraid of committing serious offences. We have simply frozen our faith and silenced the voice of the Gospel we once heard and used to listen to. We ought to question ourselves about what treasures and talents we have left and invested on, what hopes we have created and how many sufferings we have helped to alleviate.
It will be a great mistake for us to imitate the third servant and claim before God: “This was all you gave me; have it back.” This is what I read in the Gospel; these are the Ten Commandments that I have kept faithfully: sorry I couldn’t put them to work in my life. It was very risky. But I am still a baptized Christian!
A33 AFRAID TO TAKE RISKS
The parable of the talents is well known to most Christians. According to the gospel narrative, a rich man, before taking a trip abroad, entrusted his property to three of his servants. To one of them he gave five talents, to another he gave two talents and to the third one just one talent: to “each in proportion to his ability.”
The first two “promptly went and traded with them”. They knew about their master’s business and so they worked accordingly. They were not afraid of failing. When the master returned from his journey, those two servants were happy to submit their accounts: they had doubled the talents they had received.
The response of the third servant, however, was strange. He had decided to dig a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money and made sure he did not lose it. He explained his actions this way: “Sir, I had heard you were a hard man, reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered… so I was afraid and hid your talent in the ground. Here it is; it was yours.” The master condemned him, “you wicked and lazy servant.”
As a matter of fact, the real reason of this servant’s behaviour is much deeper. This servant did not really know his master. He imagined his master to be selfish, unjust and unpredictable. He saw him too demanding and would accept no mistakes . He wouldn’t trust him and so the servant was afraid to take any risk or chance of failure. Better be on the safe side.
It was such terrible opinion about his boss that paralysed him. He would not dare take any risk. Fear really had blocked him. He could not even think that his master was offering him a chance to be creative and take some responsibility himself. The only option he saw was to hide the talent and return it intact to his boss.
Naturally, first generation Christians must have listened to this parable and understood its implications better. Jesus has handed over to us his Father’s project of making this world a more just and humane place. He has given us his greatest commandment: love of neighbour. He has left us the Good News about a loving God. How are we responding to these messages and talents?
When we do not live and practice our Christian faith with trust and, instead, are moved by fear, everything is distorted. Faith might be preserved by tradition, but it is not passed on and adjusted to new situations. Religion becomes a duty and the Gospel is simply read and retold. Worship is reduced to meaningless rituals of past generations.
It would certainly be a terrible mistake if we stood before the Lord one day and say: “Here it is; it was yours, you have it back.” This is your Gospel and here is your sermon on the mount. We have preserved those commandments and preached your doctrine of love. But our own lives have really not changed and there won’t be more justice in this world. Here it is; it is all yours.