2
Corinthians 6:1-10; Matthew 25:14-30
It is easy to overlook how often the Lord used money and
possessions to convey a spiritual message.
Perhaps that is because almost everyone struggles with being overly
attached to material things, for they can meet our basic physical needs and provide
comfort and a sense of security. Due to
our self-centered desires, however, they so easily become false gods as we make
them the measure of our lives. As Christ
taught, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also….You cannot
serve both God and mammon.” (Matt. 6: 21, 24)
Today’s
gospel reading uses precisely such imagery.
Three servants received large
sums of money, called talents, from their master when he went away on a long journey.
He was a shrewd businessman and expected them to make the most of
what he had entrusted to them. One invested so wisely that his five
talents turned into ten. The one given two talents did the same and
earned two more. They both doubled their money and earned the praise of
their master when he returned. But the third servant, who had only one
talent to invest, was not such a good steward. Out of fear that he might
lose what little he had, he simply buried the money in the ground and produced nothing
at all. The master scolded him for not even putting the money in the bank and
earning interest. Then he took away his talent and gave it to the first
servant. Near the end of the parable, we read that “to everyone who has, more
will be given and he will have abundance, but from him who does not have, even
what he has will be taken away.”
The
Lord used this story about investing money as a way to convey the importance of
being a faithful steward of all our blessings. Life itself and all our abilities
and possessions come from the Lord. Ever since He created us in His image
and likeness, He has called us to invest ourselves in ways that enable us to
flourish as His sons and daughters as we share more fully in His life. He calls
us to an abundant life that bears fruit for the Kingdom, blesses others, and
radiates the light of holiness throughout the world.
Before
such a high calling, we may feel as inadequate as the servant who buried his
one talent in the ground out of fear. Like
him, we do not want to lose what we have, and it is usually less stressful to
guard against loss than to take the risk of investing for gain. So we choose to remain as we have been, perhaps
thinking that whatever we do will never amount to much anyway. Maybe we imagine that only people whose circumstances
and experiences are not as broken as our own could ever really invest
themselves in the service of the Kingdom in ways that would bear good fruit. Perhaps we have tried and failed so many
times that we have given up.
If
we see ourselves in the cowardly servant who buried his one talent in the
ground, we must recognize that what he did led to the very opposite of what he
had hope for. He brought only further weakness
and loss upon himself, losing even the one talent and being cast out into the
darkness. A person who is unable to move
physically for a long period of time loses muscle mass and strength, knowing only
greater weakness and pain. The same is
true of our life in Christ. Trying to
play it safe by being spiritually stagnant never works. If we are not
actively offering our gifts and abilities to the Lord, we will diminish
ourselves to the point that we lose what little spiritual strength we had.
What
St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians in today’s epistle reading applies to each of
us, regardless of whether we have one or ten talents, regardless of whether we
think that our present situation is especially conducive to becoming a channel
of blessing to anybody. As St. Paul put it, “Behold, now is the
acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor. 6:2) If we
are going to be faithful stewards, we have to begin with our lives as they are
now. To wait until all problems have been resolved and we have time,
energy, and resources to spare is to accept an illusion, for our lives will
never be without challenges. Cowardly servants will always find reasons
to be afraid and to bury their talents in the ground. The more that we
weaken ourselves by doing that, the harder it will be ever to invest ourselves
in ways that bear fruit for the Kingdom. It is nothing but a lie and a
delusion to think otherwise.
St.
Paul endured beatings, imprisonment, attempts on his life, shipwreck, and so
many other difficulties before he died as a martyr. He did not wait until
life was completely peaceful and calm before serving God and blessing his
neighbors. He describes the life of the apostles “as dying, and behold we
live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as
poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”
(2 Cor. 6:10)
Though
the details are different, our calling is ultimately the same as his. No
matter how sad, sick, frustrated, deprived, or conflicted we may be, the Lord calls
us all to invest our lives in the service of His Kingdom. We will not do that with the prominence of
St. Paul, but that is beside the point. The
servant with only one talent was still called to be as faithful with what he
had as the one who had ten. Like it or not, we have the lives in this
world that we have and we can change nothing about the past. What we can do is to refuse to be paralyzed
by fear and insecurity as we offer ourselves to become more faithful stewards
of God’s blessings.
We
must never diminish the importance of even the seemingly smallest investments
of ourselves that we make for the Kingdom.
Everyone can devote a few minutes daily to cultivating the habits of prayer
and reading the Scriptures. By taking
even small steps to follow the fasting guidelines of the Church or to endure illness
or other difficult trials patiently, we can all embrace self-denial in ways
appropriate to our spiritual health and life circumstances. Everyone has opportunities to refuse to
harbor hateful thoughts about their enemies and to pray for them. Our lives are filled with opportunities to
repent as we purify the desires of our hearts and reorient ourselves toward the
love of God and neighbor.
We
should never refuse to do what we can today to become better stewards of our
talents because they seem so small or because we have failed to do so in the
past. As the parable shows, the way to
gain greater spiritual strength is to be “faithful over a little,” making the
most of what God has entrusted to us. As
St. Paul wrote, “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of
salvation.” No matter what we think of
our gifts and limitations, we all face the same question of whether we are going
to offer ourselves as best we can for growth in union with the Lord, becoming
like the bread and wine of the Eucharist.
They do not look like much on their own, but when transformed by the
Holy Spirit they become the Body and Blood of Christ, our true participation in
the Heavenly Banquet.
We
do not have to be spiritual superheroes in order be faithful stewards of our
talents and play our role in fulfilling God’s purposes for the world. We
simply have to offer in obedience what only we can offer to the Lord—namely,
ourselves-- and let Him do the rest.
Then we will receive back infinitely more than what we had offered in
the first place. And our life in this world, no matter how humble, will
then produce fruit for the Kingdom even “thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”
(Mark 4:8) Surely, there is no better investment than that.
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