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1. Sirach
27:30-28:7
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2. Romans
14:7-9
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Gospel:
Matthew 18:21-35
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" What about risk-takers and
Care-takers?"
The good story is told
about a man who got mad with God. " God," he said, I have been
praying daily for three good years that I should win the state lottery. You
told us to ask and we shall receive. How come I never received all these three
years I have been asking?" Then he heard the voice of God, loud and clear.
" My dear son, " says God. " Please do me a favor and buy a
lottery ticket." This is not
supposed to be a promotional for state lotteries. Rather it illustrates the
saying: " If you want to win you got to play." In our churches today, there are two kinds of
people: risky takers and care takers. The problem with care-takers is that they
might show up at the undertaker's with little to show for the lives they have
lived. In our today's gospel Jesus warns us against this.
In
the parable we hear about " a man going on a journey who summoned his
slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to
another two, to another one, to each according to his ability"
( Matt 25: 15). From the beginning of the story we are told that the servant
who received just one talent is a man of little ability. He is not genius. Yet
it is interesting to note that the master has a talent even for his relatively disabled servant. All
God's children have got their talents, even those who appear to have very
minimal abilities in comparison with more gifted ones.
In this account, the
master departs and the first two servants "
went off at once and traded" with their talents. The third servant, on
the other hand, digs a hole in the ground and buries his one talent. Why does
he do that? Because he is afraid of going to lose it if he trades with it. He
must have reasoned like this: "
Well, those with more talents can afford to take a risk. If they lost a talent,
they could make it up later. But me, I have only one talent. If I lose it, end
of the story! So I better play it safe and just take care of it." This is
the fact that many of us in the church are
like this third servant. Since we do not see in ourselves as possessing
outstanding gifts and talents, we
conclude that there is nothing that we do. Do you know a woman who loves to
sing but who would not join the choir because she is afraid she is not gifted
with a golden voice? Do you know a young man who would like to spread the
gospel but is afraid he does not know enough Bible and theology? When people
think like this end up doing nothing, they are following in the footsteps of
the third servant who buried his one talent in the ground.
The surprise in the
story comes when the master returns and demands an account from the servants.
First, we discover that even though the first servant with five talents had
made five more talents and the second servant with two talents had made two
more talents, both of them receive exactly the same compliments: ( verse
21,23). They are rewarded not in proportional to how many talents each has made
but in proportion to how many talents each them started off with. One famous writer, Booker T. Washington said,
" Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has
reached in life as by the obstacles that one has overcome while trying to
succeed."
We can try to look out
some reasons per why the third servant decided to hide his talent. May be he compared himself to the other servants
with more talents, saw himself at the bottom rung of the ladder, and became
discouraged. He did not realize that with his one talent, if he made just one
more talent, he would be rewarded equally as the servant with five talents who
made five more. Dear brothers and sisters, as we celebrate this Sunday, we are
invited to understand that we are not all measured by the same rule. To whom
much is given, much is required.
Dear brothers and
sisters, if you have a young adult, may I suggest one thing, that is to help
them discover their talents; consider what it is that they do well. That will
give some indication of what talents God has given them. Instead of preparing
them for a job that will give them the most amount of money, why not to
consider helping them to develop the talents God gave them so that they will
live a happy and fulfilled life.
A few simple questions
may help those young adults to discover what talents God gave them. Do they
like to work with people or things? With their mind or with their hands? Do
they like technology and mathematics or do they like poetry and painting?
Seeking God's guidance, we can help our children to discover what gifts they
have received from God.
It is evident that all
of in the church today have received at least one talent. Each person comes
into the world with talents from God. We don't know if they are 5 talents, 2
talents, or one talent. What counts is what do we do with the talents God gave
us. We received both natural and supernatural talents from God. Our natural
talents enable us to work for our daily bread and support ourselves. Our
supernatural gift helps us to grow in the love of God and neighbor.
We have received the gift of faith. Our
responsibility as men and women of faith is not just to preserve and "
keep" the faith. We need to trade with it. We need to sell it to the men
and women of our times. We need to
promote and add value to faith. This is a venture that brings the faith just as
the third servant lost his talent. The way to preserve the faith, or any other
talent that God has given us, is to put it to work and make it bear fruit.
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