33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, A November 15, 2020
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
I always loved and hated talents shows. Loved them because I got to see unexpected abilities and surprising creativity from friends and classmates. Hated them because I never felt like I had a talent worth sharing and felt bad for not being able to contribute.
Whenever we hear this parable, I suspect that many people feel something similar. The parable even uses the word “talent,” which is actually where we get the word from. Originally it was a measurement of money – a very large amount of money, possibly even millions – but there’s no harm in extrapolating it to encompass other abilities and gifts.
Jesus tells us that these servants were given talents according to their ability, causing us to wonder, “what about my ability? I don’t feel like I can do much.” The point here is to motivate us to be productive while we wait for Jesus to return. The second reading echoes this them, warning us that it will be a sudden event, like a thief in the night, and that those who haven’t been productive will be left in the darkness.
Let’s say we take these warnings seriously. It still doesn’t address the other concern – what if I don’t have anything to contribute? As a kid, I’d often think to myself “what if the servant traded and ended up losing his master’s money on a bad deal?” We could very well update that question by saying, “what if a pandemic hit and the servants’ business ventures got crushed by it?” After all, for every stock market or business success story, there’s a whole lot more failures and bankruptcies.
Facts like that cause us to think it’s a lot like my initial reaction to a talent show – that only a small percentage of people are actually going to succeed. And yet, every once in a while, someone would come up with a group talent that could include me as a background part. Much like my time in the choir, it was the combined talents of other people that created space for me to do what I could never do on my own and therefore offer something back to the community.
This same reality applies to our salvation. On our own, none of us has what it takes to be productive, to earn our salvation and make good use of our God-given talents. But we’re not on our own. The two successful servants are successful because they realize this. The wicked, lazy servant’s mistake was in how he saw his relationship to the master. There are two different visions of the master at work. The failed servant sees his master as other, as a challenge, an obstacle, someone in competition because he is so demanding and therefore wants to take things from the servant. The successful ones, however, see the master as an ally and guide. His demanding nature is treated not as an obstacle but as the way the master helps them to grow. In other words, one servant saw it as “me versus him.” The other two saw the master as “me and him together against my own weakness.”
This dynamic is at work everywhere. It’s the difference between people who grow up Catholic and love their faith and those who grow up to hate the Church. Where one person sees powerful tools for growing in genuine freedom, the other sees cold, dead rules meant to take away their freedom. It’s the same rules in both cases – the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes – but there is something missing in the heart of one side. What’s missing? Trust.
In my example of the group act at a talent show, there was a trust that the group is there to carry me along. In the parable of the talents, two of the servants have a basic trust that, even if they fail in trading, the master will carry them along appreciating their efforts more than the money itself. Indeed, that’s shown by his response. He does not say “you were successful” but “you were faithful.” In other words, you trusted me and acted on it. The rebuke of the third servant, likewise, is not for loss of profit but for wickedness and laziness. It’s obvious the master doesn’t really care about the money – he gives it away pretty freely – but about the attitude and the behaviors that come from it.
Our salvation is very much the same way. The “talents” in this parable do not primarily represent money or even personal gifts and abilities – at least not directly. The real wealth that Jesus gives us is in the gifts of faith, hope, and charity. Our ability to know about Jesus and salvation, our ability to take that seriously in the way we live, and our ability to enjoy contemplating the mystery of God’s love for us. Yes, there are different levels of holiness there – it’s obvious some saints are more extraordinary than others – but every Catholic is given faith, hope, and love. Our judgment is not based on how much we end up with, but our fidelity in using it well. As Mother Teresa put it, “God does not ask us to succeed, he asks us only to try.”
Even if you are no brilliant writer, evangelist, or miracle worker… even if you lack the mental and physical ability to do big things to help other people, you have the talents of faith, hope, and love. Every time you receive a sacrament, pray a rosary, offer a fast, speak a kind word, or even just relish the gift of the truth about God, you are given grace. Unlike the stock market, the economy of grace never fails or bottoms out. If you invest the grace you have, you will get more of it. Every time.
This is why we also have this reading about the worthy wife. The key to this passage is this line: “Her husband, entrusting his heart to her, has an unfailing prize.” Christ is the bridegroom of the Church. We are the Church. Each and every human soul is the recipient of the most amazing gift – the heart of God himself, entrusted to us in way that husband and wife never could. He doesn’t give us his heart in a metaphorical way, but literally in the Eucharist.
How silly it is to be afraid of the God who gives us his own heart to eat! How foolish it is to take that gift for granted! to bury it and wait to give it back in the end! This is no mere talent show, where you can watch, laugh, cry, and go home without doing anything. This invitation is a challenge for you to get richer in what matters. You can look at demands of the Catholic faith with suspicion if you wish, but you’re missing the point. God convicts us and warns us of punishment because he is on our side. The Master’s joy is not the profit, but the glory of seeing his servant succeed. Take the risk to use your talents for God and you are guaranteed to hear him say, “Come, share your master’s joy.”