Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle A
Matthew 25:14-30
I’m sure many of you football fans have been following the career of Mac Jones, who led the Patriots to the playoffs two years ago. We thought we had another Tom Brady. And then things started to go sour. Under Mac Jones the Patriots now have the worst record in the American Football Conference. When you read the sport pages and sometimes I do, various theories about why the change are advanced. It’s the coaching; it’s the defense, which no longer is the best in the league; it’s the changes in personnel at the top. But maybe it’s possible that Mac Jones, who once went out on the field to win games, is now going out trying not to lose; and that is a terrible way to play football or do anything in life, I guess.
If you go back and read the Sunday gospels for the last three Sundays, you will see that the parables all have something to do with what we are supposed to be doing while waiting for Christ’s return. The greatest among you must be your servant. Therefore, stay awake, you know neither the day nor the hour. And today, for everyone who has, more will be given and he will become rich. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away from him.
The parable of the talents which we just read, needs a little exposition. A talent is a lot. A talent was a unit of weight for precious metals, kind of like we use carats for weighing diamonds. If you google it, you would find that the average laborer would probably not quite earn a whole talent if he worked for twenty years. So this man going on a journey is really rich, and I don’t know what fraction of his wealth he entrusted to his servants, maybe all of it, maybe some; but imagine how those listening to Jesus must have reacted. They are thinking, what would I do if someone gave me a talent? And what kind of man would trust his servants that much?
Maybe that’s the first thing about this parable. How much God trusts us. He gives us free will, a beautiful world, clear instructions through his prophets and the Church and especially through his Son, and then he stands back crossing his fingers, waiting for us to make real the kingdom of God which is among us. And we make a little progress, and we fall back, and by fits and starts maybe we see a little progress -- and ultimately we trust that somehow God’s side will triumph in the long run.
Notice that the servants get different amounts of the talents. That should be reassuring. Not everyone can be a mother Theresa or a Saint Francis; some of us can aspire to be like Saint Louis and Saint Zele Martin, the parents of Saint Therese of Lisieux; or maybe Saint Guiseppe Mosconi, who spent his life becoming holy as a physician; or maybe Blessed Carlos Acutis, or Saint Maria Goretti, who died as teenagers. Or maybe someone who isn’t even on the books yet. But what they all have in common is love; they died like Jesus did, having done everything they could to take the love in their hearts and reach out to others in the way God inspired them to do. That’s what God does. He gives us his love in proportion to our capacity to multiply it. Some tenfold, some five fold, some two-fold. And God doesn’t compare one with the other. If you multiply what you have been given, you will be told, Well done.
But the man who received one talent. Instead of multiplying the love in the world, which is what building up the kingdom of heaven is all about, he holds it back. He doesn’t love. Oh, he feels the impulse, he has the opportunity, but maybe like Mac Jones, he’s always second guessing himself. And over time his capacity to love diminishes until there isn’t any at all.
And I think there is another thing here. You get the feeling that the man who went off on a journey is a hard taskmaster who gathers where he did not scatter, and so forth. Maybe not; maybe our poor one talent guy talked himself into believing that. The master kind of agrees with his opinion, but points out that the one talent guy could have racked up a little interest -- that would have required very little of him, and he would still have received his master’s praise.
Some of you are aware of Matthew Kelly, who seems to be on fire evangelizing. He recently sent us something called the “Holy Moments bucket list”. It consists of thirty things to do in order to have the best month of your life -- and I suspect, bring you closer to passing on the love God has for you. Here are a few:
Mail a handwritten note to someone you care about, telling them how much they mean to you.
Tell your supervisor about something good that your co-worker did.
Practice generosity by leaving a 50% tip.
Make a list of things that scare you, pick one out, and do it.
You get the idea. Practice loving by doing loving things, for others, for yourself, for God. And you will begin to hear those words - Well done, good and faithful servant -- and you will find yourself eager to do more for your master.
