THE GIFTS ARE OPPORTUNITIES
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
November 14, 2020
I don’t know of many people – especially Christian people –
who set out each day to see what sort of sin and evil they can partake in. It’s
true that we all sin, but generally not because we want to. We are prone to
weakness amid temptations. But I do know of Christian people set out each day
to do nothing much at all as the result of their sacramental commitments. I have
been one of them from time to time. Because Christianity is more than a vague
identity. It’s work. It’s responsibility. And sometimes, frankly, I’d rather
not work. Sometimes I’d just like to be carried along by the tides of whatever
is already going on in my life and in the world. Call it laziness or call it
fear or call it exhaustion or call it indifference. The result is the same: one’s
identity specifically as a follower of Jesus gets put on the shelf, never to
make any real difference in the way we go about our daily living.
Well Jesus himself has something to say about that in today’s
gospel of Matthew. It’s another parable that we hear from him, the so-called
parable of the talents. Here we have a master with three servants, to whom he
entrusts his wealth while he goes away for a time… each servant according to
his ability.
It might be easier to translate that word “talents” to “opportunities”
in order to help us better understand the point. Each of those servants is
given an opportunity to work in order to respond to the master’s confidence in
them. Two of them do exactly that. They double the endowment – not for
themselves, because it’s not their wealth, but for their master. And they are
praised for doing so.
Then there’s that third one – the servant who buries the one
talent he had in the ground and then goes on with life as if he’d never been
given it in the first place. For that servant, nothing changed as a result of
having been chosen to work for the master, even in a relatively small way. He’s
been given an opportunity, and in fact a responsibility to be a faithful
caretaker of what he’s got, and he won’t even put it in the bank. The master’s
response seems very harsh upon his return, but the real takeaway from his
condemnation can be found in the very words of the gospel here: “you wicked,
lazy servant!” It’s not that he has done something evil or sinful. It’s that he’s
done nothing at all. In the face of an opportunity to serve, he has decided not
to. Here the words “wicked” and “lazy” appear here to mean exactly the same
thing. The message seems to be that God looks at the sin of indifference and
inactivity a lot more seriously than we do. We’ve been given gifts. Use them!
This weekend is the last one this year during which we
welcome our soon-to-be Confirmed young people, who are about to be strengthened
with many gifts from the Holy Spirit, many opportunities and responsibilities.
So let me just repeat my last couple of sentences, especially to you
Confirmation Candidates. But not only to you, they are meant for all of us: “the
message seems to be that God looks at the sin of indifference and inactivity a
lot more seriously than we do. We’ve been given gifts. Use them!” And not
primarily for your own benefit, but for the benefit of the master whom we
serve. The ending of today’s gospel suggests that ultimately those are the same
thing. We help ourselves by getting into God’s work.
What might that look like? Well here’s a start, although it
won’t look the same for any two of us, because we’ve all been given different
talents, different opportunities, in different measures. This weekend also happens
to be Pope Francis’ fourth annual World day of the Poor. Here at Pax Christi,
we profess that justice for the poor is “integral, not optional” in the life of
our community, and we strive to live that out by the way we work. It’s the
gospel! Here’s part of what Francis says in encouraging us this weekend:
“Prayer to God and solidarity with the poor and suffering
are inseparable. In order to perform an act of worship acceptable to the Lord,
we have to recognize that each person, even the poorest and most contemptible,
is made in the image of God. From this awareness comes the gift of God’s
blessing, drawn by the generosity we show to the poor. Time devoted to prayer
can never become an alibi for neglecting our neighbor in need. In fact, the
very opposite is true: the Lord’s blessing descends upon us and prayer attains
its goal when accompanied by service to the poor.”
There are, of course, many ways for people to be poor, and
so there are a lot of opportunities and responsibilities around us every day in
which to put the gifts of the Holy Spirit to work in and through us. Some are
financially poor. Some are deprived of basic human needs and rights like food
and housing and health care. Some are poor in friendship and caring and
community. Some are poor in health. Some are poor in in hope and trust and
happiness.
All of this is why the sin of indifference and inactivity is
so important to God, and needs to be important to us. Not a one of us doesn’t
know people like this. We may even live with them. So even as we welcome the
Spirit’s gifts with joy and gratitude, let’s resolve to get to work!
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