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Matthew 25:14-30
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Jesus gives us a parable about three servants of a common master. When the master departed, he left these servants with a rather large trust. We can easily miss just how large of a trust this is because the wording of the parable is foreign to us. We speak of talents as abilities, not as currency. But this parable is referring to money. Most of us then are left wondering, "What is a talent?" I'll admit to you that this was one of my own questions as I sat with this parable.
So how much is a talent? I was rather shocked when I read that a single talent is roughly the cumulative wage of a laborer of that day over a period of 15 years. That discovery led me to search and find that the average worker in our land today makes a little more than $44K yearly. A single talent in our day, imposing this parable on our generation, is in the ballpark of $660K. If that's not shocking enough to us, note that one of these servants got five talents, another two talents, and the last one talent. In today's terms, this one who got five talents would be getting $3.3 million in trust.
Numbers like that are staggering for us! It's for many of us a lifetime in money. Is it any wonder then that one of these three servants panicked and went and hid the money entrusted to him? The only thing that is likely more shocking to us and our modern ears is that none of these three lost anything. They didn't squander away what was entrusted to them. We don't need to look long and hard to find modern examples of those who have wasted away what has been entrusted to them by mishandling a large trust.
Remember, however, that this is a parable. You've heard me say this before, but it applies here also. Parables use something to point to another thing. That said, in spite of everything I have said to this point about money, in the attempt to explain the parable's foreign terms to our modern ears, we need to come to grips with the fact that this parable has nothing to do whatsoever with money. If it is about money, this parable is for someone else, but not us. No one among us, I dare say, has been given in one lump sum, 15 to 75 years of our annual wage.
And yet I tell you that this parable is for us. I tell you we have received talents and a charge to use them. And the talents that we have received are of extraordinary value. Dare I say they are even of priceless value, exceeding the range of the value of monetary talents presented in this Gospel.
So what are these talents that we have received? These talents are the God-given skills and resources to be faithful in the many vocations given us by God. God has called us to many and various tasks; being a faithful spouse, sibling, parent, just to name a few roles. In these roles, we have a responsibility to build up those whom God has given us. As people of faith, we are called to pass on the faith that we have received from those who came before us to those who come after us, to ensure that the faith of the Church will continue onward in every generation and among every people until Christ the Master returns for the Church.
Sometimes these roles feel overwhelming. Sometimes we feel unworthy and incapable of doing the work given to us by God. In those moments, it is good for us to be reminded that God does not call the qualified. Our God chooses rather to equip the called. God provides us with all that we need to be faithful to God in every relationship and task to which we have been called and sent as the baptized sons and daughters of God. What that means, my friends, in the light of this parable, is that Christ has given us many talents to be used by us in order that we might indeed be his hands, his voice, his presence in the world, doing his work in our own day and generation.
As we prepare for the Advent of Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, we need to ask ourselves who we are in this parable. Have we taken what Jesus has given us and hidden it in the depths of our soul, perhaps even so well that we have forgotten that we have these talents? Are we investing our talents in those to whom Christ has sent us, trusting that by using these talents we and they will receive more than we had before we shared what we have.
I worry greatly about what we are doing with our talents, especially what we are doing with the generations that follow our own. In the 14 years that I have served as a priest of the Church, I have served three separate parishes who have one thing in common. In each of these places the most faithful and most regularly present generation is the oldest generation. It is a struggle to get the younger generation involved and present. And for some of us, there is a feeling that if things went back to the way things were when the Church was not competting for time and attention that more people and generations would be present among us. And when younger generations are present, we lament that they don't know how to be present. We have experienced multiple generations that don't know how to worship because they have not been raised to be in worship. The liturgy should be a moment at which all of the generations are present. And yet, in spite of this, we funnel the youngest generation away for Sunday School. Meanwhile, in too many places we have made this a children's experience alone which is forgotten in adulthood. And then we wonder why the youngest generation whose experience of Church has been limited to a childhood experience disappear as young adults.
Should we be surprised? I think not. Especially now, it is important that we share our talents in the liturgy and at home, in the Church and in the world. There are so many things that seek to distract us and pull us away from Christ. There is a temptation for us to take what we have and burry it in a place where we will know where it is and can hand it over to Christ when we stand before him who has given us all that we have. Only, my friends, remember that these talents are not for us only. Christ expects us to share and to believe fully that when we use what has been given us, all of our gifts will increase, as once Jesus fed the multitudes with a few meager fish and simple loaves of bread. Let us therefore use our talents, trusting Christ to use and grow what is in our midst, for the salvation of the whole world.
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Father Timothy Alleman, Rector
The Church of the Holy Cross
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
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