A Reflection for Saturday of the Twenty-First Week of Ordinary Time
Find today’s readings here.
'Master, I knew you were a demanding person,
harvesting where you did not plant
and gathering where you did not scatter;
so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground.
Here it is back.' (Mt 25: 24-25)
In some Scripture, our dear Lord (forgive me) strikes me, at least in parable guise, as, well, a bit of a jerk.
In this familiar parable from Matthew, the Lord of Heaven is compared to the somewhat hard-edged master of many servants, a demanding talent distributor with an eye on even greater riches coming back his way. He is portrayed like a member of a landed gentry, ruling over his own turf and approached in fear and trembling by his servants—a powerful, wealthy lord who is still quite willing to gather where he did not scatter and harvest value from unsuspecting, less powerful neighbors.
In this parable, some servants are given many talents and some are given few, but all are expected to do their utmost with what they have been freely gifted.
Those of us who were educated by Dominicans probably heard “you get out of it what you put into it” at some point in their elementary school journeys. Besides our innate talents in the great lottery of birth, nothing in life is ever handed to us (well, that and the nurture and nourishment offered freely by family and friends, no small thing). What we get out of our lives after that will depend on the effort we make—and a little luck, of course. It applies to college, graduate school, the jobs we accept or the careers we pursue, the friends we make and the families we create—a lot of the rewards and satisfaction that derive from these will depend on how much of ourselves we invest in them.
All the Lord wants from us is everything, so that in the end we can have everything too. “Come and share your master’s joy.”
Matthew wants to remind us that in our brief temporal visitation on Earth, we are also called to pay as much attention, if not more, to the investments we are making in the life everlasting to come. Here is where our talents must be truly invested. Those investments need not be in conflict; they in fact should coincide and complement each other.
It can be tempting to play everything safe in life, to keep a low profile, to muddle through, to not make waves and stay out of trouble. But we are called to apply our everything to everything, to make good trouble when we need to, to give ourselves totally with all our energy, passion and creativity, not to enrich ourselves or to get ahead in our careers or to buy the biggest house or drive the fastest car. No; God instead calls us to accumulate wealth that really matters, in service to our world, our communities, our families and ourselves. Surely then our reward will be great!
I have nothing but sympathy for Matthew’s anxious servant who, dealing with this scary taskmaster, seeks to diminish risk as best he can. This is a talent distributor who wants it all from us, and what he gives us, he expects returned many times over.
If I were dealing with that guy, I’d be trying to hide under a basket or keep my wick unlit and just stay out of sight too. But we don’t really have that option. The Lord of History has known us since before we were born.
All he wants from us is everything, so that in the end we can have everything too. “Come and share your master’s joy.”
