"To Everyone Who Has, More Will be Given"

Today's Mass Readings

Today’s gospel reading presents one of those remarks of Jesus that defy normal reasoning. If I won the 303 million dollar Megamillion lottery, I would not be giving some of it to another rich person, but rather, I would be giving it to someone who has none. No one has to tell me that it is most reasonable thing to do. So what is Jesus’ reasoning when he says, "For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” But consider this. If the person who had none, used the money he freely received to fund a terrorist attack, or to commit another crime, he will not any more money from me. In fact, in the parable, that is the point that Jesus is making. It is not about who has how much, but rather, it is about what one does with what he/she has. Thus, in the parable, if the man who had ten talents had buried them like the one who had one, his fate would have been that of the man who had one talent and did nothing with it. On the contrary, if the man with one talent had used his single talent in the way the man with the ten talents had done, his reward would have been great. In other words, the rich man in the gospel is not he person who has much, but the person who has little and does much with it.

There is a level on which all of us are given something equally. That something is our individual life. We have one go at life. When we stand before God on the final day, we won’t be judged by how many lives we had, or how long we lived, but rather, by what we did with the one that was freely given to us out of God’s goodness. Its time to get busy for the sake of the Kingdom.