Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
One of the most interesting part of my ministry as a priest is being in conversations with people. Very often these conversations are with parishioners who recognize that it is time to change course in life. And I understand that. Even though I am a priest, twice in my life I have had to take a hard look at my life and seek conversion. In my conversations, my main question to the person is: “What do you think is the meaning and purpose of your life?” And then I clarify the question by asking, “If today you were standing before God, how can you look back at your life and be proud of yourself? Nine out of ten peoples answer is “I’ve never looked at it that way.” Once in a way, it is good to lift up our head out of the daily grind of life and look at our life from the big-picture perspective. It should not take a life-crisis to do this. Living our lives with our destiny in focus is a Christian virtue.
I would like to approach today’s readings from the perspective of our destiny. In the parable of the talents in today’s gospel reading we are invited reflect to on our eternal destiny. However, this parable is not an easy passage to evaluate our lives with. In my three points today, I would like to reflect on understanding this parable in a way that can help us live our lives with our destiny in perspective.
1. Living life with our Destiny in Focus. One of the starkest realities of life is the uncertainty and the limitations of life. Jesus clearly suggests that the world as we know it is not eternal. The early Christian church believed that Christ would come unexpectedly. Even contemporary physicists support the idea that the world as we know it will end without warning. For example, after physicists in Europe discovered the Higgs boson or the ‘God-particle’, Stephen Hawking, the famous theoretical physicists suggested that this very particle could one day be responsible for the destruction of the universe. These physicists suggest that a quantum fluctuation could create a vacuum "bubble" that could expand through space and wipe out the universe. Hawking is a professing atheist. I do know what he thinks his destiny is. You and I, on the other hand, believe in the death and resurrection of Christ. We believe that our destiny has changed because of the cross. The truth is that immaterial of how and when everything ceases to exist, we will stand before our eternal God one day. This means that we take very seriously Paul’s advice in today’s second reading, “Let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.” (1 Thes 5:6). Most of the folks I have conversations with transform their life style because thinking about their eternal destiny gives them a motivation to live life more meaningfully.
2. Two Different Interpretations of the Parable of Talents. The traditional interpretation of the parable of the talents is that God has given us gifts and our life-project is the use these gifts to build God’s kingdom. This is not a bad way to look at the parable. However, there is a downside in this parable. In this interpretation, there are winners and losers. If we take into account the complexity of life, not every person who does not multiply their talent is lazy or does it out of fear. For example, I recently heard a medical discussion about how people develop schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder. It was rather frightening. Anyone could succumb to that. Although I am sure that God would have a different standard for evaluating a schizophrenic, yet, it does not seem to be fair that one gets more talents than others. And then, again, does God really judge us by how much we multiply our talents? Is God really as harsh as the parable suggests? Does God really not make any allowances for our genuine human fears and limitations?
There is second interpretation of this parable. In this interpretation the Master is not God, but rather, that the Master represents all those who exploit the poor. The servant who buries his talent is the hero of the parable because he refused to participate in an exploitative economic system. If you consider the fact that the gap between the super-rich and the poor today world is widest in the last hundred years, there is some value to this interpretation. However, the downside of this interpretation is that the Kingdom of God is more than about economics.
3. The Parable of Our True Worth. Let me begin my third point with this question: “What matters to God?” In other words, what is God’s primary concern as we know it from scripture? The biblical answer is - people. “God so loved the world….” In other words, each one of is God’s treasure. Because we are precious and invaluable to God, God invites us to be awake, to be sober and by the way we live bring more people to God. So then the parable of the talent is not about multiplying my talent but rather multiplying people for God; and, that we bring people to God not as trophies or as slaves before their master, but rather, we bring people to God by helping them realize their true value. We must bring people to God by making them realize how much God loves them. This parable should be then called 'The Parable of Our True Worth.' A good husband/wife, then, is not someone who has his or her own sense of worth but helps those in family recognize their own worth as they move toward God. A good family values other families in God. If you happen to be rich your task is not to multiply your money but to make sure that your generosity can help people realize how much God loves them. If we can live like this we never have to be afraid like the third servant was or ever doubt our destiny with God.
Jesus came to show us that each of us is precious to God. The Eucharist, at which Jesus continues to feed us, is a celebration of the fact that we are God’s treasure. Today, as we receive the Eucharist, let us recognize our true worth, help other recognize their worth and help build God’s kingdom. If we do this, our lives will have a true purpose and meaning.
- Fr. Satish Joseph