SCRIPTURE READINGS:
You Word, O Lord, is a lamp to our feet. A light to our path.
Judges 4:1-7
Matthew 25:14-30
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
REFLECTION:
Today’s reading from Matthew is telling us about how we are to live, courageously and abundantly, bringing life to God’s kingdom here on earth. The talents or resources that Matthew is referring to are the natural abilities and potential we each have; these are the life and power of God that is present in us. We are being asked to live into our faith by trusting in God’s call on our lives and by drawing on our gifts.
In the reading from Matthew today, a man summons his slaves and gives them each part of his property to care for while he is away. A talent refers to a huge amount of worth, usually as silver or another precious metal. We are told that two of the slaves put the talents to work by trading them and increasing them in amount which made their master very happy with them. He rewarded them by giving them even more talents. The third slave who had just one talent, buried it to keep it safe and intact and of course, it remained the same. The master was furious that the slave did not use his talent and multiply it and this poor slave was caste into the outer darkness. The talent was taken off him and given to the first slave who now had ten talents.
The message here appears simple. Use your talents and your life will be full and abundant. Keep your talents buried and face damnation. We need to use what we have and not store it or hide it away.
Why are we reluctant to live into the power and life of God that is within us, to use those untapped talents? Is it because we fear failure, or feel inadequate to the
task? Maybe we have had a previous bad experience that has led to us burying our abilities and no longer using them. Sometimes we are afraid of taking a risk because, let’s face it, it takes effort and we don’t know what to expect when we step out of our comfort zone. We don’t want to take any chances when it comes to our faith, our relationships, our hope.
In order to use your God given gifts you often need to connect with other people, reach out to others, make meaning, try new things or new ways. There is potential for mistakes, for change, for learning new ways; it is risky.
God gifts us innate abilities and potential, in order to build up God’s kingdom here on earth. Self preservation and clinging to what is familiar, can interfere with being receptive to discernment and opportunity.
God is not threatening and punishing if we do the wrong thing. Our mistakes are forgiven, the kingdom of God is assured. “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance…” God has not intended us for wrath but for salvation. That is what Jesus came to tell us, to show us – that we are loved.
God’s gifts to us are grace and God’s power and spirit, encourage us to step up out of our comfort zones and live fully into our human lives, for God. We are called to bring the gospel to life in our world and we do this by the way we impact on others.
It is easy to keep God holy and uninvolved and out of reach. That way, we can worship God and look to God with hope for our needs and our struggles but we don’t actually have to do anything ourselves. We ‘leave it to God’. Yet God has filled us with his power, we are gifted by God to be as Christ in the world. This means we are called on to do the work of God. We all have talents, natural abilities, and I’m not talking about those talents that we have that are related to our personal lives and personal development. I am talking about vocation, bringing the gospel to life through actions, qualities and opportunities for the benefit of humanity and creation. Talents are resources and power of great worth that are of God and for the purposes of God. And we are called to stand up and live out our talents. Not an easy task. It is much easier to bury them in the ground or hide our talents under a mattress.
The prophetess Deborah in our reading from Judges is an example of someone who chose to live into God’s call on her life. She was the only female judge and it cannot have been easy for her to step into this role. Women in Deborah’s day did not usually have power and were dependent on men for their identity and livelihood. They certainly were not involved in making military decisions. Deborah could have allowed her culture to suppress her as a wife but she knew that she had certain gifts and that God had called her into doing different tasks. Judges were people of authority because they were the functional leaders of the tribes. Deborah was the Chief, and in a time when there was many violent conflicts and wars, part of her role was as an advisor for the army. Deborah was gifted by God through her role as a prophetess, viewed as a visible sign of God’s presence to the people, as well as being the communicator of God’s commands. So Deborah had an extra-ordinary
role that would have taken her beyond her comfort zone and required her to operate counter to her culture and gender. She heard God’s call and she responded. She was aware of, and used her talents to the full.
We all have talents and often the greatest challenges are being aware of them and having the trust in God to step into them, so pulling them out from under the mattress and putting our talents into action so they can be useful and meaningful and multiply. You may be afraid of failure or of making a fool of yourself or just feel inadequate. You may feel God belongs in church being God, being holy, being up on a pedestal, instead of being the unquenchable light within you. Don’t forget Jesus spent all his time out in the world, taking his radical love and mercy to all, facing hostility, rejection and many other risks.
Trusting God means allowing God to take control of our lives and allowing God to be fully alive in us. God’s grace knows no bounds. We might even find that we change, that we are transformed as individuals and as communities. We may see in ourselves and each other, a little of the beauty that God sees.
Everything we have comes from God, belongs to God and eventually will return to God. Let us enhance and multiply God’s gifts to us. Amen.