First Reading: Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 128:1-5
Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6
Gospel: Matthew 25:14-30
The readings today call us to faithful stewardship. They highlight the importance of putting to use the talents we have received and multiplying them. The first reading from the Book of Proverbs gives us the image of the perfect wife. Her husband has complete confidence in her. She is devoted to her family and diligent in her duties as a wife and mother who manages her home well. She is responsible in her use of resources and is generous to the helpless and the poor. In a word, a perfect wife is a good steward and a virtuous woman. She is like the faithful servant who used his talents well and to whom the master said, “Good and faithful servant since you have been faithful in little things, I will entrust you with much more. Come and share the joy of your master.”
The Gospel continues the theme of vigilance and responsibility. It calls us to a life lived as an expectation and preparation for the future. The faithful servant like the faithful wife does not waste his life in amusements or idleness but with diligence puts to use the gifts he has received from God. As the parable of the talents describes, God has given each one of us talents: from the gift of life to the capacity to understand and to will, to love and to act and countless material blessings. He has also given us many spiritual graces which include the gift of faith and our personal vocation, either as priest or religious, mother or father or the single life. He has given each one in varying proportions but always in a measure necessary for salvation. The important thing is not whether we receive much or little. What counts for the master is the faithfulness of the servants and not the amount of talent he had entrusted to each, how we have put to work what we have received in the service of God and our neighbor.
The master praises and rewards the faithful servants who put into use the talents he gave them and multiplied them. But the servant who out of fear, hid his own and never used it, he condemned. The same way, at judgment, God is going to demand from us, an account of the talents we have received. This calls for personal reflection. What gifts do I have? Am I putting them to use and multiplying them or am I putting them away out of fear, laziness or sheer complacency? Am I a good steward of God’s gifts? The master took a long time to come back. This is an important detail which shows what trust, confidence, and love the master has in his servants. He leaves them and goes away giving them the freedom to be responsible and yield results.
This parable is also a critique of the Scribes and Pharisees and their attitude to the Law and the truth of God. Just like the unfaithful servant who buried his talent in order to hand it back to his master exactly as it was, the Scribes and Pharisees “built a fence around the Law” so to speak and considered any development or anything new an anathema. In this way, they stifled religious truth and the true spirit of the Law and Religion. This would have resonated with Scribes and Pharisees’ audience of Jesus. Like the bad and unfaithful servant, they want to keep things exactly as they were handed to them. Jesus is calling us to be open-minded in the discernment of the true purpose of God.
Finally, this parable reveals something about the generosity of God and reminds us that everything we have is but a gift from God. He expects us to use them wisely and fruitfully because He will come on a day and hour we do not expect and will demand an account of everything He has given us. Let us respond with respond with gratitude, faithfulness and generosity.
Happy Sunday
Fr Chidi Onwuka m.ss.cc.