Prov 31:10-13,
16-18, 20, 26, 28-31; 1 Thess 5:1-6; Mt 24:36, 25:14-30
Today’s
Gospel passage has taken us once again into the famous parable of the Talents.
A man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to
them; to one he gave five talents, to another two talents, to another one, to
each according to his ability.
Then he went away. Talent was not a coin, it was
a weight; and therefore, its value obviously depended on whether the coinage
involved was copper, gold or silver. The commonest metal at the Time of Jesus
was silver. Jesus’ listeners were well aware of the amount of wealth entrusted
to each servant.
This
parable has a number of messages for us. First of all it tells us that God
gives man differing gifts. One man received five talents, another two, and
another one. It is not a man’s talent which matters; what matters is how he
uses it. God never demands from a man
ability which he has not got. John Miltonin his poem “On His Blindness”
expresses this very beautifully.
"Doth
God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I
fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That
murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either
man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear
his mild yoke, they serve him best.
The
parable and Milton’s poem express that men are not equal in talent; but men can
be equal in effort. It is quite remarkable that the man simply entrusted the
talents to the servants. He did not tell them what to do with them. Neither did
he tell them that he would demand them back on his return. The servants drew
conclusions for themselves. Two of them decided to take risk and put them to
use. While the third decided to play safe, burying it.
As
the man expected his servants to be fruitful we are also expected to be
fruitful. We are also expected to appreciate all of the gifts that we have
received, not only appreciate them but also use them to their greatest
potential. Millions of people passed through this earth. All of them had their
own special talents; but only a handful of them dared to try out them. All of
them had dreams; but only a score of them looked for their fulfilment. All of
them had their own ideas; but only a few of them decided to try them out. About
this vast majority James Albery wrote:
“He
slept beneath the moon
He
basked beneath the sun
He
lived a life of going to do
And
died with nothing done.”
Our
history is the history of a few who put their talents to use, and who have
applied effort for their realization. We remember Socrates,
Hippocrates, Alexander the great, Julius Caesar, Helen Keller, Michael
Angelo, Beethoven, Gandhiji, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa and a few like
them. Because they tried to do something. Gandhiji could not wipe out violence
from the face of the earth, Martin Luther King could not wipe out apartheid, or
Mother Theresa could not wipe out poverty, but they put their effort to realize
their dreams. That made them different from others.
We
are all gifted with some strength. The small size of the hummingbird, weighing
only a tenth of an ounce, gives it the flexibility to perform complicated
maneuvers, such as beating its wings 75 times a second. This enables the
humming bird to drink nectar from flowers while hovering, but it cannot soar,
glide or hop. The Ostrich, at 300 pounds, is the largest bird, but it can’t
fly. However, its legs are so strong that it can run at up to 50 miles per
hour, taking strides of12-15 feet.
Some
people discover their unusual talents accidentally. Richard Gonzales was a very
famous tennis player. He accidentally discovered Tennis Talent. At the age of
12 Gonzales asked his mother for a bicycle. Carmen was afraid that her son
might hurt himself on the bike, so she spent 51 cents at the May Company and
bought him a tennis racket instead. Gonzales was not initially thrilled with
his mother’s gift, but he decided to try his hand at tennis. Gonzales walked to
a public tennis court a few blocks away and began hitting the ball. Gonzales
wrote in his 1959 autobiography titled Man with a Racket. "In the days,
months, and years that followed the challenge of hitting a white, fuzzy ball
squarely on the strings of a racket grew and grew. Such is the strange hand of
destiny,” Mohd Aliat the age of 12, discovered his talent for boxing through an
odd twist of fate. His bike was stolen, and Ali told a police officer, Joe
Martin, that he wanted to beat up the thief. "Well, you better learn how
to fight before you start challenging people," Martin reportedly told him
at the time. Ali started working with Martin to learn how to box, and soon
began his boxing career.
Let
us discover our special talents. It may be to sing, to dance, to draw, to
write, to do farming, to sympathize with others, to be a good listener, to
teach or to serve. When we earnestly try
to cultivate them and use them for the good of our brothers and sisters, God
will tells, “Well-done good and faithful servant, come and enter into the joy
of your master.”
The
second message of the parable is that it tells us that the reward of work well
done is still more work to do. The two servants who had done well are not told
to sit back and rest. But, they are given greater tasks. One talent was taken
away from the man who hid it, and was given to the one who had received five
talents. At our work place, at home or at the parish, when we do something
good, we are given more responsibilities, instead of being grateful we grumble
and complain. We fail to recognize that it is the recognition of the effort we
put in. Throughout the Old Testament we see that when the Prophets completed
one work, another task awaited them. This is true of our lives too. Hence learn
to accept the responsibilities, as they are the explicit recognition of our
effort and talent.
Thirdly,
the parable tells us that the man who is punished is the man who would not try.
The man with one talent did not lose it; but he simply did nothing with it.
An
eagle’s egg was placed in thinnest of a prairie chicken. The egg hatched and
the little eagle grew up thinking he was a prairie chicken. The eagle did what the
prairie chickens did. He scratched in the dirt for seeds. He clucked and
cackled. One day he saw an eagle flying gracefully and majestically in the sky.
He asked the chicken: “What is that beautiful bird?” The chicken replied: “That
is an eagle. He is an outstanding bird, but you cannot fly like that. The
little eagle believed it, and never gave it a second thought. He lived the life
of a prairie chicken and died a prairie chicken. He was born to win but
conditioned to lose.
The
same thing is true for most of us. We are like the one who hid the talent given
to him. The unfortunate part of life is as Oliver Wendall Holmes said, “Most
people go to their graves, with music
still in them.” If you want to soar like an eagle you have to learn the ways of
an eagle. If you associate with achievers you will become one. If you associate
with thinkers, you will become one. If you associate with givers, you will
become one. If you associate with charitable people you will become one. If you
associate with believers you will become one. If you associate with negative
people you will become one. Let us keep in mind the words of St. Francis of
Assisi, “Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible and suddenly
you are doing the impossible.”
Fourthly
the parable lays down a rule of life which is universally true. It tells us
that to him who has more will be given, and he who has not will lose even what
he has. Its meaning is simple. If a man
has a talent and exercises it, he is progressively able to do more with it. If
he has a talent and fails to exercise it, he will inevitably lose it. It is the
lesson of life. It is practice, however, that makes perfect. The best way to
achieve international stardom is to spend 10,000 hours honing your skills, says
the new book by Malcolm Gladwell, author of the best-selling The Tipping Point.
“What’s really interesting about this 10,000-hour rule is that it applies
virtually everywhere,”Gladwell told a conference held by The New Yorker
magazine. “You can’t become a chess grand master unless you spend 10,000 hours
on practice.
Dear
friends, the only way to keep a gift is to use it in the service of God and in
the service of our fellow men.
Satish