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