As any priest or deacon knows, you do not try to win a popularity contest in your preaching. There will always be some who like a particular clergy’s speech and others who do not. What each us does try to do is to preach from our biblical studies at seminary and, also, from our hearts which we hope are spirit filled, I know there are some here who say that I talks too much about myself – to those, my answer is that my homiletics instructor in seminary always said to try and personalize each homily, let the people know that you too have gone through the same trials and tribulations you have. So I share some of those in my homilies. There is even one Texan in this Church — at least I think he is Texan, who tells me that, after each homily, he is convinced that he is going to purgatory. Of course, I remind him that’s better than going farther down. But if my homilies have ever made you uncomfortable, then today is going to be a humdinger.
In the Gospel Jesus tells about a guy who out of fear buries his talent. He calls him “lazy” and takes away his talent. Sort of Use it or lose it.
On the other hand, Jesus praises the ones who use and increase their talents. “Well done!” he says. What’s the difference? The American preacher, Norman Vincent Peale observes that to recognize and use talents, a person has to pray daily. “In the same way I nourish my body, I have to keep nourishing my spirit.” After praying a person has to act, take a risk. “Instead of thinking of failures that could come,” he say, “I am going to concentrate on the goals and ideals I wish to reach.”
We need to remember that God, not us, sets the criterion for judgment. Jesus suggests that when the sun sets on human history, God will separate us on the basis of our hearts. He gave us two commandments. We did not hear that his judgment will be based on the ten commandments on which we all base their sacramental confessions, but on the extent to which we listen to Jesus’ articulation of the love of God and neighbor.
He looks to both our decisions , the motivations for our decisions and the talents we employ in for the least powerful in society with whom he identifies himself. Doing or failing to do for them is doing or failing to do for him. The only required motive is love. Now, let’s talk about talent. It’s important to remember that in Jesus’s day a talent was something concrete: it was a unit of weight, about eighty pounds, and when used for money, it was the value of that weight in silver. A talent was a way of measuring something of great value. So Christ is speaking of something specific and very familiar to his audience. But there is a second element in the parable: it is what you do with that most precious commodity. And that is what the parable of the talents is really about. It is taking the greatest treasure that God has given us – his Word, his gospel, his message of salvation — and sharing it. Living it.
Letting it go into the world.
Every day we pray to God “Thy kingdom come” but do we really mean it? Do we really want Christ to rule our feelings, character, relationships, our decisions and our destiny? Calling Him King is easy in the liturgy. It is easy to ask Him to conquer the dictators, ISIS, the tribes that are committing genocide in Africa or maybe Premier Putin. But do we really want Christ to conquer us? Of course – you might say – of course I love God and want to know and serve Him in this life and be with Him forever in the next: That’s why I’m here today and quite regularly. Most of us could say that, I guess. But to ask Christ to be your King is to trust totally in His providence and there’s the rub,
Now, there is one view of providence that is not much better than superstition: it’s the idea that I can just close my eyes and walk across the road and God will protect me. Or that when I bump into someone I was thinking of, it must be because God organized things that way. Or that whatever mess I make of my life God is somehow to blame and it’s up to Him to fix it. Coincidence and human irresponsibility are not providence. Providence, as Christians understand it, is God’s continuing creative and re-creative activity. God doesn’t just make the world and then go away on holidays, leaving us to our own devices. No, at every moment He continues to sustain the universe, to hold each one of us ‘in the palm of His hand’, even those who’ve never heard of Him or who reject Him. He is present and active with His creative power and redeeming love, not just at the start or the end, not just when we are noticing. In a sense God can’t help Himself: having made us immortal beings yet subject to hunger and those other needs in our Gospel, He has committed to us for the long haul, all the way to heaven.
As human beings we are called out from among all the creatures to be the ones who are free and rational and loving enough to pursue the good and reach for the stars. As Christians we are called out from among all humanity to be the ones who are priestly, prophetic and kingly enough to serve Christ in the little ones and reach for heaven. As individuals we are called out from among all other Christians to serve God in some particular way, as priests, spouses, religious or however. All talk of vocation, then, is really talk of providence, of God’s knowing, guiding hand, and our willingness to fall into step with it.
. When Mother Teresa accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1979, part of her acceptance speech went like this:
“It is not enough for us to say: ‘I love God, but I do not love my neighbor.’ Saint John says that you are a liar if you say you love God and you don’t love your neighbor. (1 John 4:20) How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live? And so this is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt.”
How can we love like this? Where will we get the power to love Jesus in others in this way as he asks. In a letter to the people of Albania on April 28th 1997 Mother Teresa gives the key to being able to see Jesus in others. The key to loving others is prayer. She wrote,
“To be able to love one another, we must pray much, for prayer gives a clean heart and a clean heart can see God in our neighbor. If now we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten how to see God in one another. If each person saw God in his neighbor, do you think we would need guns and bombs?”
We may not remember every time we are talking to someone to see that “Jesus is in this person.” But as Mother Theresa said:
“If now we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten how to see God in one another. If each person saw God in his neighbor, do you think we would need guns and bombs?”
Now here in Panama, it is even harder. Most of the people at this Mass are retired and living the good life and that is all well and good – you worked hard, you deserve to spend your last years enjoying it. But that does not mean you stopped following Christ. None of you turned in your badge or you would not be here today. Since that is the case, then the need to keep giving of yourself and serving Jesus by serving others is as important as it was when you were 30 years younger. The needs here are great. There is the Foundation for those who are disabled, there is Buenos Vicinos, there is the Panamanian mission twice each month . There is The Stephen Ministry and the list goes on. There are people right here, right know, who need a kind word, a healing hand and perhaps financial help.
Allow me to repeat something I said earlier: Chris looks to both our decisions and the motivations for our decisions in our care for the least powerful in society with whom he identifies himself. Doing or failing to do for them is doing or failing to do for him.
Thinking like this means thinking in a new way, putting on a new mind, letting our brains be washed with the Gospel of Jesus. And as Mother Teresa said, it is through prayer that we will receive the grace to see others with this new mind of Jesus.
When we put on this new mind, the mind of Jesus, then his kingdom is coming in our world. Then Jesus is King of our world.
The story of ultimate of judgment is more than a call to serve. It’s more than a call to be good, and to do the right thing. Sure, it’s that, but it’s much more.
It’s also a call to look, to notice, to devote our days and our lives in the search for the face of God in all that we do and all whom we meet. It’s a call, above all, to see Jesus in those we meet and to give of ourselves to others as He did of Himself.
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Amen. I struggle every day to keep that balance and to be mindful of God’s plan for my day. He is in everything I do and is present in everyone I deal with on a daily basis. No matter who it is, a client, the girl who bags my groceries , my staff, I look for the Spirit in them and respond to them as I would want to be treated. Some days are much harder than others but it’s in the trying and being mindful that I believe that I will be judged in the end. Every day I try to walk with God. That’s the best I can do.
Tricia:
That is all that He asks — to try and walk with Him every day. I fail many times. But, in the end, it is the intent and the trying that determine our future with Him.