Walking with Jesus: 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Proverbs 13:10-13, 19-20, 30-31; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6; Matthew 25:14-30

Down through the years I have often thought what direction the Lord has planned for me. In my reflections I have discovered, not as quickly as I would have liked, that the Lord has given me an abundance of gifts and talents with the intention that I discover what I am good at, and what brings me satisfaction and completeness. In the process of bringing them to fruition I realize that God has needed me to help people who cross my path. This caring, giving and helping lets them know they also have been gifted and need to share their own gifts. God needs people to love. How better is it to let them know they are loved and special to God. If I don’t do my part, a whole bunch of people have been left out in the cold. Today’s readings bring this into focus.

Proverbs begins by honoring a wise woman and fittingly concludes by describing an ideal wife  symbolically as Wisdom. The Scriptures speak continually of wisdom as a great prize worth more than gold or jewels. It conjures up the image of God giving all the gifts a person needs to be successful in the world and in their relationship with Him. This passage seems to be written by a husband praising enthusiastically what he loves about his wife. She does everything: He cheers her productiveness. He supports her charity and reverence for God and others. She raises the kids, plants, sews, cooks. She is everything he admires and glories in as a woman and wife. She knows her gifts and shares them. She doesn’t do this for show, but so others can benefit and realize that their gifts can help people who are in need and need to know what they can do to help others. She exemplifies the skill that gifts are meant to be treasured and used. If they are not, they will be of no benefit but to be hoarded and left to metastasize and become useless as instruments of God’s love to others. Where do I find myself being “lazy and of no account?”  

Paul urges his readers not to live in the darkness of sin and ignorance. He has been well educated in the best rabbinical school in Jerusalem to be a teacher of the law. He is committed to what he understands as the best way to do this. Then he encounters the Lord in a dramatic way and this “truth” is upended. What he has thought was right was only a sham and this meeting woke him up to be relentlessly dedicated to the way of the Lord, the way of love. Encounters with Jesus change people if they are open to listen, to see, to learn and to know that God’s love is meant to be lived. Paul’s messages during these last weeks of the Church’s year seem to have an urgent tone because he firmly believes that Jesus’ second coming will take place soon, really at any moment. We can’t be sleeping or sleepwalking through life. We must be alive, alert and open to the wonders and mysterious signs God presents to us. We must be living in a state of repentance … realizing that forgiveness and grace are always within our reach. But I have to reach out, take hold, and live with the knowledge that I am loved and am a sign to others to reach out and do the same. Am I living love? Are people impressed with the Lord’s activity and love in my life?

Matthew’s 25th chapter describes the Kingdom of Heaven and in this passage we realize that Christ is the King and we are the servants. This is hard to do because somehow, down deep, we don’t want to consider ourselves as servants. Why? God has given us talents, a total and unselfish array of gifts, skills and abilities. Are we using them or holding them in, or being restrictive in sharing them? The parable tells of Christ’s return to three things: when destruction comes upon Jerusalem some time after Jesus’ ascension; when He comes at the end of history which could be tomorrow (which Paul thinks) or in our time (which many are “reading the signs of the times” as very soon, even now) or a thousand years down the road … or when He comes individually to each of us at the end of our lives, another mysterious time. The bottom line tells us we have X amount of time to invest our talents and increase the growth of the kingdom. Either our efforts increase the kingdom or we are thrown into the darkness. Our talents spread God’s kingdom of love to overcome sin, greed and all the works of Satan. This and other parables and the Church have always understood the talents as every gift we have received: from our existence, the capabilities of our minds and bodies, our education, faith sharing, grace from sacraments, vocation living, to just touching those in need with love. My life is a mission; I have been given a responsibility: What I do matters for me and others. Lord help me be You ... help me be love through the gift of Your love to me.

So I reflect on:

• I look at the times I have said out of frustration, “God You owe me” or “I deserve a lot more.” Do I really? Is life a bargain sheet? I didn’t sign up for life. …God gave me the gift of life. …Does this make a difference?
• Do I find myself hiding from God, or do I find myself willing and excited to take on what God has planned for me? Take time reflecting on this and finding other paths … do they even exist?
  

Sacred Space 2020 states:

“This is a parable of wasted opportunities. We are each gifted uniquely by God, and we must use our giftedness as God wishes. What matters isn’t what we are given but what we do with our gift. Do not be afraid to use your talents. Stop comparing your gifts with the gifts of others. Share what you have received. To bury your giftedness leads only to sorrow and regret — the ‘gnashing of teeth.’

“The parable can remind us of the beautiful hymn attributed to Saint Teresa of Avila: ‘Christ has no body but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good.’”