Twenty-first Sunday After Pentecost

October 5th, 2008

Homily for the Anglican Usage Mass

of the

St. Thomas More Society

celebrated at

St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church , 1013 Wood Street

Scranton, PA

Matthew 21:33-43

            In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen

            The average working man in Jesus’ day received a wage of one denarius for each full day worked.  The denarius was the standard currency in the Roman Empire, a silver coin weighing about 3.8 grams.  A talent, the sum Jesus used for the parable we heard today was worth 6,000 times the value of one denarius.  What we are talking about then is an unimaginable amount of money, the equivalent of almost twenty years wages in one lump sum.

            Jesus’ point in using the talent for this parable is to demonstrate for us that the gifts we have received from God are of inestimable value.  The master in the parable obviously is our Lord, and the talents given to each of the servants represent the various gifts He has bestowed on each of us.  We have not all received the same gifts, and we can expect that some will be able to do more with their gifts than others, but in any case, no one has received anything less than gifts of immeasurable worth.  Whatever your particular gifts are, they are priceless and at the same time, their value can be multiplied.  Depending upon how we use our talents, they will either benefit us or work to our detriment.

            Not only are our gifts extremely valuable, they are not actually ours.  Note in the parable that all the gifts we have come from the Master, and when the Master returns, we will be expected to give back both the gifts He gave us as well as everything we have gained by the proper use of the gifts.  Here we are talking about the Last Day when Jesus will come to judge both the living and the dead.  The parable is clear that Jesus will go away and not come back for a long time.  Other parables of this theme, such as the maidens waiting for the bridegroom, make clear that we cannot know when He will return, either.  St. Paul tells us today that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.  Therefore, the talents we have been given must be used to benefit our Master in the way He sees most fit.  Moreover, we must get to work right away.  Jesus already has been away for quite a while!  He could come back at any moment, and when He does, He will settle accounts with us.  Our eternal salvation will hang in the balance.  We will be required to answer for how we used the gifts given us.  Did we double our Master’s money, or did we hide it in the ground?

            Before we can answer whether we are using our talents in the way we are supposed to, we must be able to answer this question:  What does our Lord desire?  If we do not have a clue what Jesus’ priority is, then we cannot possibly know what our priority should be.  If, on the one hand, our Lord’s priority is material wealth, then we should use the talent He has given us to make as much money as possible, acquiring as many things as we can while we walk this earth.  If, on the other hand, however, our Lord’s priority is the souls of those He has created, then we ought to do all we can to win souls for Jesus Christ.  We ought to use the gifts God gives us to form and nurture the faith in those the Lord places before us, for we all know that God’s priority is NOT temporal wealth but the eternal souls of His children.

            Take for example, the family man who spends too little time with his family.  He has been given the responsibility to form, in cooperation with his wife, his children in the faith.  Yet he spends so much of his time making money that what free time he has left he wants to use for rest, not the hard work of spiritual formation for those dependent on him.  We find also that such men concentrate on the thing that is less important—his work instead of his children—the reasons for this are myriad, but irrelevant.  The point is that many people use their gifts to enrich themselves, forgetting that their purpose is in fact to enrich heaven with the souls God desires to have with Him for all eternity.

            Therefore, each of us ought to consider how we are using the gifts God gave us to win souls for Him.  Without passing judgment on any of those who have trod this path, I think it is interesting to note how many pop singers began their careers singing in church.  The music they record indicates they have a talent from God that can lead people to God, and, in fact, this is how they started.  They must answer Jesus on the Last Day whether the transition from church music to pop music was the right one to make.  All I know is that when Jesus comes back, if He finds me singing, I hope He catches me singing a hymn!

            What is true for famous pop singers is true for us, as well.  We can use our talents in a way that fulfills our Lord’s desire for souls, or we can do the equivalent of burying our talents in the ground:  with no regard for Jesus’ desires, for Jesus’ priority, we can waste the talents we have received in pursuits that glorify us rather than our Lord.

            The benefit of using our talents in the right way is that we get to keep our lives, the very first gift each of us received.  “To every one who has will more be given, but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”  That is, if we commit ourselves to securing for others the eternal life Jesus desires each of them to enjoy, we can be sure that we will enter into the joy of our master.  But if we neglect to foster and nurture in others by our good works the faith that leads to life, the very life we have been given will be taken from us.  By making such a choice, we would suffer eternal separation from the very graces we refused to share with our neighbors.

            Finally, we must note that all three of the men in the parable are God’s servants, not just the two who chose to serve.  Our neglect to serve does not absolve us of our obligation to serve.  And when we neglect this obligation we find in the end that we are far less happy than those who kept serving. From the divorced workaholic to the pop star with a disastrous personal life, those who fail to fulfill their purpose find that happiness eludes them, no matter how rich they are.  That is because the only way we can find true joy is when we use our talents from God to win souls for God. May we all decide to do so for the health of our souls and for the health of the world.