I am not a person who usually watches a lot of television. However, when our parishes were closed down between March and June, that all changed a bit. Once I had completed all of my parish calls and duties, I tried to read as much as I could. Once I had done as much as that as I could, I found myself turning to the television around 8:00 in the evening.   One of the things that surprised me is the number of television shows that are related to developing and celebrating the talents that some people possess. Some of the shows that can be found on the television include titles like “The Voice,” “America’s God Talent,” “Britain’s Got Talent,” “So You think you can Dance,” and “Dancing with the Stars.” All of these shows have in common the desire of those who appear on the show to have their unique talents and qualities recognized in the hopes of becoming famous.

What makes each of these shows unique is the way in which those who appear on the show are invited to show their talents and advance in the competition. On some of the shows, like “The Voice,” the contestants are coached by stars who have already had their talents recognized by the public. On this show, those who are already famous take an interest in developing the talents of those who have not yet been recognized. On some other shows, like “America’s Got Talent,” it can seem like the judges do not want to get involved in the lives of the contestants and are simply there to judge and eliminate those who are unworthy. Either way, what they all have in common is the fact that contestants are individuals who have dreams of being recognized for who they are and the talents that they possess. As the competition goes on, a few are eliminated in each episode and by the end of the season, there is usually only one winner of the competition. It seems to me that why these shows are so popular is that they build on the reality that we are all unique and wish to have this uniqueness and special quality of our talents and abilities recognized by someone else. While most of us will not be on a television show, perhaps the experience that comes the closest to this type of appreciation for the unique individuals that we are is when we fall in love with someone in particular who gets to know us and love us for who we truly are inside.

In our Gospel passage for this Sunday, Jesus tells us a parable about a master who entrusts his servants with a different number of talents. What the talents refer to in this story is an amount of money. What the story is intended to represent is the gifts and talents that God has given to each one of us. The passage states that the master gave to each of them a portion of his possessions. This is what God has done with each of us by making us in His image and likeness. We all have within us gifts and talents and abilities that God has given to us; those qualities that make us unique. As the parable wishes to point out to us, one day God will ask of us what we did with the gifts and talents that He has given to us. The difference is that God will accept as worthy anyone who accepts His gifts and acts responsibly with them. In the Gospel there is no winner! Both the servant with the five and the two talents are praised by the master. It is only the servant who does not accept and use his talents that is chastised by the master. The lesson of this story has many implications.

The most important thing that this parable is asking us to recognize is that each one of us has gifts and value because we are made in the image and likeness of God. Because God has shared Himself with us in creating us, we are each unique and have our own value and talents. The servants who invested their talents are those who have recognized that God has shared a treasure with them by creating them in His image and likeness. They have accepted their human dignity and sought to develop their gifts. The sin of the third servant who buries his treasure is that he does not recognize the gifts that God has given him or that he has been made in God’s image. This servant is the man who does not dream, understand his dignity as a human being, and lives without hope and allows despair to dominate him.

The purpose of today’s parable is not to invite us all to be contestants on a reality show. It is intended to call us to the reality that God has shared gifts with each of us. We are to dream of a life in which we find fulfilment by embracing the dignity of who we are as human persons. Often people will give in to the despair that their lives have to be the way that they are. If a person is trapped in an addiction or sin, he or she may believe that this is just the way life is and there is no escape from these realities. This is the person who buries their treasure and just accepts that life is as life is. Those who have the courage to get counselling and seek answers which nurture the dream for happiness and fulfillment that is within each of us are those who have the courage to develop their talents and accept their dignity as human beings made in the image and likeness of God. Condemned in the parable that is told this Sunday is the person who lives his/her life in despair not believing that what God has made them to be has any value. People who live this way have refused to embrace the value that is within him/her and the hope which God wishes to offer them through His grace and forgiveness. Christians are to believe that what God has made them to be is wonderful and that each unique person has an infinite value and has been created for fulfillment and happiness. This is why Christians must always be pro-life and hope filled persons.

The Gospel passage also has a certain amount of urgency expressed in its telling. The master can return at any point in time to demand an accounting of the gifts that he has given the servants. This is to remind us that Jesus calls us to know who God created us to be today. We are not to procrastinate in accepting who we are and God’s call to be free and find fulfillment. So often we wish to put off to tomorrow the difficult areas in our lives where God calls us to growth. This can lead to the problem only getting worse and our despair growing to a point where we are unable to surmount the challenges that face us. If we bury an issue for a significantly long period of time, it only becomes more difficult to deal with and to resolve. By addressing it today, we recognize who we are as persons made in the image and likeness of God and we turn in hope to the one who has the power to free us to become who He created us to be. In particular, if our lives have become trapped in sin and addiction there can be no procrastinating; we are responsible for making the investment in ourselves that will allow us to live freely as God’s children. God will show mercy and compassion to all those who at least take responsibility to protect and foster the gifts He has given to them in creation.

Perhaps one of the most important gifts that God has given us is the gift of faith. Through baptism, God has shared His Holy Spirit with us and invited us to walk with Him as we develop and accept the gifts that He has given to us. Often we can respond to the gift of faith that God has given us by either ignoring it or expecting Him to do everything. There are some who receive the gift of faith and believe that because they have been given this gift, everyone else is responsible to look after them. I see this often in very simple examples. I have met people who will come to a Bible study and not even own a Bible. They assume that the Church or someone else will buy them a bible and feed them everything that they need to know. When it comes to any other area of their lives, they are capable of looking after themselves. However, in the area of faith, they do not seem to be willing or able to take responsibility. Another example might be in the countless people who never come to Church or take the time to invest in a prayer relationship with God. They wander why it is so difficult for them to trust in God or see His presence in their lives. They want God to do all the work and feel somehow cheated if invited to be mature partners in their relationship with God.

Perhaps a dated example of the kind of effort that God invites from us is presented in today’s first reading from the Book of Proverbs. Here we are presented with the story of what scriptures describes as an example of a good wife. Now I am not suggesting that this is the way things should ever be in any home. The point of the story is that she lives her vocation with all her strength and might. She takes seriously what she is about. God invites us to take seriously who we are and the journey we are on. We are to take stock of the gifts that He has given us and do our best to foster and develop them for His glory. What is to give us hope in this effort is that God is with us and Jesus has come among us to assist us to take up our crosses and strengthen us in our difficulties.

What is different about our Christian life and these talent competitions is that God has given all of us unique and beautiful talents and abilities. It is not a competition where only one person wins. Each one of us was created to win— to be with God for all eternity in Heaven. The only thing we need to do to receive the prize for which God has created us is to accept our dignity as His children and take seriously His call that He desires to walk with us daily through the gift of faith. Only the person who denies the gift that God has given to him or her and refuses to embrace their dignity as His children is judged in the parable. Jesus in His love and mercy has come to coach each one of us and show us how to accept our dignity. He has given us the community of the Church so that we might find the love and assistance that we require to embrace our gifts with hope. No matter what our problems, there is someone within the Church who will be sent to us in the name of God to aide and assist us.

The message of today’s Gospel is that all of God’s people have talent. They have received this talent in the unique and beautiful way in which God has created each one of us. We are also called to recognize the dignity that is ours as God’s children and to embrace this dignity. We must develop our gifts and foster the freedom that He has given us. Because God might come at anytime, we cannot allow addiction or sin to prevent us from knowing the happiness and freedom that God has created us to know. Jesus has come to show us where the path of freedom and peace can be found. He has given us the Church as that community in which if we take responsibility and look, for the support and graces that we need, we will find it. Here, in the Church, we can find the help and the assistance that we may sometimes need to be free by encountering God’s love and grace within it..

All of us dream of having that which is unique and special about us recognized and celebrated. God invites us to know that He desires all of us to know the fulfillment of the dreams for which He has created us. He does not want any of us to despair and deny the dignity that He has given to us by burying our true selves in a life of sin and denial. The Christian life is an invitation to live life to the full and to know the fulfillment of that for which we were created. The only one who will be judged is the one who judges him or her self by not accepting that he or she was made in the image and likeness of God. Those who give up on themselves and give in to a life of despair are judged not by God, but by themselves. If a person decides that he or she is worthless and not worthy of happiness and salvation, God merely accepts that judgement with sadness and sorrow. He sent His son into the world that we might never accept or believe this reality. For all those who do not believe in their value, God sent Jesus to show us our value and dignity. We are to understand that Jesus cared enough for each of us that He gave His life for us. If God cares that much for each of us, the invitation of the Christian life is that we too ought to care as much for ourselves and for our neighbours. God invites us, in whom He believes so much that He gave His only begotten Son, to believe in Him and the power that His Son can have in our lives; if we but believe that God could love us so much!

May God give all of us the grace to believe in and accept His great love for us!

Fr. Michael McGourty
Pastor— St. Peter’s Church— Toronto