33rd SUNDAY (A) 16 November 2008

Mt 25:14-30
When we listen to the parables of Jesus, like the one we have just heard in today’s gospel, we need to recognise that the story is being told at various levels. Each of these levels helps us make sense of Jesus’ teaching. The first level is the story itself, with all of the details it contains. The second level is the way the story is interpreted by those who were listening to Jesus, because it says something about their lives and the way they lived. The third level is the way the story says something about our lives. Let’s see how this parable works at these three levels.

At the first level it is really a story about commerce and finance. The parable speaks about talents. It helps to know that a talent was a unit of money. So Jesus is using a familiar example from the world of trade and finance to make his point. It almost seems a universal principle: if you have money you can make more, but if you don’t have it then you can’t do anything. The servant who received the five talents and the one who received the two talents both go off and trade with them, and very quickly their investment has doubled. When the master returns home they are both praised for their astuteness and their good use of resources. The parable also tells us about what seems to be another universal principle of trade and finance, namely that when people lose confidence the whole market can come tumbling down. I guess we have all heard a lot about this in recent weeks as our own world faces up to a financial crisis, which the experts say is partly a crisis of confidence. The servant in the parable who received the one talents is paralysed by fear, so he does nothing. Or rather, he does the equivalent of what people have done when there is a crisis of confidence: he hides the money, just as we hear of people putting their money under the bed. He won’t even put the money in the bank. People like this think it will be safe under the bed and they won’t lose it, but of course it loses its value, so really they suffer a significant loss. Notice how the master treats this servant: he has him thrown into prison.

The lesson from the parable seems quite clear. Those who use the talents wisely and generously will find that they have more than enough to share around. Those who cling to what they have been given out of fear that someone else may get some advantage from it will find that they are the ones who end up being miserable.

This brings us to the second level at which the story is being told. It is also a story about the people who were listening the Jesus. What was going on as they heard it? My guess is that they were shocked by the fate of the third servant. They would have felt a bit sorry for him, because he seemed to take the safe pathway. Jesus, of course, wanted to shock them. The spiritual meaning of the parable is not about making money and trading investments. The talents point to the things that God has given them, particularly the Law and the Prophets. The question Jesus wants them to face up to is: how have they used these graces of God. How faithful have they been to God’s plan for them? This means that they have to confront the question of just how well they know God. Do they simply know a God they should be afraid of because God is hard and demanding? Or are they free enough to take responsibility for their own lives and live in the spirit of God’s abundant promises? The parable is a judgement on these people. When they hear of the servant who is thrown out in the dark they are meant to recognise their own fate here. And this is a fate of their own making.

This leads us to the third level at which the story is unfolding. What is the parable saying to us? You might like to consider this from your own perspective, whether you are young or old, studying or working, beginning your career or about to retire, or whatever. Quite clearly it is meant to be heard as a story of God’s generosity to each of us. I don’t think it is really a story of what special gifts God might have given us so that we can compare ourselves with others. One important gift God has given all of us is his word, which we can reflect on. The more we take time to do this the more we will be like those servants who got double return on their investment. As we reflect on the word of God we will grow in wisdom that will help us make good choices for living. Another gift God has given us is the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist. The sacraments help us grow in personal friendship with Jesus, and to orient our lives within that friendship.

The overriding message of the parable for us is, I believe, that our Christian faith invites us to be people of boldness and confidence. The parable calls on us to live with imagination, so that the faith will truly grow in our world as we live openly, rather than fearful of God. I believe that the parable calls on young people particularly to project a positive image of a God who loves us and gives us the freedom to do good things in the world.

Fr. Gerard Kelly

29th SUNDAY (A) 19 October 2008

A question people ask quite frequently is about the relevance of their faith and religious practice to the rest of their lives. If we look around we can probably see a range of responses: from those who make their faith commitment central to their lives, to those who only think about it from time to time, and generally then only when things are difficult. Some people are looking for an excuse not to make a connection between faith and life – as if too strong a connection will somehow tie them down or restrict their freedom. Nevertheless, I believe it is important to acknowledge the legitimacy of questions about the relationship between faith and life. Only by asking them and facing up to the challenges they pose can be live authentic lives.

Something of this is going on in the gospel today, even if it has a nasty streak to it. Those who are asking Jesus questions are really trying to trap him and catch him out. We all know the style of question: no matter what answer you give you upset people and get them offside. The issue dealt with today was very important for the people who would have been following Jesus. These were the people who were suffering badly under the heavy and unjust taxes imposed by the Romans. So, if Jesus said that they should pay the taxes most of them would probably have walked away, seeing him as no different to their foreign masters and a betrayer of their religious traditions. On the other hand, if he told them not to pay the taxes then he would have left himself open to being accused by the authorities of being disloyal and subversive, and would have found himself liable to punishment, even death.

Jesus recognises the trap and refuses to be drawn into it. Two things are worth noting. The first is that he asks his questioners for a coin. Quickly and innocently they reach into their pockets and pull out one of the despised Roman coins. He has caught them out! They carry the coins with them, which suggests that they support what is on them. Jesus, on the other hand, doesn’t have one of these coins. They are the ones who are no doubt now red-faced! The second thing to note is that Jesus only answers their question indirectly. By telling them to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God he hasn’t said that they either must or must not pay the tax. They have to work out what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar.

We can draw lessons for ourselves from these two points. The first lesson is to think seriously about the way we might pose our questions about the relationship between our faith and religious practice and the way we live our lives as citizens. It is not enough simply to ask the question with our minds already made up as to what the answer should be. There are some ways we can ask questions about our faith that are a genuine search for knowledge and truth. These are important and we should do this. But there are other ways where the starting point is that there must be something a bit odd about this ‘religion thing’, and about people who have faith. I think this would be an unfortunate starting point because it cuts off the possibility of getting to the truth, or even of finding ways to live an authentic life.

The second lesson we can draw from Jesus’ response is really about the way we use his teaching and the Bible in helping us to determine authentic ways to live the Christian life in our type of society. One thing Jesus did was to throw the question back to those who asked him. He wanted them to think through the issues in relation to the situation and to arrive at their own conclusion. This is important because it reminds us that the practical decisions we make about our lives all require good judgement on our part. We should not expect the Bible or Jesus to provide answers to every question we have about our practical situation. The world of that time was very different to our own. Rather, Jesus gives us fundamental principles that we can apply to our own practical situations. It is up to us to weigh up the facts, to understand the context we find ourselves in, and to bring the gospel to bear on these. This is what is called practical judgement, and it presupposes that we are developing a moral consciousness.

As young people develop their moral awareness there are two extremes to avoid. One is when we wrap ourselves up in religion, refuse to engage with the world, and think that the solutions to the challenges of modern living are simply a matter of following Bible or Church teaching. This amounts to ignoring the world we live in when making moral decisions. The other extreme is when we engage in the world without any reference to God, the Word of God or the Church. This results in poorly grounded moral choices. Our Christian faith really demands we be engaged in the communities where we live, in our workplaces and our places of recreation. These are the places where we are faced with decisions about very practical matters of life. This is where we work out the relationship between Caesar and God.

Fr Gerard Kelly