Colorful-Gospel-11-10-11

Illustration by Phil Younk
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God-given talents are not to be wasted

Based on the Gospel of Matthew 25:14-30

Talents, trust and thankfulness! “Come, share your master’s joy!” In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus uses another parable and speaks about a man who left on a journey and gave his servants talents (high value currency) to invest while he was away. In Jesus’ time, talents were gold, silver or copper coins used in trading.

Actually, the parable Jesus tells us is about something much more valuable than money – the many personal gifts and talents God has lovingly and freely entrusted to us, and the graces he provides us to fulfill the use of those gifts and talents. Everything we have comes from God. Most importantly, he sent his only Son, Jesus, to prepare us for eternal life.

As followers of Jesus, each of us has been given certain abilities, gifts and skills. One-talent, two-talents, or five-talents makes no difference. No follower of Jesus is without some talent. Each of us, in some way, can, with gratitude, love and serve Jesus by serving and reaching out to others, and thereby help build up the kingdom of God.

Our talents are valuable and not to be wasted. We have the freedom to take all our abilities, gifts and skills and squander them by self-indulgence, laziness and greed or give them back to God by putting them to use for his kingdom.

Like the master in the parable, God expects us to use the talents he has given us to lovingly serve others. It doesn’t matter whether our talents help us to do big, important things or small, not-so-important things. What matters is that we use them to grow in faith and holiness.

Remember, a young boy once gave Jesus his bag lunch. He surely didn’t think five loaves of bread and two fish could help a whole lot. But Jesus used it to feed thousands of people (Jn 6:9-13)!

God can do much with just a little. God has given us gifts, talents and skills to build up his kingdom and he wants to work through us. We need to be generous and give them back to him. Miracles still happen.

Holy Spirit, work more fully in our lives. Come and fill us with your power and grace so that we can generously work to build up the kingdom and share in the master’s joy.