33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

This Sunday’s gospel is Matthew 25:14-30. This is my homily:

An article I read in an in-flight magazine last month defined the four different kinds of risks that face us: the risk one must accept, the risk one can afford to take, the risk one cannot afford to take, and the risk one cannot afford not to take. It is this last risk — the risk we cannot afford not to take — which Jesus is commending in his parable.

The following piece of doggerel helps illustrate his point:

There was a very cautious man

Who never laughed or played;

He never risked, he never tried,

He never sang or prayed.

And when one day he passed away

His insurance was denied

For since he never really lived,

they claimed he never died!

We tend to laugh at the third man’s decision to bury the talent he was given. We shouldn’t. This was an accepted practice protected by law. If you were given a person’s valuables to protect, and if you buried them in a very deep hole (so that ordinary ploughing would not inadvertently reveal the treasure), then you were freed from any responsibility for these valuables. If they disappeared, you were blameless. On the other hand, if you invested another person’s money or valuables, you remained responsible for that amount for the rest of your life.

Matthew of our gospel asked the question, ‘If we know Jesus is coming again, how should we live our lives?’ His parable is his answer. Paul in his letter writes that we are to live our lives in a way that is useful to the Lord. God has invested a lot in us, and God expects a return. Though conventional law in Jesus’ time protected someone who buried valuables, God does not protect such a person, then or now. His expectation is that we live our lives investing our faith in everything we do.

So, when our turn comes to die, will our insurance company be withholding payment on a life never lived?