TALENT SHOW

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At this time of the liturgical year, the readings in church turn our thoughts to the “last things:” our deaths, the end of the world, and the final coming of Christ.

I had an interesting experience early this week when one of my brother monks taped an interview with me as part of a graduate school project on how people of various ages view the aging process. I was the oldest person he interviewed, and found the questions very provocative, literally, because they provoked a lot of reflection on my part. In the Holy Rule, Benedict says that a monk should always keep death before his eyes (a less gloomy translation says “The monk should always remind himself that he is going to die.”), so maybe I was better prepared for the interview than I realized. In any case, I’m told that the class enjoyed watching it.

 

This Sunday’s gospel (Mt 25:14-30) contributes to the theme of the “end time” by offering us the parable of the three servants who were entrusted with three different amounts of money (Greek talanton). It is from this very parable that we get the English word “talent,” meaning a human ability or gift.

Of course, I can draw  from the parable the lesson that God expects me to use the human talents he has given me, and that the Lord will ask for an accounting of how I used those talents. But maybe it would be even more profitable to think about the invisible riches of the gospel that have been entrusted to me. If I’ve been given the gift of faith, for example, what might God expect me to do with that gift? Or, if I have the gift of hope, might the Lord be expecting me to pass that on to others? And surely, if the Lord has given me the gift of self-sacrificing love, might it not be wise to think that God has “entrusted” that gift to me, and expects me to invest it somehow? After washing the disciples’ feet at the last supper, Jesus says something like, “You see what I have done for you, now you go and do likewise.”

Faust selling his soul

Twice this week I was invited to sit in on a literature class in which the students were analysing Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Poor Faust is imprisoned by his own ego; everything in his life centers upon him: his knowledge, his powers, his desires. This egocentrism turns him into a black hole from which nothing can escape -- no light of love, no concern for the poor, and so forth. It was a timely thing to be considering during the season when the church is praying for the faithful departed and encouraging us to think about our own mortality.

So, as Thanksgiving Day approaches, and I count my blessings, I need to think of them as talanton, gifts that are on loan from the Master who will one day ask me to account for what I did with them.