33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time: Parable of the Talents, Stewardship

Today’s Gospel presents another end-times parable—the Parable of the Talents—with its underlying message, to make good use of what God gives us, comparing our time on earth to a long-term leasing arrangement.

One commentary I referenced (In Conversation with God, Vol V, 33rd Sunday in OT) explained the components of this parable, plainly: we are the servants. The talents are what God has entrusted to us: our intelligence, our skills, our capacity to love, our ability to make others happy, and yes, our temporal goods.

The journey that the master undertook represents the duration of our lives, and his unexpected return, our death. And when he returns, the settling of accounts is the judgment we will face, determining whether we will “share our master’s joy”.

Stewardship Campaign

It’s a challenging, perhaps even convicting message, especially given the rather severe conclusion. The good thing is that we haven’t come to the conclusion of our lives. But this message is not just you as an individual, it applies to us as a parish. We too have been entrusted with talents—that is, resources, to be used for God’s good purposes. I bore this in mind at a recent team discussion about the Stewardship Campaign of Time, Talent and Treasure.

Specifically, regarding Stewardship of Time and Talent, as your pastor, I humbly acknowledge that as a parish, we need to do a better job of helping you to know how to put to use: your time and talent. Helping you with that as an individual, enables us as a parish to make better use of the talents, entrusted to us collectively. As a parish, I believe we can do more.

To accomplish this, I’m working with a team of skilled and devoted parishioners to put some excellent measures in place that will help us as a parish and as individuals to better utilize our Time and Talent. Even more, it will be rooted in our life of prayer, and done for the good of the larger community. Look for more to come on that soon.

Stewardship of treasure

But I’ll begin this campaign by first speaking about Stewardship of Treasure. For any of you who have been part of this community for a while, you know it’s not often that I ask you to give, or raise the issue of your giving. As stated in the letter you recently received, your pledge to give enables us to budget.

And as I’ve said before, our parish leadership works hard to ensure that what you give is used with integrity and transparency, but also wisely and with care. On behalf of the modestly-sized staff that supports me, but also that helps us all to stay on mission—I thank you so much. I thank you because your giving enables us to do the work Jesus has entrusted to us.

But another reason your giving is so important is in how it leads to your personal conversion. We come to regard something differently when we’ve put ourselves into it, and it’s true with our giving as a response to our faith: the more we invest of ourselves, including our financial resources, the more we become invested in the mission.

     We call it sacrificial giving, and it’s rooted in the Bible. God asked His people to give to sacrifice their best goat. Not because he needed any goat more than the others, but instead, because he wanted to impress two things upon His people: that it was His goat in the first place, merely entrusted to them, but also because He wanted them to be attached to Him alone, not their possessions. Isn’t it true, that much of our spiritual growth comes from letting go of what we most want to cling to?

I ask you to please prayerfully re-consider what you can contribute this year, and perhaps challenge yourself, as I also must. Please know, it’s not lost on me that some of you are struggling financially right now. Even as I’m sensitive to that, I believe that all of this—our Stewardship of Time, Talent, and yes, Treasure—are a means to go deeper as disciples, and to be truer to our shared task as a parish. At a time that we feel fragmented and adrift, I believe it can be a way—through Jesus—toward greater stability, connection and purpose.