NOTES for Mat 25:14-30

In the Christian community in which the Gospel was created, as among modern followers of Christ, the same question arose: "What should we do?" All of us, in one way or another, have found ourselves in the position of servants of a traveling Master: we must decide what to do in His absence. And here this parable, told by Jesus to His disciples in Jerusalem, stands before us.

Already now He is preparing them for the time when they will live in expectation of the final meeting with Him. And the answer to the eternal question is given in a form that is not entirely familiar: "Do not be afraid! Act! Think! Risk!" Of all human activities, commerce best describes the behavior of faithful disciples. Only instead of money, the disciples received from Christ something else: the presence of the Spirit, the gifts of hope and love. Now it is up to them, that is, to us, to put them to work and multiply them, so that this world may become richer and richer in love.

Some Christians torment themselves trying to understand what talent they have, afraid of accidentally burying it in the ground. Others resent God for gifts that are too small. But if we look carefully at the lives of the saints, it turns out that often in earthly life they suffered most precisely because of what was central in their holiness.

A saint is someone who succeeds better than others at imitating God, someone who is more like Him. It is clear that God gives talents to the saints, but among the saints there are not so many genius artists and musicians. So perhaps by talent we mean the wrong thing?

Instead, the saints imitate Christ in His sufferings; they help Him carry the Cross. Is this not the explanation? Often we do not understand what Cross we are supposed to take upon ourselves. Perhaps the Cross and the talent are one and the same. Then it is clear that the talent is what we have to suffer through most of all. And it is clear that the greater the talent, the greater the responsibility and the greater the suffering, and therefore the greater the reward.

How vivid these "money" parables from the Gospel are. They clarify so much for us, accustomed as we are to spiritual and material consumerism and passivity. We like to speak about "disinterested faith," about "purely spiritual relationships," meaning irresponsibility and superficiality by this. But real life with God truly resembles financial operations. In this parable the master does not simply support his slaves, and he does not simply entrust them with some work that they must do for him. He invites them to "enter the business"; he gives them starting capital so that they can put it into circulation and make a profit.

This opens to us an astonishing message: we are called by God to cooperation. Not simply to obedience, not simply to the work of a courier or secretary, but to become His agents, His hands, His trusted representatives. Will we be able not to be frightened by the responsibility, and to agree to such a high office?

We are used to using the word talent to designate special gifts, whether artistic or scientific and technical. In general, this interpretation is permissible, but it does not exhaust the whole meaning of this parable. After all, many people in whom special gifts have not appeared, as it seems, could say: no talent has been given to me, so this does not apply to me. One can object that such reasoning is at best self-deception, for the Lord has given each of us a great deal; we do not even suspect it, and after accepting a false idea about themselves, many really do bury their talents. Those who do this often act not only because of their own personal fear, but also because they have yielded to the dictates of public opinion, which suppresses initiative.

But talents should mean everything valuable with which the Lord has endowed us. This includes various abilities, qualities of soul, and numerous spiritual gifts. It is time to understand that the Lord has given each of us the opportunity to bear fruit. After all, He wants us to be His co-workers.

The logic of the Kingdom is strange logic from the point of view of this world. There is no leveling there, which sometimes seems to us like justice. Even when we speak of the old world so familiar to us, we sometimes still understand that there are things that cannot be divided either equally or "fairly."

For example, love. Or talent, not the talent from the Gospel parable, where money is meant, but the talent we mean when speaking of a talented person. Here we submit to the inevitable: there are things that belong only to the one to whom they are given by God, and to no one else.

Why, then, does God act as He acts? Did the one who returned his master's money intact and safe act badly? Reasoning in human terms, he did nothing bad; he fulfilled his duty: he did not increase his master's wealth, but he did not squander it either, returning what had been received for safekeeping intact.

Still, even reasoning in human terms, one can guess that money lying in a hidden store not only brings no income, but sometimes loses value. When the matter concerns spiritual life and the Kingdom, the situation looks even more unambiguous. Spiritual life is always dynamic. When God created the human person, He breathed into his "nostrils," as the Hebrew text reads literally, His breath, the breath of life, and the person became alive. Breath is a process; there can be no stopping here, for stopping is equivalent to death. And the Kingdom, as it opened on the day of Pentecost, is also the breath of God breaking into the world in order to transform it.

Everyone who wants to participate in its life, and even simply in spiritual life, the very life that unites a person with God, must become part of a process where the small becomes great, a sprout becomes a branching tree, one breath becomes a mighty stream of life, in short, a process where one talent gains ten. Such is the logic of the Kingdom, the truth of its life. If one does not participate in it, he will not keep his minimum, even if it was given by God. Because this minimum is only a seed sown by God, which can either sprout and bear fruit or rot, something God, most likely, will not permit. There is no third option.