"From Him Who Does Not Have"

"For the Kingdom of Heaven is like ....." Do not these words, spoken by God, bring any crowd to a hush? The Kingdom of Heaven?! What is the Kingdom of Heaven like?! These are words of authority, for Whoever you may say Jesus is, no one disputes that these words originate with Him. The Kingdom of Heaven, together with its twin, the Kingdom of God, appear nowhere in Scripture before Jesus utters them. The solitary example that comes close is Psalm 103:

Those who follow contemporary Biblical scholarship would comment that YHWH, Son of the Most High God, El Elyon, is a clear reference to Jesus. The Kingdom of Heaven (attested only in St. Matthew's Gospel) and the Kingdom of God appear more than one hundred times in the New Testament. Moreover, Jesus is addressed as Kyrios, "King," more than six hundred times, normally translated "Lord" in English Bibles, again linking Jesus to YHWH. Finally, We might say that the Hebrew Scriptures are about YHWH, a word attested nearly 7,000 times.

Setting the context and identifying the speaker in the Parable of the Talents, therefore, is straightforward. The "man traveling to a far country" is Providence, Who gives His servants all that they have, or would ever need. He will also be their Judge in the End Times, even pronouncing upon some the horrible fate of "outer darkness," where "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Mt 25:30).

This parable has special significance for me because it counters a heresy rampant in our time, which is an invented God depicted as "my pal" or "my buddy." Consider the "Footprints" poem written in 1964 by Margaret Fishback Powers (with variants written by others during the 1970s). Her poem describes two sets of footprints along a beach. At times only one set appears. The narrator interprets this to mean that God had abandoned her. Yet, all the time, these were periods when God carried her when she could no longer walk. Certainly, the sentiment, which all Christians can share, can be attested throughout the Psalms. Psalm 18 is classic:

The sentiment is not the problem. The problem comes when this conception of God defines an entire faith life: God is the giver, and we are the takers. God alone is strong, and we are helpless and weak. God will do it all, and we will do nothing. An elderly priest who was influential in my formation commented: "When do the solitary footprints on the beach become ours? When do we carry God?" I instantly thought of "the Christophers," the Roman Catholic organization whose pledge is to be "Christ-bearers." And while I hear their 30-second radio spots now and then inspiring us on to vigorous Christian life, nonetheless, we are living through the great age of Christian passivity.

After I became a parish priest, I was immersed in this spiritually paralyzed world. One woman of my parish complained, "Father, I sit in my Lazyboy easy chair every day praying that God will give me a new life. But nothing ever happens."

I told her, "I do not say that angels will not appear. But God in His wisdom usually becomes present in other ways. You must go out of the house and do. You must roll your wagon wheels forward. Soon, you will discover that the Holy Spirit is guiding them."

Who does not understand the cause for this woman's spiritual paralysis? The hymns sung in her parish Sunday after Sunday, all written after 1965, were almost always about receiving without giving:

Or

Certainly, these sentiments have their place. After all, most of these hymns were drawn from Scripture. The problem here is not one of rightness, strictly speaking, but of scale and proportion. The Apostles were called and sent. They would be sheep among wolves. They would encounter the world and be hated. They would follow the greatest of doers and speakers and teachers who trekked all over the Levant.

The problem comes when a spirit of taking is both cornerstone and capstone of a whole theology and general outlook, when it is crystallized in hymnals, and congregations hear this message every Sunday. The result is a spiritual coma.

It is too facile to blame all this on Vatican II. This same passivity lies at the core of Evangelical belief. "Jesus is strong. I am weak. Jesus will do it all. I can do nothing." And C.S. Lewis, before the effects of Vatican II were felt, complained that the modern conception of God is of an old, senile grandfather with a great white beard who just wants everyone to be happy (Letters to Malcolm, 1964).

Jesus' word for this so-called religious life, we hear in our Gospel lesson this morning. It is "lazy." It is the "lazy servant" who is singled out for his turpitude.

Particularly offensive is the question, "Why should we pay? Didn't Jesus 'pay the price' for us?" Let us be clear: Christianity is an invitation into Divine life and living. We are being invited to grow, to expand, to stretch ourselves, and slowly to develop into the full stature of Christ (Eph 4:13). Christian life is not a passive ride through a Disney World attraction, but rather a bracing hike and eventually a difficult journey up through high mountain passes .... all through and by and with the grace of God.

Oh yes, the grace of God is present. God offers His grace. We must rise from our chairs and receive it. We must take heart in it and from it. It energizes us. And we must go! We go into the world!

This idea of being "pre-paid" by Jesus traces back to Protestant theology, which in turn can be traced to eleventh-century theologies concerning atonement. We hear, that Jesus had to pay the debt which we could not pay. This theological speculation, begun by an Italian monk, bears little resemblance to the theology of the Gospels, the Apostles, the Apostolic Fathers, or later, the great Fathers of the Church such as the Cappodocians or Athanasius or John Chrysostom. These men envisioned an electrifying encounter with God, which produced a most vigorous response .... unto marytrdom in many cases. Most important, passivity is abhorrent to God. And this is the point of the Gospel lesson today. This is what the Parable of the Talents is chiefly about.

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Today, one talent would equate to roughly $4.5 million. One servant is given five talents, another two, and another one. These are vast sums. We do not stretch to say that such a sum is "all a man has." Certainly, its value would far exceed the net worth of most people.

But also consider our modern usage. The word talent points to our personal aptitudes, — the special geniuses God has set within each person. Truly, these God-given gifts are all we have and all we are. The responsibility of each person is to discern these talents and to develop them, closely allied with the religious word vocation. When we say that religious life is about spiritual development, the main subject before us, then, is our talents, for this special genius is who and what we are. We will build a whole life upon this foundation.

It is amazing, therefore, uncanny, that one talent of gold equates to the living most Americans will make in a lifetime. I went back to find what the mean annual salary of a household is in United States. And I multiplied it by the years of a working life. It comes to one talent of gold. You see? The Parable of the Talents continues to apply to us. In the end, God will ask us, "What did you do with your life?" Did we go out and roll our wheels and meet with the Holy Spirit? Did we gratefully accept God's guidance and leading, excited to be on this adventure? Whatever immoral life we have led, these years will have been wasted, even offensive to God and His angels. We decided to go it alone, and were indeed alone. But if we have been faithful, if we have been earnest, if we have exerted ourselves reaching for the high goal of Christ, then we may be sure that we are multiplied within ourselves. our God-given talents become many.

What shall we say, then, of the passive ones? What of the man who did nothing because God had already done everything for Him? His "ticket has been punched," you see .... and by Jesus! Such a man will discover that He has no part with God. He is a victim of the devil's bargain: "What a deal! I get everything for nothing!" He has been taken in by the evil one and captured. He will inherit the wind. And as he looks inside himself, he can see to his horror only vacancy. For nothing comes of nothing. Truly, "from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away." He is consigned to outer darkness where men wail and gnash their teeth .... in regret. For the Kingdom of Heaven had been theirs to have all their lives, within their easy grasp. But they let it slip through their fingers even as our lives slip away from us over the years.

Recently, the Vicar General of my diocese reminded the priests and deacons, citing Elder Teofil,

The Reverend Father does not exaggerate. How the heart of a priest or deacon aches as he looks out on a congregation whose prayer life is defined by one petition after another — a life preoccupied (we might say, obsessed) with taking and having .... and never enough.

When we ask ourselves, "What is the Kingdom of Heaven like?" think of the saints in light. We might even have known some of these men and women during their lifetimes. They gave, and they gave, and they gave. Each day, they ministered to the people around them. And now, in the greater life, they continue to hear petitions from below, that they must intercede. And you know what? They do. Shall we not say, then, that even Heaven is about giving? The King of Heaven is the Giver and the Gift. The Queen of Heaven continues to shed her tears for us. And we call God Providence. He provides. Is not the saint a "pure giver" seeking the Image of God?

A man traveling to a far country gave us all that we have. He asks only that we strike out and risk failure and give of ourselves. Pour it out like a libation, St. Paul would say. If His idea were that we all be "pre-paid," then He would not have commanded us to take up our crosses and follow Him.

The Cross is not a "ticket being punched." We do not wave it in hopes of being swept into Heaven. The Precious and Life-giving Cross is a path. It is a door through which each of us must pass. Its anti-type is the Lazyboy or couch. And the sweetness of life, which will unlock our undiscovered talents and geniuses within, is in being sent, in stretching ourselves, in taking risks, and in giving all that we have to give. For the one who seeks His own life will lose it. And the one who loses His life pursuing God will find it. "Following God is the last great adventure," a worthy mentor (a religious sister) told me in seminary. I thought, "Yes, Sister, and it is also the first."

For at the end of this adventure, risking all that we have, giving all that we are and have, surely we will hear those most longed for words, "Well done, my good and faithful servant!"

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.