SHARE GOD?S WEALTH, SHARE GOD?S LOVE

SHARE GOD?S WEALTH, SHARE GOD?S LOVE

Matthew 25:14-30

Fr. Ronald Saunders

Ordinary Time 33

Proper 28A

November 17, 2002

The key to understanding this Parable of the Talents lies in the words that begin the parable.  Jesus begins by saying, "A man going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them."  The man, of course, is the Lord.  The servants are us.  The Lord's possessions, the talents He gives us, are His bounteous love.  And He entrusts all of His treasure, that is, all of His love to us.  Imagine! God trusts us with the preciousness of His love.

Think of it this way.  In the person of Jesus, God came among us.  In Jesus we have all of God's treasure, the fullness of His love.  Then Jesus returned to His Father, leaving our hearts and our lives abounding in His love.  In giving us His love, Jesus expects us to share that love, even to give it away.  Above all, He does not expect us to hoard it and keep it just for ourselves.

A priest friend of mine, Fr. Leo Maxfield, shared a story with me that beautifully illustrates how Jesus expects us to share the gift of His love with others.   One of Fr. Max's nieces died.  She was only twenty-two years old.  Her father spoke at her funeral Mass.  This is the story he told about his daughter Christen.

When people asked him and his wife why their daughter spelled her name with a Ch rather than with K, he told them, "We named her Christen -- with a Ch and not a K -- so that every time she saw her name or wrote it or said it or heard it, she would be reminded of Jesus Christ -- her friend and brother."  They told Christen this from the time she was a little girl, so that it became imprinted on her mind and heart.  She knew Jesus as her friend and not as a stranger.

Christen's dad told of a trip he and his daughter took to New York City in December of 1994 when she was fifteen years old.  Something happened that was both powerful and mysterious, something they discussed over and over again afterward.

Christen and her dad spent the day shopping in New York City, having dinner together, and going to a Broadway show.  The day was bitter cold, and Christen was wearing her favorite black and white checkered winter coat.  Her dad bought her a brand-new parka at Eddie Bauer's.  She put her other winter coat into a shopping bag and wore the new parka.

As Christen and her father walked along, they came to an intersection.  There was a young woman standing there, holding a cup and begging.  She was a thin girl, dressed only in jeans and a light cotton sweater.  She shivered and her skin looked gray from the cold.  Christen's dad took out some bills and coins from his pocket and dropped them into the cup.  Then they crossed the street.

When they got to the other side, Christen said to her dad, "Dad, we have to do something for her."

"What would you like to do?" he asked.

"I want to give her my coat." Christen said.

"Your favorite coat?"

"Dad! She needs it more than I do and, anyway, I've got two coats!"

"OK, let's go," her dad said. 

They crossed back to the corner.  Christen took her black and white checkered winter coat out of the shopping bag and helped the young girl put it on.  Christen looked at her dad and said, "Dad, she's hungry, too."

"Right," her dad said.  "I'll go to the deli and get her something.  You stay here."

Christen's dad went to a nearby deli and bought some hot soup and a sandwich.  In less than five minutes he was back at the corner.  The young woman, however, was nowhere to be seen.

"Christen, where is she?" he asked.

"I don't know, dad.  She's gone.  Disappeared!"

"What do you mean disappeared?  Didn't you watch her?"

"Yes, I did.  But I looked away for a split second and when I turned back, she was gone.  I couldn't see her anywhere.  She just disappeared."

Father and daughter walked on.  He asked, "Christen, who do you think that was?"

"How would I know, dad," she replied.

"Do you remember in the gospel where Jesus says, 'Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do to me'?" 

"So you're telling me I just gave my coat to Jesus!"

Her dad shrugged his shoulders and walked on, carrying the hot soup and sandwich.  Before long the two of them came across a homeless person sitting on the sidewalk with his back up against a building.  Christen took the bag with the soup and sandwich in it, flashed the homeless man one of her million-dollar smiles, and handed the bag to him.

As she and her dad walked on, she turned to him and in a matter-of-fact tone of voice said, "There He is again!"

In the years that followed, she and her dad talked about these two mysterious incidents.  Christen came to believe that she had really given her coat to Jesus and then, ten minutes later, had given the bag of food to Him.  She was truly puzzled about how that young woman had disappeared in a second of time.  She became convinced that something extraordinary had happened to her that she could not explain in human terms. 

Like her friend Jesus, on a Friday morning, November 8th of this year, Christen heard that she would die.  She thought she would die that day.  It happened to be All Saints Day.  She lingered on to All Souls Day, and her dad thought that All Souls Day, too, would be a good day for Christen to die.  But Christen held on to life and only let go on Sunday, the day of every week when all Christians remember the Resurrection of the Lord.  For every Sunday holds the promise that we, too, will one fine day rise with Jesus. 

Christen's dad ended his talk by saying, "So I have a notion -- a fantasy if you like -- that when Christen came face to face with her Friend and Brother, Jesus, He said to her, 'Welcome home, my sweet child!  Enjoy all the good things I have prepared for you.  Have something to eat.  Take a swim.  Enjoy it all.'  And then, so it pleases me to believe, Jesus said to her, 'And, hey, Christen!  Thanks for the nice coat.' "

Because Christen accepted the Lord's trust in her when He left in her safekeeping the treasure of His love, because she did not bury that love or hoard it for herself alone but rather reached out to share the treasure of Jesus' with those she encountered along the journey of her life, the Lord also said to Christen upon her arrival before Him, or so I like to fancy, "Well done, my good and faithful servant.  Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities.  Come, share your master's joy."

May Christen pray for each of us so that, inspired by this young woman's example, we too will lavishly use the treasure, the love with which Jesus Christ fills our hearts, to benefit those we encounter all along life's way.