Buried Treasure

Matthew 25: 14-30
‘For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.

After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, “Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”

The above is the shortened version of the parable where the master returns to find that all his slaves except one had done well with his entrusted property. The one slave who did not do well was scared of his master and instead of wisely investing the money he had been given, he buried it for safe-keeping. It's good background knowledge to know that one talent was worth 15 years wages for a laborer in those days so even the one talent the master had entrusted to his slave was not negligible. That was a lot of money and the master had a right to expect at least an effort to use it judiciously and he was justified in being upset with the slave for burying his talent in the ground thereby relieving himself of all exertion and all responsibility of discovering his unique capabilities.

The phrase we need to pay attention to in this parable is “to each according to his ability”. The master was shrewd and attentive to the skill levels of his slaves. He understood the abilities of the slave who only received one talent. He did not overwhelm this man with responsibility he couldn't handle and in the same way, the master understood the abilities of the ones to whom he entrusted larger amounts. He knew what he was doing. In that way, he was not only a fair and merciful master but also a master who observed his servants and knew what he could realistically expect of each one. Perhaps the problem of the servant who buried his talent wasn't just that he knew his master was a hard master; perhaps his problem was that he compared himself to the ones who were given more and, when he saw their skills, became discouraged, gave up and said, “I'm no good. I'll never be able to make 5 talents like that other guy. I don't know how to wheel and deal in the marketplace like he can. I'm not aggressive or knowledgeable and all I've learned to do is grow crops. I'm sunk. I'll just bury the talent in the garden where I can keep an eye on it.”

He never thought that with his one talent, an enormous amount of seed money, he could have used his skills and started up a business of growing food for others. It would have been totally within his capacities and it would have made some profit for his master. However, if his idea was that he had to look just like the other slaves and operate exactly the way they did with the skills they had, it was game over for him. He was definitely going to fail or at least struggle mightily to hang on to that one talent.

Who has not gone through that agony of comparing oneself to someone else and feeling like an inadequate loser? There is a kind of backward spirituality in comparing self negatively to others. It's easy to feel that if we tell God that we know we're inadequate, we're failures and not as good as someone else, it will forestall him from making that judgment on us himself. Maybe he won't point his finger at us if we're already pointing our fingers at ourselves. Self examination is a healthy thing but it can also become an unhealthy negative habit where we spend all our time recognizing what's bad about ourselves and being totally afraid to recognize what's good. We end up 'burying our talents' because we have this image of God as a hard master. Surely he will be happier with us if we bury our one talent because at least he'll know we aren't arrogant and cocky.

The master in the parable was, indeed, angry with the servant but not because he lacked the same success as the other servants. The master was angry because he did not give the servant more than what the servant could handle and he did not expect the same from that servant as he expected from the ones who received more talents. The problem was that the servant got all caught up in his negative self-analysis and in his fear of the master and didn't even try. He didn't even try to evaluate the positive aspects of himself and come to an understanding that the master only wanted him do what he was trained to do and use his gifts in the best way he knew how.

That kind of fearful lack of effort on the master's behalf is called going underground as a gifted creation of God. We are afraid of crossing a line and going to the other extreme. “Oh God, I thank you that I am not as other people. I tithe, I go to Mass on Sunday, I am busy in your service...” We are honestly afraid of arrogance – or we should be. But if you have a fear of becoming arrogant, then recognizing and being grateful for your gifts and abilities will not lead to arrogance; it will cut arrogance off at the root. The trick is retaining and actively maintaining humble gratitude to God for everything that you are.

I don't blame the master of Jesus' parable for being angry, knowing that the master symbolizes God. I can understand that the Father would be a mite upset if he created something uniquely beautiful, loved it, shaped it to have a specific reason for existence that no other created being had and then that creature started looking at everything it was not created to be and decided it was no good. God might want to say to that creature, “Who do you think you are? Who gave you the wisdom to decide that you are not beautiful and not uniquely formed for a work made just for you? What gives you the right to second guess my intentions and my decisions? Do you think you are greater than me that you can decide that you aren't good enough, strong enough, intelligent enough or gifted enough? Have you even thought about how I define success and value? Do you stop to think about what's valuable to me? Or are you always looking at someone else and deciding they epitomize what I want in everybody? Are you basing your judgments on the world's definition of success? Look at me. Look into my eyes. See what's there? It's called love. It's called delight and desire. You are what I desire – the you I created you to be. Keep your eyes on my eyes and don't ever look away because if you do, you'll start to fall into the bottomless dark pit of everything you are not.”

What Jesus is telling us is that God would like us to go further than “do no harm”. It's not enough to just maintain the essentials and keep ourselves out of trouble. It's not enough for him and it's not enough for us. It's not enough for him because he has given each of us a unique character, unique gifts and a unique role to play for the building of the kingdom and it's not our responsibility to decide that, compared to somebody else, we don't have much value or importance. And it's not enough for us because as long as we are judging our own capabilities and our value as insignificant or trivial we stay in a mode of fearing God as a harsh master and we lose out on the joy of being a true gift.

A friend emailed me recently. Because of an accident, she has struggled for years with her self-worth because she can't physically and mentally take on what she was once capable of doing. In her email, she said that she had decided to appreciate people more and to make sure she expresses that appreciation to them instead of just thinking it. I don't know if she realizes what an astounding journey she could be embarking upon and what that kind of ministry can do for the building up of the kingdom. If I had to choose between someone who speaks to thousands at conferences and someone who commits to saying to someone else, “Thank you for what you did and for who you are,” I would choose the Ministry of Appreciation as the action that would have the most long-lasting impact on people and the capacity to actually change a community - especially if she expresses that appreciation to those who are usually in the background and who wouldn't often receive appreciation. I hope she does not compare her ministry to a ministry that has higher visibility and feel that hers is lacking or insignificant. The Church desperately needs her and many more people like her.

Unearth the buried treasure that is you. Dust it off and shine it up. It's priceless. It cannot be found anywhere else.

“Oh God, help me to believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it may be.”(Jean Vanier via a powerpoint presentation by David Wells, keynote speaker at a Diocesan conference)

“Do not forget that the value and interest of life is not so much to do conspicuous things...as to do ordinary things with the perception of their enormous value.” (Teilhard de Chardin SJ)