Stop Burying Your Talents

A few Sundays back, the gospel reading of the talents came up in rotation. Typically, I look forward to this parable because hearing it makes me appreciate a God who takes my “talents” as seriously as I do. But on this November morning, I wasn’t feeling that same spark of gratitude when the deacon began to read from the book of Matthew.

In this story, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a master who gives three of his servants varying amounts of talents (another term for currency). The first servant is given five, two to the second, and one to the third. When the master returns, he asks the servants to show him what they did with his money that he entrusted to them. The first two invested wisely and doubled the original amounts, but the last, knowing his master was a “hard man (Matthew 25: 24)” simply buried it in the ground to keep it safe.

In response, the master has strong words for the last servant. He calls him a fool and even takes the small amount he gave him and gives it to the first servant who has the most. “For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away (Matthew 25:29).” The master even goes a step further and has him thrown into the place where there’s “wailing and grinding of teeth (Matthew 25:30).”

Ouch.

I can’t imagine what would’ve happened to the poor guy if he lost the money. But I guess that’s the whole point. Burying it is as bad as losing it.

While I’d always prided myself on trying to imitate the first and second servants, it hadn’t been the case at that time. Instead, I sat in my pew feeling like the one who had just finished burying his talent in the ground outside the chapel. I’d recently halted a project which was nearly four years in the making. I was working on publishing a book, but in recent months I’d gone through a spiritual revival of sorts and decided to try to take my Catholic faith more seriously. With it came the idea that I needed to turn off all my aspirations up till that point and submit myself to a life of Liturgy of the Hours, three rosaries a day, and reading Scott Hahn before bedtime.

I state part of that in jest, but the reality is I have a bad habit of swinging between extremes. If I can’t be “all in” with my faith and the next St. Teresa of Avila, what’s the point of even trying? I might as well be in the world because the lukewarm are going to be spat out of His mouth anyway. And when I do swing back to “devoted Catholic”, I wrongfully believe I need to bury my talents in the ground out of fierce loyalty to my master.

“Here Lord, I saved it just for you.”

I finally realized that’s not what Jesus instructed us to do, and it’s why I believe He has such harsh words for the servant with the one talent. “Go out into the world proclaiming the gospel to all people (Mark 16:15),” he instructed. And how do we do that best?

Through our talents.

Writers proclaim the Good News through their words, the artists through their masterpieces.

Even St. Teresa of Avila didn’t finish Interior Castle by twiddling her thumbs and she most certainly didn’t become a Doctor of the Church by burying the manuscript in the dirt.

There is a problem though. Someone else knows about our talents and it is why we can “feel” like we’re being led to wrap them up and keep them safe for the Lord.

The truth is, the enemy does not want us to use our talents to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, so he will do everything in his power to stop us. And for anyone who has ever read the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis you know, he is cunning. He presents you with a distorted form of the truth to make you believe it is indeed the truth. With me, he takes advantage of my extreme thought patterns. He tricks me into believing that book I’m working on is just my selfish musings and needs to be squelched immediately. “In fact, was I even meant to be a writer at all?” he whispers.

For you, it might not be writing, but instead woodworking, sewing, or music. Whatever it is, it serves a purpose. It serves the Lord.

St. Francis de Sales said, “Be who you are and be that well.” There isn’t a better summary than that.

After that Sunday I heard my calling loud and clear. I went home to serve the Lord in one of the only ways I know how.

I unburied a talent and published a book.