Homily: 'Ta-dah,' Or Daring to Risk our Faith

Year A / Ordinary Time / Week 33 / Sunday 

Readings: Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31 / Psalm 128:1-5 / 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6 / Matthew 25:14-30

Our family gathers for dinner on Sunday evenings. Now and then, one of us brings little Daniel, my 2 year old nephew, a gift. It could be toy or a t-shirt. I’m always amused by how Daniel—after playing with his gift for awhile with some ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ and a giggle or two—marches up to another person, the gift in two hands, and gifts it to her saying, ‘ta-dah.’ We all laugh; and some of us (often my sister) say, ‘Good boy, Daniel!’

A happy scene. And happier too if we but could see how Daniel is giving us a much richer gift in each of these moments: the wisdom of receiving and multiplying gifts. 

Wisdom and gifts. An odd combination. We usually associate gifts with words like: gift-giver; generosity; birthdays and Christmas; shopping; wrapping paper; thanking; storing. But wisdom and gifts? 

Our first reading focuses on wisdom. Our gospel reading invites us to consider gifting and gifts.

Our first reading pictures wisdom as a "worthy wife."  She takes ordinary things, like wool and flax, and remakes these to care for her husband and the poor. Our gospel reading presents Jesus’ parable about a rich man who entrusts three persons varied amounts of money each. Each of them then does something with amount given to them.

What is the connection between these readings? Between wisdom and gifts, these seemingly unconnected ideas? Why would such a connection, if any, be good news for Christian life? 

Two of the persons in Jesus’ parable multiply the money entrusted to them. One does not; he keeps what was given so as not to lose it. This morning Jesus teaches that even the little this third person has, which he buried for fear of the giver, will be taken away and given to the one who was given more. “For everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away,” says Jesus in our parable.  

This doesn’t sound just, merciful, or even Christian? How are we to make sense of Jesus’ harsh and challenging teaching?

By recalling another teaching of Jesus: "Where your heart is, there also is your treasure" (Luke 12.34). Wisdom is not about knowing all things. Rather, wisdom is about knowing all things truthfully: knowing where things come from, what they are for and where they can take us to when we use them.

Upon receiving a gift, we might think that we know exactly what it is and how to use it.  A wise person, on the other hand, takes time to reverence the gift; she approaches it with humility, openness and a generous heart to receive and to share. She never assumes full knowledge of what the gift is or how to use it, nor why it was given in the first place. 

Reading Jesus’ teaching through the lens of wisdom can help us better focus on what really matters in Jesus’ parable: that we honestly locate the real treasures of our lives.  What persons center our imaginations, plans, activities and hopes?  What personal gifts have been given and which ones, as of yet, have not been fully unwrapped?  What material objects clutter our lives?  Which spiritual practices are truly gifts that lead us to God, and which ones entrap us like the man who buries his gift because we fear God?

When—and if—we dare locate the real treasures in our lives, we might begin to answer the why, what and how questions about the gifts we have.  This is wisdom that opens us up to better sense God’s labor and love through these gifts in our lives: we receive God with love. This is wisdom that re-orientates our understanding of what these gifts are for in our lives: we share God in love for others more willingly. 

Wisdom teaches us that what should matter is that we really do something with God’s gift of faith to us: like Jesus, we should receive God into our lives with gratitude and we should share God with others in generosity. 

The men who multiplied their given amounts had faith in their master. And so, they opened themselves to what more his gifts offered. The man who had little faith in his master did nothing with his gift; he entombed himself from its promise of more. This morning, you and I are invited to be like the men who multiplied their gifts. Is our faith like these, a faith in God that’s open and trusting of God's abundance? Or, is our faith like the man who feared, feared because he was too secure, too certain that faith in God is always about obeying rules and laws? Which one are you?

I believe Jesus’ teaching is harsh because he wants to wake us up. The fear of God is not what should keep us in good standing with God. Rather, what keeps us in good standing with God is holy boldness, that is, the daringness we have to trust God and to risk our faith so that God can bless us with more. This is the kind of wisdom that can embolden us to trust God in, through and with our many gifts. We can then begin to glimpse and to savor just a little bit more of the mystery of God’s goodness in these gifts for us, and, through us and our sharing, for others. 

This trust is what risking our faith is all about: to dare to see a little more than meets the eye what is of God in the gifts we have and to so let God multiply our faith. 

Hence, Jesus’ parable is not about fairness or justice. It is about receptivity, about how we receive God’s gifts and how we use them. Those of us who pretend that there’s no need to be wise about the gifts we receive don't really understand what faith is about, and so we let it be. But those of us who truly do have faith will dare to risk it because we know we need even more of it. Which one are you?

Daniel comes running to my Mother and trusts his gift of Elmo into her hands. ‘Ta-dah,’ he says. Grandma takes it and wiggles it about. ‘Ta-dah,’ she replies, handing it to back to him with a hug and a kiss. And Daniel snuggles up in the warm embrace of Mama’s love. ‘Yay,’ he chuckles.

Love received; love shared; love multiplied abundantly. 

And this is true of God too, only magnified a hundred fold, even more, when we dare to multiply our faith by sharing it with God and with one another. 

Preached at St Ignatius Church

photo: from the internet (iStock.com)