Somewhere in my life I came to decision, a philosophy actually, that it was a sin to not support and nurture one's talents. I recall having this idea when my children were born Perhaps I took to heart the television commercials of the NAACP that "a mind is a terrible thing to waste".
When I married almost 40 years ago we were poor. We cashed in soda cans for the nickels and made a large batch of chili for dinners that week. We ate at our parents and relied on checks from Grandma, a gift for forwarding her mail to her in Florida. Yes, poor. When my wife noted a class in EKG reading the cost seemed astronomical. But if she had the desire and more importantly the talent, I thought it would be a sin not to nurture that gift. She attended that class and many others subsequently. She learned more, studied more and has saved many, many lives along the way with her acquired expertise and caring nature. It would be a sin not to.
What do we do with what we are graced with, what we have entrusted with care for. Not just our own talents and treasures of course but of those people entrusted to us - our children and perhaps many others as well. Do we simply use and discard? Do we waste and abuse the gifts God has graced us with?
It is no surprise to read today's passage and reaffirm what we are called to do with our love, our lives, our person and our treasure. As faithful people especially we are called to a rather high standard of love that urges us, nay, requires us to reach out. We can blow off our abuses to ourselves and rationalize away almost anything but we will be presented with the bill in the end. Even if that 'bill' is being presented with a litany of what we have squandered, the damage we have caused or the vision of what could have been. We will be made aware. Of this I am certain.
While I do not necessarily believe in a tally minded, vindictive vision of God, I do believe we will get whatever it is we have been asking for in life. Our actions will be the judge, not God. If we go to hell, if there is a hell, we will be sending ourselves there. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth (ours?) and the sobs and tears from our Creator.
We are called to be good tennts
Matthew 21:33-41
‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’
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