The parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) is a call to find an ‘investment strategist’ (namely, Jesus) to help us invest the talents we’ve received in order to return a hundredfold.
In today’s gospel, we have the parable of the talents. A landowner is going on a trip. He gives five talents to one servant, two talents to a second, and one talent to the third, and says, “Do something with this.” And he’s gone for a long time.
My first question is, what is a talent? So I looked it up in Wikipedia. A talent is six thousand denarii. Well, then what’s a denarius? Wikipedia says a denarius is considered one day’s wages. So if you do some arithmetic, let’s say you’re making twenty dollars an hour. One day is a hundred and eighty dollars. Let’s round it up to two hundred. And then we have six thousand denarii, so that’s one million, two hundred thousand. That’s a talent in today’s money, one million two hundred thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money.
And one he gives five, so the second he gives two, and to one he gives three. This is a windfall they didn’t even see coming.
They say that people who’ve won the lottery, about seventy percent are bankrupt in just a couple years. They don’t know how to invest it; they don’t know how to use it; they squander it; they blow it; they throw it away; and they are bankrupt in two years. Seventy percent!
So maybe that’s the lesson of today’s gospel, is we’re all given talents, we’re all given immeasurable talents: this gift of life, this precious gift of life, and this precious gift of love, and this precious gift of goodness and beauty. We’re surrounded with gifts, we’re given so many gifts. But the call is not to squander them, not to waste them.
I think if I won the lottery, I would bring in an investment strategist. And I think that’s the call, to bring in an investment strategist. Saint Teresa of Avila says, “Never cease to believe that even in this life, God gives the hundredfold.”
Do you feel like you’ve received the hundredfold? Do I feel like I’ve received the hundredfold? I think the call is to use an investment strategist, to get the hundredfold; namely, Jesus, who teaches us, yeah, forgiveness, and really invest heavily, seventy times seven. Yeah, forgiveness, turn the other cheek. That’s another heavy investment. Walk extra mile, give your cloak as well, love your enemies. These are great investments that will pay off richly and profoundly.
And so that’s the lesson here. Yes, the five doubles it and makes five more. The one who received two and doubles it makes two more. But the one who received one just buried it. No investment strategy there. Well, there was a strategy. He didn’t squander it. He didn’t go bankrupt. But I think the call is to look to someone who has had a great payoff. Any of the saints, and you’ll find they use Jesus as their investment counselor. It’s tough investments, but boy, do they pay off. “Let us never cease to believe that even in this life, God can give the hundredfold.”
