Our Work

Saturday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 86 (85): 1-3 Turn your ear, O Lord, and answer me; save the servant who trusts in you, my God. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I cry to you all the day long.

Collect O God, who cause the minds of the faithful to unite in a single purpose, grant your people to love what you command and to desire what you promise, that, amid the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: 1 Corinthians 1:26-31; Psalm 33:12-13, 18-21; Matthew 25:14-30

Jesus told his disciples this parable: A man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.' His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.' His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.' His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' (Matthew 25:14-30)

Our Work Joseph Butler (1692–1752) was an Anglican bishop, and an important philosopher in the defence of the Christian religion. He was born in Wantage in the English county of Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). He is known for his attack on Hobbes's egoist philosophy and Locke's theory of personal identity, and for his influence on many philosophers, including David Hume, Thomas Reid, and Adam Smith. He is most famous for his Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel (1726) and his Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed (1736). The Analogy is an important work of Christian apologetics in the history of the controversies over the deism that was dominant in his century. In his defence of revealed religion he concentrated on "the general analogy between the principles of divine government, as set forth by the biblical revelation, and those observable in the course of nature, [an analogy which] leads us to the warrantable conclusion that there is one Author of both." That is to say, he saw a strong similarity between the pattern of divine government at work in biblical revelation and that which can be seen in the course of nature. This similarity suggested, he argued, that if we allow that the course of nature points to a divine Author (which the deists maintained), then the biblical revelation points to the same divine Author (because it manifests the same kind of government). It was the divine authorship of biblical revelation, of course, which the deists rejected. Now, I only mention the writings of Butler to introduce the idea of an analogy between God’s ways in the order of nature and his ways in the order of revealed religion. Now, by his numerous parables and illustrations from everyday life, our Lord suggests a likeness between what is expected of man in everyday life, and what God expects of us in revealed religion. For instance, there is the fundamental matter of human work. All grant that work is central to life. That is to say, work that builds up the good things of life is absolutely commended by man and society. In similar fashion, our Lord’s teaching shows that God himself commends a life of enterprising work on all the good things contained in his supernatural revelation in Christ.

In our Gospel today (Matthew 25:14-30) our Lord tells his story of the “man going on a journey” who “called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.” This is a perfectly familiar scene from ordinary life. A person entrusts his assets to certain qualified people and expects them to build up his property. He gives different amounts to different persons, but of course he expects all of them to apply their best energies to the flourishing of his business. So he leaves it to them, and at a later date he approaches them to see how much his interests have been forwarded. All of this is a common feature of modern life — and it seems to have been a feature of the life and times of our Lord. But in our Lord’s story, it transpires that one of the agents did nothing with his charge. He made no attempt to build on the capital, but contented himself merely with not losing it. He did not even put it into the bank so as at least to gain a basic bank interest and retain its value. He simply buried it away — in modern terms, in his own safe. So it depreciated, and to that extent the property declined. Who would commend this lack of action? In altogether exceptional circumstances of an international freefall in all currencies, exceptional caution and a purely holding action may be understandable. But the total lack of enterprise in this case was culpable. The point is, that all know that we must work at building up the good things of the natural order in life. All know this, and so it is entirely understandable that God too will expect this of us in the good things he has revealed supernaturally. In the first instance, those things are all that is contained in the business of faith in Jesus Christ. This is the work of God, our Lord said, that you believe in the one he has sent (John 6: 29). Our greatest work in life is that we grow in our faith, and on that basis that we grow in our hope in God and in our love for Jesus Christ our Redeemer and our God. The saint is the truly enterprising one in this work. The mediocre person is the lazy one, in God’s sight.

Let us all get cracking, then. We all have a great work to do, and that pressing work is our own sanctification, and the sanctification of others. This is the will of God, St Paul writes, your sanctification. The toughest work of all is that to which we are all called: to become hidden saints, with hearts like that of Jesus Christ. We must so labour that the love of God flourishes and triumphs over all in our heart. As one modern saint writes, “You will become a saint if you have charity, if you manage to do the things which please others and do not offend God, though you find them hard to do” (The Forge, 556). Let us to the work, then! Ah! Now I begin!

(E.J.Tyler)

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A Second reflection: (Matthew 25:1-13)

The Servant who received but one Talent Let us notice a detail in the words of St Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor.1: 26-31), and in particular how he describes their status. "How many of you were wise in the ordinary sense of the word, how many were influential people, or came from noble families?" That is to say, they were very ordinary people (but called to a divine and marvellous vocation). In another letter, his first to the Thessalonians (ch.4: 9-11), he instructs the Thessalonians to make a point of living quietly, attending to their own business and earning their living (all the while making greater and greater progress in love). He expected them to live what other people would call ordinary lives. It reminds us of the hidden greatness of the ordinary life. Let us but think of the Holy Family all those years at Nazareth. Think of our Lady and St Joseph, and our Lord himself. They were seemingly very ordinary people immersed in a very ordinary life, yet year after year they made tremendous progress in the life of grace. Their lives were filled with the perfect fulfilment of the very ordinary round of duties God had given them. Let us now think of our Lord's parable of the talents, and in particular of the servant entrusted with just the one talent (Matthew 25: 1-13). We could call that servant with the one talent an ordinary person living an ordinary life. He did not put his talent to use for his master's interests and was condemned accordingly.

So then, whatever be our talents and opportunities, however modest they may be or seem to us and to others, we must work wholeheartedly with them for the Master. Therein lies the grandeur of the ordinary life.

(E.J.Tyler)

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