The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost (2 Cor. 6:1–10; Mt. 25:14–30)

The parable of the talents suggests the thought that life is a time of trade. One must therefore hurry to make use of this time, as at a market everyone hurries to gain whatever he can. Even if someone has brought only bast shoes or bark to sell, he does not sit with folded hands but uses every cleverness to attract buyers, so as to sell his wares and then buy what he needs. Of all who have received life from the Lord, no one can say he has not a single talent; everyone has something, and not just one thing—everyone therefore has something to trade with, something with which to make a profit. Do not look around at others or count what others have received, but examine yourself carefully, identify precisely what you have and what you can gain with it, and then act on that plan without laziness. At the judgment no one will be asked why he did not gain ten talents when he had only one, nor even why he gained only one talent on his one—rather the question will be: what did you gain—a talent, half a talent, a tenth of a talent? And the reward will not be according to what you received, but according to what you gained. No excuse will be acceptable—neither obscurity, nor poverty, nor lack of education. When these were not given, they will not be asked about. But you had hands and feet—say, then, what did you gain with them? You had a tongue—what did you gain with it? This is how the inequalities of earthly conditions are leveled at the judgment of God.