Proverbs 31: Give her a share in what she has worked for

Happy are those who fear the Lord

1 Thessalonians 5: 1-6 The day of the Lord is going to come like  a thief in the night.

Matthew 25: 14-30 Because you have been faithful over a few things, enter into the joy of your Lord.

With all the major news items this week around the APEC Meeting in Beijing and the G20 meeting in Brisbane, you may ha e missed another important news item.

Neil Balme is leaving Geelong!! This week, the Football Manager of the Geelong Football Club, who has helped carry Geelong through the past 7 years and achieved three AFL Premierships, is leaving to take up a similar role with the dreaded foe Collingwood! 

Now I could bang on for ages about this,  and for most of you what I have to say would make very little sense, have zero impact on your life, and you’d be left wondering why I was bothering you with this bit of footy trivia!

Has it ever happened to you that you have tried talking to someone about something really important to you and the other person not only has no idea what you’re talking about, but also has no interest, and has no intention of allowing what you are saying to make any difference to their lives?

Well, Jesus in our story today finds himself in much the same boat.  The Sadducees were part of the Jewish religious leadership group, and in general they had no interest in being what God wanted  Israel to be, namely a “light to the nations.” 

It is clear that they were more interested in their own power and preserving their own status, and making sure the money was rolling into the Temple coffers so that they could continue to live in the manner to which they had  become accustomed.

They really didn’t like Jesus and the way he was going about upsetting their lifestyle.  He was offering God’s gifts not only to the poor of Israel, but to people from other nations and people who had never even heard of the Jewish faith and their God. This was not to be tolerated.

They had no interest in his stories and had no wish to allow them to impact on their well-constructed predictable lives!

This is the setting for the parable.  We’ve only read a shorter version of it today but you can catch the full episode in Matthew’s 25th Chapter.

In Jesus’ story, the talents that the master entrusted to the servants would have been precious metal, gold or silver, about 25 kilograms each.  So what the master was handing out was pretty huge especially in the minds of many of Jesus’ hearers who were quite poor.

The idea that the talents should bear fruit and double their value somehow is really Jesus’ way of saying, “Let’s take this wonderful gift of faith which is beyond price, and let others have a share of it.  Let it grow, spread, increase, so that many will come to know the value of knowing and loving the one true God.”

Now the many gifts that we have been given are meant for us to develop and enjoy.  By their very nature they are also meant to be shared and are only at their best when we share them.

There is a Greek word used in the New Testament “Charis”, the word for gift.  This word refers to our gifts that are created specifically  to be enjoyed and shared by others, for the building up of the community.

When a new baby arrives among us, we all want to share in the life of the new arrival. When someone becomes engaged, passes an exam, gets married, wins an award, completes a degree, as many people as possible want to share in the event.

We do this sharing very naturally and almost without thinking.  It’s almost automatic for us.

Why is it then that so many people suffer alone? Why is it that three quarters of the world’s children go to bed hungry every night.  Why is it that people in some parts of Australia,  have to wait over twelve months for life-saving surgery?

Why is it that our automatic desire to share our gifts with each other seems to go off the rails and we leave so many people living without even the most basic of life’s gifts? We could produce a long litany of people who are missing out, who are excluded, who are ignored. You can make up your own list as you reflect during our Eucharist.

The way we use our gifts is very important for the well-being of the world around us.

The gifts God has given us, like the talents in the parable, are really priceless, and their value will only be increased and they will only be truly enjoyed, when we dare to share them well.

This week, we could each choose one gift we would like to share with someone.  We could make it a gift we haven’t shared very often and make it a person that we’ve not really shared much with before.  Listen then to how our heart responds when we dare to offer our gift in places where our gift has never been and look out for the delight we will cause in the heart of another.

Given the tragic event at Joey’s this week we would do well to offer one another an extra gift of an attentive,  listening ear, a gift of compassion and the gift of holding our children close and letting each one of them know how precious they are to us.

We may even hear God’s voice echoing in our own heart: “Well done good and faithful servant, you have been faithful in a few things. I will entrust you now with much greater things Come and join in your master’s happiness.”

While the departure of Geelong’s Football Manager may not mean much to anyone outside the sacred boundaries of the Geelong Footy Club, the gifts you have the courage to break open and share may become a gift beyond your present circle of family and friends, beyond your normal field of influence, and maybe even beyond your lifetime. 

In our Saints, Prophets and Heroes we have plenty of such examples.  There’s nothing to stop us joining them!

Ezekiel 47: 1-2, 8-9, 12 I see water flowing from the temple and all who were touched by it were saved
The waters of the river gladden the city of God
1 Corinthians 3: 9-1, 16-17 You are the Temple of God
John 2: 13-22 He spoke about the temple of his own body

The Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica falls on November 9 each year and this year it has landed on a Sunday. It provides us with a good change of diet from the regular run of Sunday readings and is an invitation for us to reflect on what the Feast means and why make such a fuss about it!
From the very early days of our history, the Church of Rome was seen to be a sign of unity among all Christians, a sort of Mother watching over her children. The great Second Century Saint Ignatius of Antioch described the Church in Rome as “Carefully Presiding over the whole assembly of charity.”
When some of us hear the Church of Rome being spoken about with tenderness and love, the sceptical part of us may have some doubts as we peer through the first door of the Lateran Basilica.
Through this door of the Basilica, our eyes may well stray to the memories we hold of the Church of Rome presiding over such adventures as the very bloody Crusades of the Middle Ages, the invasion of the Americas by Catholic conquistadors accompanied by armies and imposing the Christian way of life on peoples with the assistance of military muscle. (The tactics of today’s ISIS are really nothing new!!)
We may also remember the abuses of the Inquisition and the execution of women as witches because they dared to think for themselves.

Then of course in more recent times, the culture of clericalism and its accompanying code of secrecy that Pope Francis is so determined to bring to an end. It goes without saying that the culture of child sexual abuse in the Church went hand in hand with such clericalism and secrecy.
We could stop there, and our vision of Holy Mother Church would indeed be a pretty desperate one, leaving us wondering what the heck we are still doing here. From here all we see of the Church are its stories of corruption and sinfulness.

We can however, rouse ourselves from this sad litany and look through a couple of other doors of the Lateran Basilica and there we may well see the Church of Rome in a different hue.
One door may open to find people like St Benedict who has graced us with his wonderful, wise and earthy rule of life that has stood the test of time through so many centuries.

We might see the daring young Francis shaking the town of Assisi to life as he stripped off his clothes and walked naked down the main street, giving himself completely over to the Jesus who was stripped bare on the cross for him. We might see the likes of St Dominic preaching the Good News where hearts had not had the chance to hear it. Further up the road we might encounter Teresa of Avila on her horse, riding between monasteries that she established as a new form and powerful form of dedicated life.
There’s Ignatius of Loyola and the mighty family he left behind who continue to all our world to justice, and who have gifted us with our present Holy Father.

In more recent times we may see a humble priest, Peter Chanel giving his all for a people who mistook his kind gentleness as political interference in their tribal wars. Another door may open and reveal to us a vast array of people of faith who gave us the music, art, philosophy, science which formed the very spine of European culture for centuries.


There’s another door of this mighty Basilica which has only been opened recently, and through this door we might see Mother Teresa of Calcutta bringing dignity and comfort to some of the poorest of people. There we might also see Archbishop Oscar Romero, who started his time as Archbishop as a very conservative Church leader who then heard the cry of the poor, oppressed in his country of El Salvador and as he said, “the people converted me.” He ended up giving his life for the peace of his nation.


On the Basilica’s southern side there’s a door that opens on Australia and here we can see the beautiful face of Mary MacKillop who gave herself so that the poorest children might have a good education. What stories she has left us and what joy she has occasioned in us. Then there are countless people who today work in many fields such as education, health care, welfare, working for justice, research, science and the arts. Thousands upon thousands including your good selves who are seeking daily to live the life of the gospel.
These are just a few little glimpses of the Church to which we belong. Keep looking and you’ll find more through the lens of your own vision.

We are indeed a wounded, fractious, messy, sinful lot. We are also one great source of hope for peoples all around the world as we seek to show the face of God’s love as Jesus has revealed this face to us.
Holding this Church in our hearts, we come now to the table where broken bread, a reminder of our broken selves, becomes our Bread of Life, and wine poured out becomes the pattern for our own self-giving as it has been down the centuries for so many others.
We join with this great procession of believers, in a celebration of thanks for the God who finds life, hope and grace, in the places of our hearts and our world we had never dared imagine.