“The kingdom of heaven is like a man on his way abroad who summoned his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to a third one, each in proportion to his ability. Then he set out…” [Matthew 25:14-30]
[1] The Parable of the Talents [2] Mother Teresa. [3] (Detail) From Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement, the Virgin Mary turning her head away from the damned below and on Christ’s left.
The truth of Christ’s Advent
Life surprises us all with little, seemingly insignificant, experiences which go on to become indelible for the rest of our lives. For us, a small incidence in 1990 when Mother Teresa made a brief visit to Louvain, Belgium, where we were studying theology, was etched into our memory and became an unforgettable experience in life.
She was going to address the students at the hall of the residential Holy Spirit College. It would be packed. So we arrived early and went straight to the front row seats up on the loft. A clear view of that holy Catholic nun – “a living saint” – was assured. We waited. She was a little late – no doubt detained by eager hearts everywhere she went. Waiting only raised our expectations. But when she finally appeared on stage from behind the curtains, it was such a disappointment. She was so small – her petite stature looked even smaller from where we stood up on the loft at the far end of the hall. She stood alone on a big stage. She was a little stooped. She was in every way physically unimpressive. It looked like it was going to be a big letdown after all that anxious waiting. But, the moment she began to speak, we had a virtual electric shock!
She began, quite simply, by proclaiming the Gospel: “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.”
She gave it to us straight. It was matter of fact. She said it as it was. There was no clattering of words, no posturing of any kind. Just a few words, but said with such conviction and packed with such incredible power. We didn’t hear anything else after that. Nothing else was important anymore. Why? What happened?
You see, we were struck by the simplicity of her being and the truthfulness of her words. She didn’t preach the Word. She lived it. Her whole life was a sermon. She did not have to shout out the Christian doctrines from rooftops. Christianity, as we know, is big on doctrinal claims. But the truth that we claim in all our big Christian doctrines are to be found, if it is to be found at all outside of their mere recitation, in the way we live. Truth is not proved by propositions but by performance. There is no way of proving the truth other than living it. Mother Teresa lived the truth. Looking at her, every fibre in our being was vibrating in shocked-excitement as we heard her proclaim the truth in John 3:16. This little “insignificant-looking” “old” woman, who dedicated her life serving the poorest of the poor, spoke the truth because she lived the truth. We wanted to scream – and did scream, in fact, but only silently, inside: “It is true! It is true!”
“God so loved the world that He gave His only Son” carried all the wonders and marvels and love beyond imagination of an incarnate God! It was no longer a mere printed word in Holy Scriptures. It became an experiential truth. We did not hear anything else Mother Teresa said that day. This singular truth was enough by far. Even though we would go on to enjoy immensely a hefty Bible course on St John in Louvain, nothing came close to that flitting encounter with Mother Teresa whose life and work witnessed to the truth of the Advent of Christ Jesus.
Called to account
Another evangelist, St Matthew, had taken care to arrange his materials in such a way that he included in Chapter 25, the chapter right before his narrative of the Passion and Resurrection – the other end from Advent – three major stories he deemed useful for teaching the faith community. These are the parable of the ten virgins (25:1-13), the parable of the talents (25:14-20), and the Last Judgment (25:31-46).
Reading Matthew’s Gospel, we are reminded that as we wind down the year and trot happily towards Christmas, the evangelist intrudes upon our consciousness with a call to all Christians to account – for alertness and discipline, and for putting our gifts and talents to good use instead of burying them.
We all have gifts and talents (1 Cor 12), to be exercised for the common good. If we can’t do physical work – the corporal works of mercy – we can still do the spiritual works of mercy, as in counseling, praying, fasting, doing penance. In all this, Matthew reminds Christians young and old, able-bodied or otherwise, that gifts are nothing without work.
Reflections get even tougher when one turns to the evangelist Luke who in his narration of the story of the Lord and the fig tree gives us a scary lesson (13:1-9). Like the fig tree, we too are expected to bear good fruits. Like the fig tree, if we fail, we will be cut down. Isn’t that terrible? Fortunately, there is always saving grace in the mean time. Instead of cutting down the fig tree on the spot for failure to produce, the Lord allows one more year. During that year, someone will dig round the fig tree, and manure it, to see if it will begin to produce fruits. Applied to ourselves, we are given a second chance – we are always given a second chance in life. As long as we are still living, we have a “second chance” to do good, to account “for the space we occupy” as someone once wrote. We are always living in that twelve-month grace period, so long as we are alive and breathing.
This second chance to produce good fruits for the Lord must not be squandered, however. Our Christian discipleship is lived in that “one year grace”, at the end of which is the Judgment Day. When that day comes, it will be too late to do anything anymore. Then, in the striking symbol offered by Michelangelo in his masterpiece on the Last Judgment, even Mother Mary who intercedes for us during that one-year grace, can’t help us anymore. On the day of the Last Judgment, she can only turn her head to the side and feel sorry for those who do not make good use of the second chance in life to produce good fruits.
Matthew 25 and Michelangelo’s artistic representation are not only intended to frighten, they aim to encourage as well. They both make the call to everyone to think carefully about their actions, attitudes and beliefs. They speak the eternal truth: While bad deeds will not go unpunished, good deeds will not go unrewarded. God is just. There will be ultimate justice!
And so the season of Advent, while it is a season of waiting for God to act in cosmic proportions on earth, is also intended by the Church to be a season of active waiting. It is a season when hearts are supposed to be stirred to do good, giving instead of taking, releasing instead of grabbing, welcoming instead of rejecting, opening our hands instead of tightening our fists, and letting go instead of holding onto what is unimportant.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, December 2010. All rights reserved.
You are most welcome to respond to this post. Email your comments to us at jeffangiegoh@gmail.com. You can also be dialogue partners in this Ephphatha Coffee-Corner Ministry by sending us questions for discussion.