Thirty-Third Sunday – World Day of the Poor - 15 November 2026
Jesus shows some sophisticated knowledge of market economy. His story implies an awareness of banking, investments, interest rates, and financial return. We might think these images more appropriate to financial investors and those who work on the stock exchange in our times. Even if the labels and language have changed, this sense of trade and profit has been part of human understanding and experience for thousands of years. Three words run as a pattern through this parable: risk, investment and return.
Consider first the sums involved. In the time of Jesus, one talent was a very large sum of money. At the very least, one talent would have been the equivalent of 15 years’ wages for a labourer. So, even the one talent that the third servant received was no small value; rather it was hundreds of thousands of Rands in today’s money.
As we approach the end of the liturgical year, with the feast of Christ the King next Sunday, we are reminded not just of the end of another year but of the end of all things, and the end of our earthly life one day, and the preparations we need to make. Last week, the ten maidens with their oil-filled lamps reminded us about being constantly ready for the final coming of Christ. Today’s readings are rather about the preparations we need to make: having a constant source of oil for our lamps, to keep them burning.
We must stay wide awake
St Paul reminds the Thessalonians that the Day of the Lord will come “like a thief in the night,” when we least expect it, when we are least ready. And so, we must stay wide awake. What then should we be doing while we are wide awake in anticipation of the Lord’s coming?
The Book of Proverbs answers with the picture of a hardworking, loyal and faithful wife. We should not read this text as an instruction about how wives are meant to conduct themselves, but rather about how we, in our own way, can imitate her wisdom. She is hardworking for her family, but she also “holds out her hand to the poor, she opens her arms to the needy.” Her value is not in her charm or her beauty, but in her wisdom, that is, in her awareness of where the real priorities in life lie. On this World Day of the Poor, those priorities speak to us directly.
A parable about stewardship
The Gospel goes further in pinpointing the ultimate purpose of our activities. The parable of the talents is a parable about stewardship, that is, about how we care for and manage what God has entrusted to us.
The master entrusts his money to each of three servants to administer while he is away. They are not given the same amount, and this implies that they have different abilities, or ‘talents’ as we would say today. It is also implied that different returns are expected from different abilities. The first two, of whom one received five talents and one received two talents, took the risk of trading with what they had been given and doubled their capital. The third, however, the one who received the least, “went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.” He didn’t want to take any risks.
When the master returned “a long time after,” he called his servants to account. He was very pleased with the first two. Because they had shown such trustworthiness and a willingness to take risks over what was relatively little, they could now be confidently entrusted with much more. Their diligence is richly rewarded with even greater gifts and responsibilities. They could enter the “joy of their master,” the Kingdom of God.
The danger of sloth, of spiritual laziness
The third man came forward and sheepishly offered his one talent back. He had been afraid of his master. The master was very angry and called him a “wicked and lazy servant.” At the very least, the money could have been put in a bank and earned a bit of interest. Hidden in the ground, it produced absolutely nothing. Here we see the danger of sloth, of spiritual laziness: the blessings and abilities God gives us can be wasted because we are afraid, or simply because we are lazy.
The word “talent” itself has much to teach us. Originally, in its Greek and Latin origin it meant a weight, a unit of mass, like we use kilograms. This unit of mass was associated with a weight of silver or gold. In the 13th century, prompted by this parable of Jesus, in the English language it came to refer to natural and God-given gifts and abilities, such as being athletic or artistic or intelligent. This word used by Jesus made its way into the English language carrying the meaning of his parable, rather than a unit of mass. That tells us how we are meant to interpret Jesus’s banking and monetary images: they are about us.
Being accountable to Christ involves risk and challenge
So the parable contains a challenge for us who are waiting for the final return of Christ. Being accountable to Christ involves risk and challenge. God gives each of us different gifts. We are only asked to make full use of what we have been uniquely given, and to invest it for the good of others, for that is how it grows into treasure in heaven. The third man in the parable speaks of the Christian who may be very devout, but who makes no contribution whatever to the life of the Christian community or to its mission to give witness to the Gospel before the world, to evangelize, to be missionaries.
Can you remember a moment in your life when recognized a potential in you that you had not seen in yourself? That is how God looks at each one of us. Some people are clearly very gifted, but there is no one, absolutely no one, who can say they have been gifted with nothing. It would be shirking our responsibility and false modesty to claim that we have nothing to offer. It matters not how many talents we have, but how well we use whatever we have!
So, what are your gifts? How are you using them in the service of our Christian community and the wider society? If we are not using them for the benefit of others, we are in effect burying them in the ground.
The investment God has made
Think, too, of the investment God has made in all of us: the Word of God, Baptism, Forgiveness, Prayer, and the Eucharist. In what ways are we using these investments and growing them? There is a basic principle of the spiritual life that goes, “Your life increases to the degree that you give it away.” We could also say, “Your faith increases in the measure that you share it.” Is our faith something we bury in the ground, keeping it for ourselves only? To grow our faith, we need to risk giving it to others.
If we were to meet Jesus today, and he were to ask us, “How did you use the gifts and talents I gave you? Who benefited, and how, from those gifts?” what would we be able to say in reply?
Three questions to take home this week
The Master is going to come back, “like a thief in the night,” so we need to be ready. If up until now we have buried our talents or used them only in selfish ways, let’s be challenged by this Gospel to get out there quickly and get them working for the Kingdom. St Ignatius of Loyola gives us three questions to take home this week: What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What will I do for Christ?
