“Investing in Discipleship”
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – A
In our gospel reading God calls us to receive the gifts we have been given but not to hide them under the bed, but rather use them, invest them in one another and in our communities. God calls us to take risks and invest!
All of us have been given gifts, some are readily identifiable while some are yet to be explored and enhanced. Yet, all of us have gifts to be shared. Part of our story deals with gifts that were hidden, not used, put away for safe keeping, but for what? It seems out of fear. Let us unpack the whole idea of our God-given gifts and taking risks in using them.
Because investments are risky, we sometimes hold back from readily investing our time, our talents, and our love in our families, in our parishes and in those we will encounter this week. Although it appears that “hiding our gifts under our bed” is “safer” than accepting the Lord’s invitation to turn them into action, and to allowing our actions to touch others, is the only way that the Lord can spread the fruit of the Gospel. What we receive today, as gift, we must risk passing on. The entire emphasis of this gospel is “NOT” to hide our gifts away.
I have been Pastor of three parishes now, and in all of them I discovered hidden gifts and talents in people. Some didn’t realize they had the gifts and others were “too timid to share their gifts with the parish.
Folks, there are tremendous risks to our investment of our time and talents: the risk of someone staring at us if we sing too joyfully at Mass; the risk of volunteering for service as a Lector or Eucharistic Minister because of self-consciousness; the risk of entering into a conversation with someone we don’t know; the risk of convincing our children of the importance of going to Mass out of fear that our own past inconsistencies could be thrown in our face. Even married couples turn down the risk of genuine dialogue because they are quite “sure” that they know what their spouse will say. But investment in gospel living assures us that those shares will come to maturity when Jesus returns at the end of human history on the cosmic Day of the Lord.
Perhaps I’m going out on a limb here, but I truly believe that our parishes could thrive and be standing out on a map if we just got over our fear of investing our time and talents in our parishes. Sure, we make all kinds of excuses, give all sorts of reasons why we cannot get involved and invest ourselves in our parishes, but in the end all it means is that our parishes fail and close. Just look around the archdiocese for several examples.
Discipleship in Jesus Christ is not just a comfortable holding on to the gifts that God has given us. Discipleship challenges us to action, to risk-taking, to increasing the yield of good works and sharing these with others, and to refraining from excuses for our failures.
I have called people in both of our parishes and asked if they would sit on this committee or help with an endeavor for the good of the parish, but what I’ve heard is “I can’t sit on that committee because so and so is on it or in charge of it.” Or the best yet is, “well when our children went to school there, I was very active, I’ve done my time.” My sisters and brothers, our investment in Jesus Christ and our investment in our parish does not stop when a school closes, or our children are raised. Our investment, our discipleship does not end until God calls us home.
It is time for many of us to move beyond the confines of our pews, to get up and to offer these two parishes our gifts and talents for the growth of our communities.
Both of our parishes could be thriving models of Discipleship in our Lord Jesus Christ, if we could just move beyond past hurts, petty differences, letting go of our own agenda’s and remembering that what we are building here is not ours, it is the Kingdom of God!
May God bless us, and all who live in simplicity of heart.