This entire fall has been what I’m calling “Parable time” in this cycle of the liturgical year.  In today’s Gospel we have yet another one, this time about talents and their use.  To start with, “talents” aren’t what we might think them to be with our English language background.  No, this is not just about using one’s personal gifts.  Author Megan McKenna in her book on the parables reminds us that the talents mentioned in this Gospel are names for the money used in Jesus’ time.  And money represented power, as it still does today.
Here we have Matthew’s version of the story, somewhat different from Luke’s.  Matthew’s Jesus gives each of these people some talents, some power, and two of them use it well.  The one person who doesn’t feels pretty good about himself.  After all, he hasn’t lost his power, only protected it, kept it safe.  He didn’t realize, it seems, that the money, the power, was given not for safekeeping, but so that the master’s concerns can be cared for.  And apparently, the master expects some risking to be involved in doing just that.  Pheme Perkins in her analysis of the parable describes such a type of non-risking disciple this way:

There are those who are so fearful of taking risk that they never speak in a meeting until they are sure of what everybody thinks.  They never take any initiative at work, or they become paralyzed by the fear of failure when presented with a promotion or job that would require such initiative. Students are so concerned for “good grades” that they will not take a difficult course or they constantly pester the teacher into telling them exactly what he or she wants even on assignments designed to test their own creativity and analytic abilities.  Some people even go so far as to put themselves into situations which guarantee failure, since that is more secure than having tried and failed.

For one or another reason, we are all tempted at times to try to get out of responsibilities, whether they are of the ten talent or one talent variety.  After all, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “When Jesus bids us come and follow him, he bids us to come and die.”  And this we seem somehow to know.  Well, why wouldn’t we; all we have to do is look at Jesus’ life.  When, like him, we speak and act from our own center, our own true power, we are speaking and acting also from his power, for he is the source of our life.  We see where doing so led him.  And I’m sure we know from our own experience that it leads us to the same place in many ways, to many deaths: misunderstandings, judgments, ridicule, loss of support, loss of friendships, alienation from loved ones, opposition.  The comfort is that this power of Jesus is ours as we choose to risk to bring about what he worked to bring about: justice and compassion  for all in our immediate surroundings of family, community,  and neighborhood and beyond to the rest of the world.

Our first reading today is one I associate with funerals.  Oftentimes it’s the choice of a text for wives and mothers who have spent their lives in service to their families, but also beyond them to their neighbors.  The woman described here has not buried what seem to be a number of talents.  When we hear this Scripture read at funerals, we remember the selfless, good deeds of the person whose life we are celebrating.  We forget the cost of it all as we speak about the final fulfillment of that person’s life.  Deaths were along the way; deaths were inevitable.  Still, now, the generous woman whose funeral we attend has entered into eternal fulfillment, symbolized by a doubling of the power she exercised here on earth.  Now it all makes such good sense that she lived the way she did, deaths and all.  Now her power can help us make the hard choices she is grateful she had the courage to make.

We pray that the reminder of the talented women we honor and celebrate today will inspire us to use the power of Jesus we have been given.  Maybe we have much of it; maybe we have opportunity to make some significant difference in Jesus’ name.  Maybe we don’t have anything quite that outstanding to offer.  Maybe we have a contribution without which the world would experience some, small loss.  Whoever we are, with how many talents/powers we possess, we are all called to use them in the service of God despite the deaths inevitable in our investment.  That’s how it is while we are on this earth. 

Saint Paul has a good comment in today’s second reading.  He reminds us that we are not of the night nor of darkness.  We are not to sleep as the rest do—the rest being those talent bury-ers.  We are to stay alert and sober.  May the women whom we honor here today be our inspiration.  May we spend our lives secure in the power of God who not only gives us the talents, but helps us invest them properly for the betterment of all people.  This power was given for a purpose, for use, for building up the kingdom of justice and compassion.  We ask God to give us courage to face the deaths of such risking to live responsibly.  We ask the intercession of the women whom we know and love and who have gone before us and who now have, according to the parable, double the power they had when they risked here on earth.  From the perspective they have now, whatever they suffered by taking risks then must now seem small indeed.  May they show us who are still in this world, the value in trusting in God’s power, no matter what the cost.