33RD SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME - A
(Matthew 25:14-30)
The parable this Sunday speaks about stewardship. There were three stewards in the story who were given five, two and one talents respectively by the master who went on a journey. When the reckoning time came, the stewards who had five and two doubled up their talents. They were given more talents equal to their gain as a reward for their faithfulness. The steward with one talent hid it because of fear for his master. At the end his talent was taken away from him and he was cast out.
God in his super-generosity has given each one of us with different talents, some are given more, some are given less depending on the mission of the individual. Recently, the world mourned the loss of Steve Jobs, the i-genius behind the revolution of Apple who gave the world the imac, ipod, iphone and ipad. In the Virtual Revolution of the internet, there are other geniuses who changed the world through their contributions: Tim Berners-Lee who founded the world wide web (www), Mark Zuckerberg who founded the Facebook, Sergey Brin and Larry Page who founded Google, Peter Thiel who founded Paypal, to name a few. They have become icons of technology most especially for the Homo Interniticus (Man of the Internet). These people did not just change the world but most especially they changed the way we live now. Certainly they took up their talents and with their innovations and creativity, they gave them back to the world so that we can have free access to information, connect with other people and make life easier. Although they have become billionaires as payoff for their contributions, we are still grateful to them.
We do not discredit those outstanding people in other fields like science, medicine, literature, politics, etc. who gave us a better world to live in. An example of this is Efren Peñaflorinda, the Filipino educator and social worker who was the CNN Hero of the Year 2009. He made a difference in the lives of street children by giving them education using a pushcart.
But we don’t need to be like Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs to give our own contribution to the world in the grand scale of things. First we have to acknowledge the talents we’ve got. Secondly, we develop them through diligent practice and hone them with the aid of tools like education and proper training. That is why, we give the best education to our children because they hold in their hands the surprises of the future of unknown possibilities. Through their career, they are able to shape a better world than the one we first found. Thirdly, we offer them to the world in form of service so that others may live well and better.
Steve Jobs died at the age of 56. Not even his billions of dollars could add another second to his lifespan but history will honor him as an icon who gave his talents for a better world. How do we want the world to remember us when we are gone? Or is it better to ask: How much of our talents have we shared to the world?
When we listen to the parable, we are reminded to be grateful for everything that we have: our being, our doing and our having. These all came as gifts to us being God’s stewards in the forms of time, talents and treasures. Because they are gifts, they are meant to be shared. True wealth is not the material things that we acquire and keep but rather those which we have given and shared to enrich other people. We may not have the brilliant minds of Einstein and Shakespeare, nor the political power of Obama, nor the holiness of Mother Theresa and Pope John Paul II, but we can be visionaries and silent revolutionaries through our own little ways in making this world a better place to live in.
You can view my poetograph THE STEWARD at http://frvladpoetographer.blogspot.com/2011/11/steward.html
You can view my poetograph THE STEWARD at http://frvladpoetographer.blogspot.com/2011/11/steward.html
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