Matthew 25:19-30

Matthew 25:19

The Account to be rendered.

I. Is not the servant who had received least a type of the insignificant of the earth, of the immerse mass of those who are commonly called the proletairesthe disinherited of here below? Why does Jesus show him alone to be guilty, alone justly punished, whilst an approbation without reserve is given to those who have received much, and who only have been faithful? Is it thus, then, that things go on? Should the Divine lesson have been directed to that side? Is it not rather the rich and powerful of this world who should be made to hear it? Is it not the representative of the poor who should inherit the talents of the unfaithful man? And instead of those pitiless words: "To every one that hath shall be given," words which seem to justify and cover all the usurpations of force, should it not be written: "To every one that hath not shall be given"? To this painful question how shall we reply? Very simply. The reproach is addressed to Jesus. Well, do you know any one who loved the poor as Jesus did? Doubtless Jesus knew the miserable abuse which the powerful of this world would make of their power, the rich of their riches, and all privileged ones of their privileges. But He knew also that other seeds of hatred and death ingratitude, discouragement, despair, anger, and blasphemy would germinate in other spheres, and they are what He shows at work in the soul of the unfaithful, indolent, and mutinous servant.

II. Mediocrity has its temptations, and Jesus lets us know them here. They are (1) envy, (2) ingratitude, (3) contempt of duty, (4) the impiety which blasphemes.

III. The greatest things done in the Church have been the work of those who had only one talent. We judge otherwise, I know; we see at a distance only high summits, only resounding names and prominent works. Look nearer. There, where only these were, nothing has lasted. That which constituted the form and the immovable weft of the Church in its greatest epochs were the obscure Christians, the heroes of silent love, the thousands of unknown ones whose names fill the martyrology of the first centuries; yes, it is the common soldiers who win the victory in the great battles of God.

E. Bersier, Sermons,p. 23.