As we complete this sixteenth week after Pentecost, we hear the words of Paul to the Corinthians and another parable of Jesus Christ.

Paul tells us that NOW is the day of salvation. and he gives us the message of truth. The message is this: Jesus, who proved the truth of His message by His resur-rection, has shown us the way we must live in order to really achieve the fullness of life. Paul uses the way that he lives as an example of how to live like Jesus Christ. He finishes his letter by saying that while he and fellow disciple Titus seem to have nothing, in truth everything is theirs because they are doing the will of God in preaching the message of Jesus Christ. He truly implies that living in accord to Jesus’ teachings a person can and will have the fullness of life.

The Gospel parable that we hear today is about a man who gives his three servants various amounts of money to use while he is away. It is called the parable of the talents and appears in the Gospels of Matthew Luke, albeit with slight differences. In truth, it is all about using the talents God has given us to increase His Kingdom and to gain the fullness of life.

The first two servants find ways to use the master’s money to increase the amount. The third servant, afraid of the master, buries the master’s money in the ground so that he can return to the master exactly what he was given. As we hear, the master is angry that this third servant didn’t increase the amount he was given and, therefore, the whole amount is taken away from him.

The point of this parable is not the uncertainty of the time when the Lord will come, but rather what is done with the talents that God gives. The reward for fidelity is greater responsibility and admission into the joy of the Lord. Admission into the joy of the Lord means being admitted to a more intimate association with Him.

In essence the parable tells us that the talents given to us by God must grow with use or wither with disuse. The result of the disuse of our God-given talents is that we will miss the reward of being more closely united with Him, which is the goal of this earthly life.

What is important, I believe, is that we recognize that each of us has been given certain talents for the sake of growing in the awareness of God’s Kingdom. Of course we have to recognize the talents we have been given and not wish we had other talents. his