what am I afraid of?

Homily

33rd  Sunday in Ordinary Time A

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

15 November 2020

AMDG +JMJ +m

What am I afraid of?  For starters, I'm afraid of this question.  I hate it.  If I'm even afraid of the question I suppose I'm the ultimate coward.

But if I have to answer it, I would say that I'm most afraid of how much God loves me.  It's a scary thing when someone loves you.  What do you do with that love?  It's the question of today's parable.  What do I do when someone loves me?  How do I respond when someone says I choose you.  I trust you.  I believe in you.  I'm counting on you.  I want to end up with you.

I wish these words were enough to scare the hell out of me.  Instead I'm just scared.

God trusts me too much. That's what I'm afraid of.  He trusts me with a life worth much more than 5 million, 2 million or 1 million dollars.  He trusts me with a freedom that makes me in His very image.  He ultimately entrusts to me His very Son, through the sacrament of His body and blood.  What is more, He trusts me to multiply these gifts.  Can there be anything scarier than how much God loves me?

Frankly, it can be too much.  The fear can make me want to run and hide..  It's easier to plan a permanent social distance from  God.  It's seems safer to get drunk and distracted on what is cheap, instead of heeding St. Paul's advice to live sober and alert.  I want to presume upon His mercy, and to pretend my real freedom doesn't have the real eternal consequences laid bare in the parable.

What if I ultimately bury my talent in the ground?  If I do, nobody can bail me out.  The redistribution in today's Gospel is shocking to modern sensibilities.  It goes from poor to rich, not from rich to poor.  There is no equitable outcome in today's Gospel. Talent wasted is talent redistributed to the rich.

Where is there equality in the Gospel?  It's in what the master says to each servant.  It's in what God is saying to me right now. to each and all of us.  I choose you.  I trust you.  I believe in you.  I'm counting on you.  I want to end up with you.

It's a scary thing when someone loves you.  What do I do with that?  It's what I'm most afraid of.