Talent

What is a talent?

At the time Jesus told his parable,

A talent was a unit of weight—about 75 pounds.

And the term had also come to mean a unit of value.

A value equal to a talent of gold—75 pounds of gold­­­­_­­.

It was also described as 15-years wages.

That’s quite a bit of value.

About $1 Million per talent.

In fact, back then, the term talent was used the same way

We today use the phrase, a million dollars.

Not meaning precisely $1 Million, but meaning, a lot of money.

But Jesus was telling a story, a parable, an allegory.

The story made sense with the idea of a talent as a large lump of gold.

But the listeners recognized that it also carried a deeper meaning.

Talent was a metaphor, standing for something else of enormous value.

Not a material substance, but a human or spiritual quality.

Our passage from Proverbs also compares 
Human qualities to materialistic value.

Not a talent of gold, but a set of pearls.

It says a worthy wife’s value is far beyond that of pearls.

She brings good, and love, and support.

She reaches out, and helps the poor and the needy.

Maybe Jesus’ listeners were already familiar with his usage of the term.

But his use of talent as a metaphor was so striking, so strong,

That it came to be the primary meaning of the word.

When someone says talent today,

Our minds don’t flash an image of that heavy bar of gold.

Or of $1 Million.

We immediately think of the human, spiritual quality.

We might think of America’s Got Talent.

If we’ve been around long enough we might remember

Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts.

We might think of extraordinary talent in arts or sports.

But those are actually narrow images of talent.

Narrower than the way Jesus was using the term.

Every one of us has many talents.

More than the one or two, or even the five, that were given in the parable.

These talents are our natural abilities.

Our special aptitudes.

The abilities that we were born with.

We may need to work with these abilities to more fully develop them.

But we didn’t have to do anything to obtain them.

We might refer to someone who is talented as being gifted.

A gifted musician, a gifted writer, a gifted student.

That’s a very appropriate description, because talents are gifts.

Unearned gifts, given to us by God.

In the broader sense, talents include

All the qualities and abilities we’ve been given:

Intelligence, physical strength, endurance, emotional strength.

Even virtues, which we may have worked to develop,

But for which the initial seeds were freely gifted to us:

Nurturing ability, empathy, wisdom, perseverance—even faith.

Jesus’ parable makes another crucial point regarding these talents.

They are gifts to us individually,

In that each of us benefits from our own talents.

But they’re not given to us solely for our own benefit.

They’re entrusted to us, to use for the Master’s benefit.

We’re expected to recognize that our talents are gifts.

Therefore, there’s no need to deny or hide them in mistaken humility.

We can put them to their fullest use.

To earn dividends for the Master.

So, what then is a talent?

It’s a human or spiritual quality. 

An unearned gift, entrusted to us by God.

To be used for the benefit of ourselves, our neighbors and our Master.

Each of us should be aware of our many talents.

List them; humbly marvel at their number.

Hone them; fully employ them.

So that we can enjoy helping to make this world a better place.

And so that, when the time comes for our accounting,

We’ll hear that glorious invitation—
Come, share your Master’s joy.

33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mt 25:14-30   Read this Scripture @usccb.org