Creative searching

In spite of its apparent simplicity, the parable of the talents packs an explosive charge.  Surprisingly, the “third servant” is condemned without having done anything bad.  His only mistake consists in “not doing anything”: he does not take risks with his talent, he does not make it bear fruit, he keeps it intact in a safe place.

Jesus’ message is clear:  no to conservatism, yes to creativity; no to a sterile life, yes to the active response to God; no to obsession with security, yes to the risky effort to transform the world; no to a faith that is buried under conformism, yes to the work that is committed to paving the way to God’s kingdom.

The great sin of Jesus’ followers would always be that of not daring to follow him in a creative way.  To see what we have frequently focused our attention on, it is interesting to take note of the language that has been used among Christians over the years: to preserve the deposit of faith, to preserve our tradition, to preserve our good practices, to preserve grace, to preserve our vocation.

This temptation to conservatism is stronger in times of religious crisis.  It is easy in such times to invoke the need to control orthodoxy, to strengthen discipline and norms, to guarantee Church membership.  All this can be justified, but is it not all too frequently a way of weakening the Gospel and freezing the creativity of the Spirit?

Religious leaders and those responsible for Christian communities might find it more convenient to “repeat” monotonously the ways inherited from the past, ignoring the questions, contradictions, and approaches of modern men and women. But what good would all this be if we are not able to transmit light and hope to the problems and sufferings that shake our lives nowadays?

The attitudes we need to care about today within the Church are not those that are called “prudence,” “fidelity to the past,” “resignation.” They go rather by other names: “creative searching,” “boldness,” “risk-taking,” “listening to the Spirit” who makes everything new.

The most serious would be that we too, just like what happened to the “third servant” of the parable, might believe that we are responding faithfully to God with our conservative attitude when, in fact, we are betraying his expectations.  The main task of the Church today cannot be to conserve the past, but to learn to communicate the Good News of Jesus in a society that is shaken by unprecedented socio-cultural changes.

José Antonio Pagola

November 16, 2014
33 Ordinary Time (A)
Matthew 25, 14-30