Today’s gospel is a call against fear-based inaction in this one precious life we are given. It begins with a master who distributes talents to his servants “each according to his ability.” God does not expect any more from us than what we might be able to be and to give while remaining true to ourselves. The servant who receives one talent may not have fully appreciated this reality. He may have believed he was expected to do grandiose things with his one talent. So, he resorts to hiding it. Fear of failure prevents him from doing anything at all with the good he is given. Fear, after all, is the opposite of love for it prevents us from living, from being instruments of love in a world sorely in need of it. How different would his life and his end be if he treasured the one talent he was given and put it to use for the good of those around him?
We might at times also feel like this servant with very little talent in life, fearful of failing in a world that seems to ask for so much. We are called, however, in gratitude, to treasure, to cultivate whatever it is we are given, even if it is only one talent. In it, we will find love. As Mother Teresa would say, “Do small things with great love!” In this way, we will be fully alive in this life and the next.