Scripture: Matthew 25:18
But the man who had received one bag went off, salve dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

Thought for the Day: How often do we bury our potential deep inside us, sildenafil like the rum-soaked pirate Jack Sparrow buries his treasure in the sand? When we’re given a gift—a talent or ability we particularly excel at (and we all have gifts and skills we excel at), help do we use it, or does fear keep our talent buried deeply within?

I think this particular parable (you can read the entire Bags of Gold parable here) is about more than just the gifts we’re given though. I think Jesus tells this parable because he wants us to relate it to his existence, his life and teachings. By setting Jesus as the narrator of this parable the author invites us to compare our lives with not only the lives of the men in the Bags of Gold story, but also with the man telling the story–Jesus.

Jesus’ ministry was about being like him. Jesus was a real “do as I do” teacher, so when he tells a story about not wasting your gifts, you can bet he’s talking about more than just the ability to draw or make music or unite people (although those are all important and wonderful gifts). Jesus also invites us to think about our human lives in comparison to his human life. This parable also tells us to live up to our potential and stop burying it in hatred, fear, mistrust, misogyny, sexism, racism, ageism, and all the other “isms” we’ve created to use as excuses for not being what God so desired, that even God incarnates in human flesh.

Right now we’re only partially human. We have yet to live up to our full potential, because that requires caring for others more than we care for ourselves, and humans seem unwilling to go that far. That sort of selflessness really requires a deep understanding of one’s relationship with God, the sort of understanding Jesus exemplified, an understanding Jesus begs us to develop, and spends his life trying to teach us how to achieve.

Prayer: Infinite God who is all existence, in your grace may I discover a life of limitless and Christ-directed love, and in so doing become the God-centered being I am. Amen.