{"id":3846,"date":"2014-11-16T00:00:30","date_gmt":"2014-11-16T00:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turski.me\/?p=3846"},"modified":"2014-11-16T00:00:30","modified_gmt":"2014-11-16T00:00:10","slug":"33rd-sunday-in-ordinary-time-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/?p=3846","title":{"rendered":"33rd Sunday in Ordinary time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among my many flaws and vices is a particular one that I can do nothing about: I tend to look down on people. Literally. With my 6 foot 4 inches I tower above many. It gives an awful sense of inequality. On the other hand, I feel a bit envious of those having much more hair on their heads than I do. My barber asks me politely every time: \u2018what are we doing with your hair today?\u2019<\/em>, but we both know the answer even before the question is raised. I could give more examples of how life treats me well in some respects, and less well in others. The only conclusion I can draw from my experience is this: life isn\u2019t fair.<\/p>\n

Christianity, and the Catholic Church in particular, is considered a stronghold of inequality, intolerance and bigotry by many self-proclaimed equal-rights activists. Today\u2019s readings seem to confirm that view. The first one, from the Book of Proverbs, hails a woman for her ultra-conservative lifestyle, limited to being a good housewife, diligently doing her housework and being subservient to her husband. Then, in the gospel, Jesus tells a parable, where servants take charge of their master\u2019s possessions, divided unequally between them; and at the end of the story the richest gets the shares of the poorest one, who \u2013 in his view \u2013 challenged his master.<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly, to the untrained eye both visions look pretty irrelevant to our modern world. But when we strip them of their ancient, outdated, Middle-East cultural and social wrapping, we can discover surprisingly topical and still valid praise of hard work and diligence, paired with and used for developing individual skills and talents. There\u2019s a very important phrase in the gospel when the master splits his property between his servants: \u2018To one he gave five talents, to another two, to a third one; each in proportion to his ability<\/strong>.\u2019<\/em> The key to our success in life lies in proper recognition of our abilities and limitations. Get it wrong, and you spend your life frustrated either as an under-achiever or as a delusional megalomaniac. The former is sad, while the latter is pathetic.<\/p>\n

Equality must mean creating the right social environment where everybody\u2019s abilities can be recognised, find support in their advancement and development, and be properly used. An important part of such a process is recognising our own limitations, because in this way they can be springboards to gain genuine achievements; unrecognised, they are like mud, sucking all our strength out and shackling our feet. The third servant in the parable, given just one talent, is a curious case of a megalomaniac unable to see himself correctly. Embittered by his master\u2019s apparent underrating of himself, out of spite he refuses to make anything useful out of his share. Then he blames his master for his own failure, accusing him of greed, harshness and meanness. He\u2019s turned out to be neither a good steward nor a good challenger. He lands pathetically on the rubbish dump of history, licking his wounds and blaming everyone for his failure.<\/p>\n

Unlike that individual, as long as we live we still have a chance to make sense of our lives, because that process of recognition and development is never complete. We are thinking creatures living in a dynamic, ever-changing social environment. There is neither success so great that we cannot fail any more, nor failure so catastrophic that we cannot stand up and try again. Good luck\u00a0is surely behind your powers; but the rest is in your own hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among my many flaws and vices is a particular one that I can do nothing about: I tend to look down on people. Literally. With my 6 foot 4 inches I tower above many. It gives an awful sense of inequality. On the other hand, I feel a bit envious of those having much more hair on their heads than I do. My barber asks me politely every time: \u2018what are we doing with your hair today?\u2019, but we both know the answer even before the question is raised. I could give more examples of how life treats me well in some respects, and less well in others. The only conclusion I can draw from my experience is this: life isn\u2019t fair. Christianity, and the Catholic Church in particular, is considered a stronghold of inequality, intolerance and bigotry by many self-proclaimed equal-rights activists. Today\u2019s readings seem to confirm that view. The first one, from the Book of Proverbs, hails a woman for her ultra-conservative lifestyle, limited to being a good housewife, diligently doing her housework and being subservient to her husband. Then, in the gospel, Jesus tells a parable, where servants take charge of their master\u2019s possessions, divided unequally between them; and at the end of the story the richest gets the shares of the poorest one, who \u2013 in his view \u2013 challenged his master. Undoubtedly, to the untrained eye both visions look pretty irrelevant to our modern world. But when we strip them of their ancient, outdated, Middle-East cultural and social wrapping, we can discover surprisingly topical and still valid praise of hard work and diligence, paired with and used for developing individual skills and talents. There\u2019s a very important phrase in the gospel when the master splits his property between his servants: \u2018To one he gave five talents, to another two, to a third one; each in proportion to his ability.\u2019 The key to our success in life lies in proper recognition of our abilities and limitations. Get it wrong, and you spend your life frustrated either as an under-achiever or as a delusional megalomaniac. The former is sad, while the latter is pathetic. Equality must mean creating the right social environment where everybody\u2019s abilities can be recognised, find support in their advancement and development, and be properly used. An important part of such a process is recognising our own limitations, because in this way they can be springboards to gain genuine achievements; unrecognised, they are like mud, sucking all our strength out and shackling our feet. The third servant in the parable, given just one talent, is a curious case of a megalomaniac unable to see himself correctly. Embittered by his master\u2019s apparent underrating of himself, out of spite he refuses to make anything useful out of his share. Then he blames his master for his own failure, accusing him of greed, harshness and meanness. He\u2019s turned out to be neither a good steward nor a good challenger. He lands pathetically on the rubbish dump of history, licking his wounds and blaming everyone for his failure. Unlike that individual, as long as we live we still have a chance to make sense of our lives, because that process of recognition and development is never complete. We are thinking creatures living in a dynamic, ever-changing social environment. There is neither success so great that we cannot fail any more, nor failure so catastrophic that we cannot stand up and try again. Good luck\u00a0is surely behind your powers; but the rest is in your own hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-a"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}