Gifts from Birth - Gifts of God
16th Sunday after Trinity/Pentecost
2 Corinthians 6:1-10; Matthew 25:14-30
“For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.” (Matthew 25:29)
Every day, people are born - children, and they come in different forms: big, small, dark-haired, blonde..., but what they have in common is that they are all helpless. Helpless people come into the world and helpless people leave this world - also every day. But between birth and death, each person has to reveal his or her personality.
Each individual person, no matter how physically similar he or she is to another, is unique in his or her abilities and talents, which the Creator gave him or her and how he or she will manifest his or her gifts from God while living in this world.
Jesus Christ, in a parable that He told His disciples, states that the master, God the Creator, does not give the same number of gifts: one person receives five, another two, and another only one... And we know from our life experience that these gifts are different.
One person has a talent for singing, for music, another for drawing, writing, and the greatest gift is given for the talent of hands - the practical ability to perform various types of craftsmanship in agriculture, industry, and various applied professions.
We observe in life that there are people who are gifted for preaching, for comforting the sick, the weak, those in difficult situations - this is the so-called gift of the heart... But we sometimes see that people have several useful abilities, the manifestation of which is for the benefit of all people.
Our Taras Shevchenko had a great gift for painting, and we know that when he tried to develop this talent as an artist, God the Creator gave him the talent of a great poet who touched people's hearts with his words and called them to fight for the truth in life, to serve their people, to win freedom for their people. The inspiration from God of our poet is not only transmitted in one generation, but constantly calls and excites people from those "unborn" brothers and sisters of his, so his talent will serve for centuries.
Sometimes God gives people extraordinary gifts:
a) One villager (from Romania, I think), can multiply multi-digit numbers faster than a computer - scientists cannot explain how and why he has such a strange ability.
b) One young woman can recognize colours by touch. Her face is obscured by a wall, and she determines the colour by feeling with her hands.
c) There is also the gift of prophecy - the ability to see and feel the future. The prophets had this gift; prophecy is attested by numerous examples in the past in the Holy Scriptures, but there are, there may be people with this gift in our time who feel the manifestation of God's will in the future.
So, in material, bodily terms, we come into the world seemingly having nothing but our own bodies, yet we are blessed differently by God from birth. We receive from the Creator (invisibly) great values, gifts, which we only need to develop. To develop and multiply the capital given to us by God - this is our duty in this world.
Inevitably, the time will come when we will have to give an account to our Lord of what we have done with our capital, with our abilities, whether we have doubled, tripled, or wasted them by burying them in the ground. This can happen both during our earthly life and after it. The Lord testifies that He will “reward each one according to his deeds.” (Mat. 16:27)
As we can see from the parable told by Jesus Christ, the Creator takes away gifts and talents if we do not develop them:
“So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.” (Mat. 25:28-29)
It is a common belief that some people have no talents - “he is not capable of anything.” Indeed, there are such people, but this is because his/her talent was buried, or his/her teachers and parents did not help develop it, and actually buried the child's abilities from an early age.
One should mention the failing that people often ignore, both their efforts and prayers for the Lord to help them develop their gifts and talents in order to use them for the good of others. After all, as you know, the same lips can both praise and blaspheme God. The same gift of the voice in singing can glorify the Creator, elevate people's feelings, their love for God, for their neighbours, for their people, for justice; and the same gift-talent for singing can dishonour God, call for disrepute, for betrayal, for immorality, for contempt and hatred.
The same gift for invention and improvement can create tools of labour, machines with the help of which one can do good, use the various goods of this God-given earth and produce many useful implements of medicine for humankind (as in the case of Ford, Edison, Silk); and the same creative gift in man can invent instruments of death, torment, ruin, mass murder, poison, etc.
The same creative mind can lead to the uplifting improvement of people's lives, strengthening them in love, and the same creative mind can lead to the decline and general ruin of life on our God-given planet, the Earth.
Therefore, it is necessary to use all human abilities, talents, and their application to illuminate the light of God's love. The Lord Jesus Christ testified:
“I am the light of the world.” (John 8:12)
Regardless of what gifts we have, no matter how many we have, we should express them in life in the light of Christ's teachings, in the light of His commandments of love; then we will not walk in spiritual darkness, and all our deeds and actions will be beneficial for us personally, for our neighbours, and they will also be pleasing to the Creator and our God.
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
