Christ expects us to use the grace given to us to grow and become better persons over time. He does not want us to sit back and do nothing, thinking if we do anything, we circumvent grace by placing our trust exclusively on our works. Faith is more than mere belief, it requires action; to be faithful to Christ means we will do as he told us and we will do it out of love. Those who think they should take grace and hide it inside themselves, doing nothing as a way of proving their trust in grace show they are the ones who do not trust Christ. The reveal, through their inaction, that they think what he told them to do is meaningless. He is not angry with us trying to do good, showing our faith through our works; rather, he is disappointed in us when we do not do so. He loves us and wants the best for us. He gives us grace so that with it we can perfect ourselves, transcending what we could make of ourselves without it. By giving us grace, he expects us to make use of it, and if we do not, if we squander it, we risk losing it. This is one of the points we should learn from his parable of the rich man who gives talents to his servants:
For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. (Matt. 24:14-15 RSV).
The rich man gave talents to his servants expecting them to be good stewards over what they have been given by investing the money they had been given so it would become more than what he gave them when he came back from where he went. Those who did found him giving them more money to be under their stewardship, doubling what they had attained, while the one who did nothing found he lost even the talent he had been given. We are not meant to take the story as if we are to be interested in worldly wealth; rather, we are to see it as a way to pursue the treasure of the kingdom of God, that is, grace. The man who received one talent and did nothing with it is a warning to us what happens if we do not cooperate with the grace given to us, if we do not grow into better persons with it:
He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, `Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, `You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth’ (Mat. 24:24-30 RSV).
The more we are given, the more God expects from us, and the more God expects from us, the more we have the means to do what is expected. Without grace, it would not be possible, but with grace, it is. No Christian denies the importance of grace. It is necessary, and without it, we will find ourselves extremely limited in what we can do (and of course, even what we can do will prove to come to us by grace, the grace given to us in our creation, the grace which gave us our natural goodness and dignity). We can become great and holy people by exercising the grace we have been given; we will find the more we engage it, the more it will grow, giving us the potential to do more and greater things. On the other hand, when we neglect it, when we leave it by itself, we can lose it all. We must not accept the grace offered to us in vain. We should work with it and engage it by doing what Christ has told us to do, to live out our lives engaging the two-fold law of law by loving God and our neighbors in and through our love for God. We are expected to work with others, knowing that our grace is not given to us for our use alone; it is meant to be shared, which is why the apostles did more than sit back and do nothing, but actively worked together for the good of all:
Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, “At the acceptable time I have listened to you, and helped you on the day of salvation.” Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:1-2 RSV).
Now is the time to act. Now is the time for us to live. Our time is important. We are expected to make the best of it. This is why we must not hide the grace given to us. We must not neglect to use it. We must engage it, for it is only in this fashion will we truly find ourselves being transformed by it. The more we embrace it, the more we will share the fruits of that grace with others, doing so out of love, working together with them so that together, we find the fruit of our grace is multiplied exponentially. So long as we think grace is given to us individually, and given to us so that it does everything without us doing anything, we have not properly received it. Let us not be like the man who hid the talent given to him, for what happened to him in the parable is a warning what could happen to us if we do not properly work with the grace given to us. We will find Jesus will be disappointed in us, and in the end, we risk finding the grace we thought we had vanishing, as we never properly accepted it.
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N.B.: While I read comments to moderate them, I rarely respond to them. If I don’t respond to your comment directly, don’t assume I am unthankful for it. I appreciate it. But I want readers to feel free to ask questions, and hopefully, dialogue with each other. I have shared what I wanted to say, though some responses will get a brief reply by me, or, if I find it interesting and something I can engage fully, as the foundation for another post. I have had many posts inspired or improved upon thanks to my readers.
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