DAILY HOMILIES #labour

One of the ways we bury our gifts is by looking for excuses to avoid work. When you don’t want to do something, you would always have an excuse (a valid reason) for not doing it. According to this foolish servant, the Master was a hard man reaping where he had not sown, meaning that, for him, his Master did not deserve the profit. For this reason, the Master referred to this servant as a wicked person. It is a sign of wickedness if we fail to use the talents, gifts and abilities that God has given us.

We cannot all become ordained ministers, consecrated men and women, bishops, or cardinals in the church, but at the end of the day, not even the Pope will receive a greater reward than the newly baptised. Jesus says: “The last will be first, and the first will be last.” This means that there would be no last or first.

In Nigeria today, the one factor responsible for large crowds flocking around men of God and churches springing up everywhere is the overwhelming failure of our leadership. The honest truth is that over seventy per cent of those who come into our churches are not looking for Jesus like these crowd in our Gospel passage. Today’s Christians are looking for those basic things that any responsible government should provide.