Fear can paralyze us, but fear can also spur us to action. Consider two employees who both fear displeasing their manager.

 

One employee does only what the job requires. Since he fears overstepping his position or making a decision that his supervisor might criticize, he offers no new ideas and takes no initiative.

 

The other employee channels his fear of the manager into hard work, creativity, and risk-taking. To keep his job and advance, he suggests ideas that could benefit the company and reflect well on his boss.

 

The same fear of their supervisor leads one employee to do the minimum and the other to work harder!

 

In today’s Gospel (Matthew 25:14-30), a master, before leaving for a journey, entrusted huge sums of money to three servants, each of whom received an amount “according to his ability.”

 

When the master returned, he demanded an account from each servant. The first two servants reported that through their efforts and initiative, they had doubled the amount of money they had been given.

 

The third servant, who had been entrusted with one talent worth of precious metal, simply returned exactly what he had received. He told his master, “I knew you were a demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter.”

 

The first two servants surely knew their master as well as that third servant. Fear of the demanding master led that third servant to simply bury the money he had received and to do nothing with it. However, that same fear motivated the first two servants to do all they could to increase the money given to them. These two servants were judged “good and faithful servants” by their master, while the third one was deemed to be a “wicked, lazy servant,” deserving to be thrown into the darkness.

 

As followers of Christ, as servants of the Lord, we have been entrusted with something far more valuable than talents of silver or gold. We have been entrusted with the gift of faith. We know Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. We hear his voice in the scriptures. We recognize his presence in the sacraments. We know ourselves as beloved children of God who are called to make his kingdom present in our world.

 

Like the master in the parable, one day the Lord will call us to account for the gift of faith, large or small, that he has given us.

 

This Sunday, we might ask ourselves how fear is affecting our spiritual lives. Is fear making us passive, making us afraid to be seen as Christians in our secular culture or making us afraid of what might be required of us if we grew closer to God?

 

Or is the fear of having to account to the Master for the gift of faith we have received motivating us to grow in our spiritual life?

 

We may not often think of fear when it comes to our faith. However, fear, as it was for the two servants of parable, can be a positive motivator!

 

© 2026 Rev. Thomas Iwanowski