So many people who claim to have read the Bible, but have only read excerpts claim that the “God of the Old Testament” is angry, vengeful, and only cares about judgement.

They turn around and think his Son showed up two thousand years ago and flipped the script. Jesus was entirely focused on forgiveness, mercy, and love.

As if the two aren’t the same God…

We are “Blessing Blind.”

Virtually all of us. We have so much—and could do so much for others.

If we weren’t so “blessing blind.”

My mother grew up at the lowest end of rural Wisconsin’s financial spectrum. My maternal grandparents used an outhouse into the eighties! When you ask mom about it, she’ll just shrug her shoulders and say, “We didn’t no any different.”

Why?

In today’s gospel, we hear the parable of the talents.

During Jesus’ life – a talent meant a very large sum of money – about 20 years’ worth of wages - so let’s say each talent would be worth about $1 million today. 

The English meaning of talent which we are now accustomed to is derived from this parable and first meant a gift from God.

I remember being a wee bit afraid of Santa Claus as a child. Not the breaking and entering, mind you. That was more than okay. (As a kid, anyone is welcome if they bring me Baba Fett’s ship and some GI Joes.) It was that I’d heard he had a list of all the good kids—and all the bad ones—and no one ever told me precisely where he drew the line.

I think we, as Catholics, sometimes struggle with the same ambiguity. Will we find ourselves on the eternal good list or the eternal bad list?

Last weekend, Amanda Vernon visited our parish to do a few songs at each Mass before leading a concert with adoration Sunday night. It was a blessed event and I’d like to thank everyone who came out.

During the night, Amanda spoke quite a bit about giving our chaos to the Lord. And it got me thinking…

Chaos almost always comes with blessing.