1 Thess 4:9-11 / Matthew 25:14-30
There is a story of a rat who fell into a bin of rice. At first it tried to get out but it was not possible as the walls of the bin are steep.
Since there was rice all around, it began to feed itself. And after a while, it was enjoying itself inside the bin.
There was food, there was security, and all it needed do was to literally eat and sleep.
But one day, the rice ran out, and the rat, by then obese and over-weight, realized that it couldn't get out of the bin any more and would eventually die of starvation.
One of the lessons about life that we can learn from this story is that when things are going easy and there are no difficulties and challenges, we got to be careful.
Because we will be getting careless and lax and we might be sliding into a hole in which we would not be able to get out.
In the gospel parable, the servant who buried his one talent in the ground was called "wicked and lazy" by his master.
We may think that the master was rather harsh with his words and in his treatment of that servant.
But it is a pointed reminder for us who are servants of God that we must labour in the field of love and to bear of harvest for the Lord, as St. Paul would remind the Thessalonians in the 1st reading.
Not to struggle and labour for love of God and neighbour would mean that we slowly dry up and waste away the love that God has given us.