Since you have been faithful in small matters, come share your master’s joy. Today’s Gospel passage continues the theme of preparedness that ran through the discourse on the end times which Jesus was using to exhort his disciples to perpetual preparedness. The discourse was not meant to scare the disciples but rather to remind them to remain faithful to their call. For according to Jesus, one of the criteria that will be used in the last judgment will be fidelity: fidelity to our identity as disciples. 
According to Jesus, when it comes to fidelity on our identity as his followers, we will be judged not on the evil things that we have done but rather on our failure to do anything. The servant who refused to trade his master’s talent committed no criminal offense. Had the master taken him to court, he would have been found innocent of any criminal mischief. However, he was guilty of not doing what his job description demanded of him. To his master, he was more than a servant: he had been entrusted with stewardship of his master’s estate. As such, his responsibility was not only making sure his master’s estate is secure (which he did), but also ensuring that the estate was yielding profit. By deciding to bury his master’s talent in the ground, the servant failed in one of his responsibilities, perhaps his most important responsibility.
At baptism, we are given the commission to go to the entire world in order to preach the good news. Most of the time when we hear of preaching the good news we only think of those who have dedicated their lives to spread the message of Jesus both within and across the borders of their countries. Unless we are priests or nuns or religious or directors of religious education, we never imagine ourselves as preachers of the good news. We often imagine that our role in preaching the good news is limited to the material aid we give to missionaries. Inasmuch as giving material aid to missionaries is indispensable, we are still called to do the preaching too. This we do, not necessarily by joining missionary groups in their evangelization expeditions, but rather by proclaiming the good news in the places where the Lord has planted us. We can still preach the good news without opening our bibles or even mentioning the name Jesus. We can preach the good news by the way we treat our family members, our neighbors, our colleagues at work, those that we meet in the subway and in the malls. We preach the good news by utilizing the talents that the Lord has given us, for when we offer services in love, those who receive them will end up thanking God even as they show their appreciation to us. Such will be our way of remaining faithful in the small things the Lord has entrusted to our care.