Your pastor is at the best of times a luddite, so please take this with a grain of salt. I miss the old days of video stores, when I come across a clip I can no longer go out and rent the movie. I just finished watching a movie this evening, and I would with reservation recommend it. It is a little racy and irreverent but deals in a very human way with the idea of a loving God that allows suffering. On YouTube, there is a clip from a movie called Frank Vs. God. A bishop is on the stand in a courtroom and answers the question of why an all good God allows suffering. He has this to say: “I prayed for strength, and God gave me difficulties to make me strong. I asked for wisdom, and God gave me problems to solve. I prayed for courage and God gave me dangers to overcome. I prayed for love, and God gave me troubled people to help. God answers my prayers.”
I think it very well illustrates the core of Christ’s parable in our Gospel. Discipleship always marches forward, faith cannot stagnate or it fades. We are all of us God’s servants. If we only do what is demanded or expected of us, are we living lives of gratitude for His Love? It would be similar to a marriage where each spouse only does the bare minimum to live in harmony and abandons the lofty goal of loving their spouse to Heaven.
I realize that there are so many things that demand our time, but are we carving out time to spend with God? We do so not for His benefit, but for ours. Faith lived in every moment, with every decision and every breath changes who we are and our capacity to recognize God in our lives and in others. We can never earn God’s love, it is a gift freely given, but we can live lives of thanksgiving and worship in response.

May the Love, Peace and Grace of God be with you,
Fr. Adam