The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 7, 2022

Luke 12, 32–48

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your belongings and give alms. Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them. And should he come in the second or third watch and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”   Then Peter said, “Lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone?” And the Lord replied, “Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward whom the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute the food allowance at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so. Truly, I say to you, the master will put the servant in charge of all his property. But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, to eat and drink and get drunk, then that servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour and will punish the servant severely and assign him a place with the unfaithful. That servant who knew his master’s will but did not make preparations nor act in accord with his will shall be beaten severely; and the servant who was ignorant of his master’s will but acted in a way deserving of a severe beating shall be beaten only lightly. “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.” 

“Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.”  The Lord has just taught his disciples that they are not to worry about what they are to eat, to drink, to wear, and where they are to live.  This is what he means when he says here, “Do not be afraid any longer.”  The “any longer” is an attempt to translate the verb according to its form as a (Greek) present imperative, meaning that it should be translated as a continuing action.  But this verb is also middle/passive, and so a better translation might be, “Do not continue to be fearful for yourselves.”  That is, his disciples have spent their lives worrying about how they are to live but God will take care of them as believers.  It is also possible that since the Lord is addressing “disciples” that these people have at least on a temporary basis given up their livelihoods in order to follow the Lord around Galilee and Judea.  With his next words to them, then, he would be encouraging them to follow him full-time: “Sell your belongings and give alms. Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven.”  He assures them that “your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom”, the Kingdom of heaven.  If they receive a Kingdom, then surely all their needs will be provided for.  They will receive goods that no one can take away and that will not be lost to them in any other way.  We might wonder at what the people understood the Lord to be telling them.  Since the Jews believed that the Messiah would restore national sovereignty to Israel, they could well have thought that the Lord was speaking of a worldly kingdom in which they would rule, and which would last forever.  This points to the crushing disappointment felt by his disciples after he was crucified, as we find with the two disciples on their way to Emmaus (Luke 24, 19-21).  

“Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.”  In this second part of the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass, the Lord teaches how we should act now so that at the end of the world, they will receive the Kingdom of heaven.  Central to this part is his likening us to slaves (as the Greek says) “who await their master’s return from a wedding”.  The Lord says, “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.”  We should note here that the Lord does not say that they are “blessed” for overcoming impossible odds or accomplishing some perilous work.  He calls them “blessed” simply for carrying out their ordinary responsibilities.  What is more extraordinary is that the master, finding his slaves thus engaged, “will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them”.  Now, the idea of a master and his slaves changing places had its place as a theme in Roman and Greek comedy, but it never happened in real life.  This, however, is just what the Lord says will happen.  For doing no more than what we are supposed to do, the Lord will make us the masters of his house in heaven and will serve us as a slave would.  The Lord does not exaggerate his role as our slave: we recall very the very graphic lesson of his washing the Apostles feet.  But we also recall, beyond this, that he makes himself our slave and us the masters of his house when he dies the death of a slave on the Cross.  His service to us is the forgiveness of our sins, and entrance to the life of grace, of “blessedness”.  He cautions us, “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”  We should wonder that we need to be warned in this way, but we do.  Adam and Eve, who had never seen sin or become rutted in the habit of sin, were not given any impossible task either, but failed to keep the one simple commandment they were given.

“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward whom the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute the food allowance at the proper time?”  In the third part of this Reading, Peter asks who this previous parable was meant for.  Is it for his ordinary followers or for the Apostles?  This seems an odd question until we remember that Peter is also thinking that the Lord is come to restore an earthly kingdom of Israel.  He interprets  the parable to mean that the people must be ready for when the Lord issues his call-to-arms for the uprising against the Romans.  Peter is thinking of himself and the other Apostles with the Lord — the master in the parable — who will lead the uprising.  The Lord’s answer puts the Apostles on the same level as everyone else: they are all slaves.  Even the one left in charge is a slave.  But “blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so”, that is, maintaining household order, for “the master will put the servant in charge of all his property.”  This means the fields, the house, and the other slaves.  He will be like the Patriarch Joseph, who found such favor in his Egyptian master’s eyes that he “being set over all by him, governed the house committed to him, and all things that were delivered to him” (Genesis 39, 4).  

On the other hand, the servant who abuses the position to which he is raised and “begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, to eat and drink and get drunk”, will be severely punished when his master returns because he fails to be ready to “open the door” for him, that is, to present himself to the master as his faithful slave.  One thinks here particularly of wicked bishops and popes who saw their elevation as being owed to them and who use their office solely in order to indulge themselves and abuse those committed to them.  For them, all others are either a means to an end or an obstacle to that end: either sycophants or enemies.  Those servants left in charge to feed their fellow servants but abuse them instead will be assigned to “place with the unfaithful”.  That is, a place of punishment.  Now, the Lord makes a distinction between the ones “who knew their master’s will” and those who were ignorant of it.  These latter, who “acted in a way deserving of a severe beating”, that is, as will happen with those who knew his will, “shall be beaten only lightly”.  Here the Lord teaches that those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the master’s will or even perhaps that there was a master, will be treated differently than those who did.  We can think here of those who do not know the teachings of the Faith or who have never heard of the Lord Jesus.  These remain subject to natural law but will not be held accountable for what they cannot know.  The Lord sums this teaching up very cogently: “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”  Much will be expected of the one given faith, and more still will be expected of the one placed over the faithful.  The Lord was answering Peter and speaking first of the Apostles, but also to us.