Wednesday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 22, 2023

Luke 19, 11-28

While people were listening to Jesus speak, he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the Kingdom of God would appear there immediately. So he said, “A nobleman went off to a distant country to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return. He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.’ His fellow citizens, however, despised him and sent a delegation after him to announce, ‘We do not want this man to be our king.’ But when he returned after obtaining the kingship, he had the servants called, to whom he had given the money, to learn what they had gained by trading. The first came forward and said, ‘Sir, your gold coin has earned ten additional ones.’ He replied, ‘Well done, good servant! You have been faithful in this very small matter; take charge of ten cities.’ Then the second came and reported, ‘Your gold coin, sir, has earned five more.’ And to this servant too he said, ‘You, take charge of five cities.’ Then the other servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your gold coin; I kept it stored away in a handkerchief, for I was afraid of you, because you are a demanding man; you take up what you did not lay down and you harvest what you did not plant.’ He said to him, ‘With your own words I shall condemn you, you wicked servant. You knew I was a demanding man, taking up what I did not lay down and harvesting what I did not plant; why did you not put my money in a bank? Then on my return I would have collected it with interest.’ And to those standing by he said, ‘Take the gold coin from him and give it to the servant who has ten.’ But they said to him, ‘Sir, he has ten gold coins.’ He replied, ‘I tell you, to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me.’”

“They thought that the Kingdom of God would appear there immediately.”  Some had hailed him as the Messiah from the earliest days of his Public Life.  Others had to be slowly convinced.  Many refused to believe.  But as the Lord Jesus made his way to Jerusalem this last time, large numbers of people joined him in expectation that he was the one the Pharisees had sight them to expect: the one whose coming would being about the establishment of the new kingdom of Israel, with the destruction of its enemies.  He would seize power and proclaim that David’s rule had returned.  The Romans would be swept away as decisively as the Egyptian chariots had been overwhelmed in the Red Sea.  The crowds that surged alongside and before and behind the Lord were so certain of this.  Of the four Evangelists, St. Luke especially emphasizes this belief, as in his remark here, in quoting the two disciples who go to Emmaus after the crucifixion (Luke 24, 21), and in what he says about some of the disciples before the Ascension in The Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1, 6).  Luke does this for his Gentile Christian readers to remind them of how the Jews seriously misunderstood Jesus, who never preached rebellion and refused to call himself by the title “messiah”.  He pointedly accepted only “master” or “teacher” and “Lord” — the latter used by those who believed in him as the Son of God.

“A nobleman went off to a distant country to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return.”  However, here the Lord hints at his Kingship, a Kingship of unimaginable extent, but he as a King who rode not on a horse but on a lowly, common donkey — a King who came to serve.  “Engage in trade with these until I return.”  This noble who was about to go off to a distant land to receive his kingdom displays great confidence.  He hands over his money as a matter of course to these servants, expecting them to make more money with it before he returns, which he fully expects to do.  “We do not want this man to be our king.”  These citizens show a foolhardy contempt for their new ruler.  The noble has been appointed king and goes to take possession of his cities.  The citizens have no say in this and would be wise to continue going about their business.  Instead, they attempt to reject him and are arrested when he comes.  

“Well done, good servant! You have been faithful in this very small matter; take charge of ten cities.”  This slave has traded well with what was entrusted to him.  This has required hard work, constant attention, and probably a few sleepless nights.  The ruler puts him in charge of ten of the cities he has received, replacing those who had been in authority, perhaps some of whom had shown contempt to him.  And so it goes down the line until the last slave who did nothing with the money given to him.  His failure is magnified because none of his nine fellow slaves had acted as he had.  He does not merely fail; he does not even make an attempt.  This amounts to contempt as deep as that of those who had objected to the ruler in the beginning of the story.

“tell you, to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”  The gold coins signify faith.  It is given as a gift and is received as a gift by nine of the slaves, but it is not received by the last one, who treats it with disgust.  The good slaves increase their faith through prayer and good works, persevering through all the time their master is away, using all the time available to grow in faith to as much as possible and never ceasing in their efforts until their master returns.  These are rewarded with cities, that is, with high places in heaven.  The one who treated the gift of faith his master wanted him to have with contempt loses it, but it is as though he never really possessed it.  

“Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me.”  The Lord shows the consequences of those who reject him: eternal death, which these rebels seemed to court with their needless arrogance and useless pride.  This day and every day, Almighty God gives us a choice we are to make: “Consider that I have set before you this day life and good, and on the other hand death and evil: 

that you may love the Lord your God, and walk in his ways, and keep his commandments and ceremonies and judgments, that he may bless you in the land which you shall go in to possess. But if your heart be turned away, so that you will not hear, and being deceived with error you adore strange gods, and serve them: I foretell you this day that you shall perish, and shall remain but a short time in the land to which you shall pass over the Jordan, and shall go in to possess it. I call heaven and earth to witness this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose therefore life, that both you and your seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30, 15-19).