Parable of the Industrious Servants

Homily for the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Lectionary for Sunday Mass sets the stage for the parable that we hear in St. Matthew’s Gospel with a reading from the concluding passage of the Book of Proverbs. That passage describes an immensely creative, inventive, industrious housewife who sounds just like some of the American pioneer women of whom we read. She juggles a hundred and one domestic chores and activities and finds time for some business enterprises of her own on the side. The juxtaposition of this reading with the Gospel seems to suggest that this kind of enthusiasm and verve and creativity ought to characterize Christians in the redemption of the world.

The reading from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians strikes a contrasting somber note with the comment that the day of the Lord comes as unexpectedly as a thief in the night, and as suddenly and inescapably as labor pains, but that this should not catch us unawares for we belong to the light. Once we untangle St. Paul’s mixed metaphors, a message emerges: there is no ordinary time for Christians, in which they can settle down and take things for granted. Every time is a time for special vigilance. The moment of opportunity and the moment of judgment can come at any time in history. We are not living in a long time of suspended activity between initial and final times of redemptive crises. We must think of ourselves as living in the midst of the action, in the heart of the crisis, in perpetual readiness. To suppose that we are not involved in the great struggle of the redemption is to court disaster. Those to whom St. Paul alludes as assuming untroubled security seem to be closely akin to the third of the servants in the parable who thought he had nothing to do but keep the treasure wrapped up safely and hidden.

The attitude of Jesus and his early disciples was one of accepting priceless treasure in trust, with a sense of urgency about making it productive, making it increase. There are not many parables of Jesus that depict mercantile analogies and are concerned with investment, but the recurrence of this particular parable in different forms suggests that it was recognized from the first as especially apt. Across centuries and cultures, it still challenges us with the same question: is the grace of God given to us in Christ something to be wrapped up safely and kept untarnished, or is it something to be made productive, active, transforming the world or, as the second Vatican Council proclaimed in the document named Lumen Gentium, a “seed of unity and hope and salvation for all the human race.”

It seems that the most important part of this parable of the three men with the sums of money is the point that the householder apparently went far away and stayed for a long time. This seems to be such a good analogy for the way most of us experience our situation in the world as Christians. For us the householder seems to be Jesus, whom a cloud caught up out of our sight long ago and who is to return in judgment and glory one day that seems impossibly distant. We are left holding onto a hope that is a faint memory passed on by hearsay, and we wrap that memory in a napkin, laying it reverently to rest against the time of that far off coming.

The parable speaks of the reckoning in terms that do not accept such an attitude to the grace of God in history and human society. It also stirs memories of some of the extraordinary things certain Christians have done to make the grace given to them productive to the world – memories of apostles and martyrs of the early centuries, memories of people who brought about great transformations to human society from apparently unfavorable positions – Francis of Assisi, Dominic Guzman, Catherine of Siena, Bridget of Sweden, Ignatius of Loyola, Florence Nightingale, Frances Xavier Cabrini, Elizabeth Seton, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, and so many more. The parable anticipates our objection. Perhaps these are special people to whom special tasks were entrusted, but the question is what are we doing with the tasks entrusted to us in our own situations. The question is whether we see our role as Christians in terms of preservation or in terms of redemptive transformation.

I am sure that you have heard it said many times that we are the Body of Christ in this time and place. We are to make Jesus present through our acts of charity and faith. We have been given the grace to be disciples and have been fortified by the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, sustained in our vocations by the Eucharist. Yes, Jesus does seem to have gone far away and has been absent for a long time. However, let us take the words of St. Paul to heart: “you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night.” As William Shakespeare said through the words of the young Danish Prince, Hamlet, “the readiness is all.”