Today the Lord Jesus continues his catechesis in Luke concerning the attitude his disciples ought to have toward earthly possessions and the use of material things. Recall the extremely successful farmer of last Sunday, who thought his only problem in the whole world was that he didn’t have barns big enough to store his abundant harvest! The grave peril the man’s furious autonomy and self-sufficiency posed to his soul may be summed up by saying that he was incapable of identifying with the terms Jesus proposes to us in today’s gospel as defining his followers: he calls us to be children of his heavenly Father, sheep in his own little flock, and servants awaiting their Master’s return. These are all strongly relational terms, but the only relationship the rich farmer allowed in his life was a narcissistic one between himself as proprietor and his precious property, which continually mirrored his success back to his ego.
So, then, son (or daughter), sheep, servant: these are the titles the Lord Jesus gives to those who would listen to his voice and follow him to his Kingdom. We cannot be Christians or enjoy a vital relationship with God unless we desire ardently to embody what these terms signify. Indeed, we must ultimately choose between reigning supreme in the petty kingdom of our ego—a dreary nation of one—and being but a humble citizen in the resplendent Kingdom of God. Indeed, we must sell all our belongings and give alms, as Jesus commands us, so as to restructure our hearts in such a way that they will long only for the treasure of the Kingdom and the possession and enjoyment of the King’s love.
Yes, we must give up all things, but only
for the sake of the greatest imaginable “deal” that ever was—if I may use so
frivolous a word—the deal of St Teresa’s todo por todo, that is, giving away
all that we have and are for the sake obtaining all that God has and is. We are
invited to give up our paltry selves and all our sparkling toys in exchange for
the eternal possession of the Maker of all things.
The three distinct titles Jesus assigns us today
describe how this “deal” is lived out. Each term highlights a crucial aspect of
our growing relationship with God in Christ: first, filial love, then, grateful
dependence, and third, joyful service.
We are above all God’s sons and daughters who abide in filial love with their Father. In today’s opening prayer we affirmed that “taught by the Holy Spirit, we dare to call [almighty God] our Father”, and we asked the Blessed Trinity to “bring to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters, that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which you have promised.” Like the figures evoked in the second reading from Hebrews (Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob), we too should acknowledge ourselves as strangers and sojourners on earth because we are passing through on our way to a heavenly homeland. This is our true inheritance as God’s children because, by experiencing Christ’s death and resurrection, we have become coheirs of God’s Kingdom with Christ and in him. The virtues instilled in us by the Holy Spirit make us God-like and enable us to enact our divine filiation in concrete existence. The practice of loving as Christ loves, impelled by the energy of his Resurrection, so identifies us with the eternal Son of God that we can dare to call God “our Father” in blissful unison with Christ.
We are, in second place, Christ’s sheep. I suppose no one, naturally speaking, likes to be considered a “sheep”—a stupid, vulnerable, and compliant animal continually in need of care! And yet, let’s be honest: what else are we, really? The Lord’s meaning here, when he affectionately addresses us as his little flock, is that we should find our joy in belonging to him, in being utterly dependent on the one true Shepherd of humanity, who knows where he is leading us and whose power and wisdom in doing so are completely trustworthy. If our flock is “little” it is because we, its sheep, are not rich and successful or of any account in the eyes of the world. In fact, we are precisely those who, like Jesus, have agreed to make ourselves small and lose ourselves in the blessed anonymity of the poor and disenfranchised of society, who happen to be God’s favorites.
Now, we are not only God’s children and Christ’s sheep, but also his servants. This relationship is more complex than the first two. The chief characteristic of a good and faithful servant is that he lavishes his whole life on the desires and needs of his master. In his parable Jesus pointedly speaks of the temporary absence of these servants’ Master, and of how this absence of the Master, who is away at a wedding, automatically imposes on his servants a double obligation. First, they are to distribute the necessary food to the whole household at the proper time.
The Master’s absence, in fact, is a great opportunity for these servants to show their understanding of and fidelity to their Master’s deepest will, which is that every member of his household should be protected and nourished. Therefore, each servant will show his or her true colors by the way they behave, when called upon by the situation to act in persona Magistri—in place of the Master himself. The Master’s absence is thus also a time of temptation because, at precisely such a time, each one will manifest the true motivations of his or her heart—whether faithfully to enact the goodness and justice of the Master or to take advantage in servile manner of his apparent ignorance and proceed to neglect or even abuse one’s fellow-servants.
A further characteristic that defines a good servant is the ability to wait with heightened vigilance for the Master’s return. Quite simply, faithful love knows how to wait patiently and eagerly. The apparent absence of God, God’s invisibility, challenges our love and fidelity to live continually by faith. As we have heard in Hebrews, faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. Our whole Christian existence should be shaped by absolute trust in Jesus’ promise to return to us as King of Glory.
But our expectancy of Jesus, no matter how protracted, is not a mere upward gazing with open mouth at an empty sky. The act of waiting with lively faith for Jesus to show himself in our lives, rather than resulting in any kind of interior paralysis, indifference, or gloominess, ought rather motivate us mightily to extend the Kingdom of his love.
The joyful certainty of Jesus’ impending
arrival should fuel in us attitudes and actions showing that we are here and
now, already before the Parousia, the Body of Jesus. As his Body, we are actively
filling the world with his presence and goodness, and communicating to others
the power of the Resurrection that indwells and vivifies us. In us and through
us, Jesus lives dynamically right now in the world and within history! We have
been chosen, like living monstrances, to show forth the real presence of Jesus
in the world.
Unaccountably, against all human logic, it is through us that Christ wants to manifest his love in our convulsed world. Do we really believe this? Do we believe it enough to act on it, enough to allow our hearts to be radically transformed so that we can become more fitting vessels that receive the life of God and thus enable this divine life to transfuse our perishing world?
Finally, today’s gospel jolts us with an astounding reversal that marvelously defeats our neat logic and reveals the depth of God’s mystery in Christ. Jesus declares: 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. Yes: in the end the Master, with extravagant condescension, makes himself the joyful waiter of his faithful servants! God, it would seem, longs to bestow on us comfort and reward, longs to give us rest, longs to nourish us, to share with us his divine joy. Does this not reveal the depths of God’s resourceful humility, of God’s innermost nature as First among Servants?
My brothers and sisters: In Jesus, God not
only becomes our waiter who serves us our nourishment but, at this altar today,
the divine Servant turns himself into our very food and drink. Indeed, if our
hearts are open and ardently desire it, we will become what we eat as we consume
Him who has loved us to the end and has lowered himself, out of a passion of
love, not only to wait on us at table but also to wash and kiss our feet and
hand himself over to us as our Bread of Life. I ask you: Are we not already
living in the Kingdom?
Photograph by Brother Brian. Today's Homily by Father Simeon.
