Readings of the day: Wisdom 18:6-9; Psalm 33:1, 12, 18-19, 20-22; Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19; Luke 12:32-48
19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
This homily was given at St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
Have any of us ever delayed in
accomplishing a task or making a decision? What was the reason for the delay? Did
we delay because of fear or insecurity in acting or deciding to act? Have we
ever been afraid of how somebody might judge us for an action or decision, and
so delayed acting or deciding on something important? Have we ever feared a
loss of control over a situation, or maybe a relationship, and so have delayed
in acting or deciding something?
Have we ever had good reason
to delay an action or decision? Good reasons for delaying an action or key
decision might be that we have needed to take time to consult others who have
expertise in the kind of action or decision we are making, or who may be
affected by the action or decision we make. We might want to delay sending that
biting e-mail or social media post when we are frustrated or angry. There can
be good reasons to delay important actions or decisions.
But our readings today tend to
favour people who decide or act with the most conviction and with minimal
delay. The Book of Wisdom today takes us back to “the night of the deliverance [of
the people of Israel] from Egypt.” These Israelites were, in many ways, ready
to return home, led by Moses to Israel already by the time the LORD called them
to leave Egypt. Wisdom says that this “night of deliverance was made known
beforehand to our ancestors” and that “the deliverance of the righteous and the
destruction of their enemies were expected by [God’s] people.”
The reading we hear today from
the Letter to the Hebrews takes our memory back even farther than Wisdom, to
the time of Abraham and Sarah. Hebrews praises the faith of Abraham and Sarah;
that when Abraham and Sarah were called by God to act “by faith,” they did so decisively.
“By faith Abraham obeyed” God when God called him and Sarah “to set out for a
place… not knowing where he was going… By faith he stayed for a time” in this
place. This was “a land [Abraham] had been promised” by God, but only as a
stopover point on their way to a more permanent homeland. “By faith Sarah… received
power to conceive” and bore a son, Isaac. From Isaac, as a reward for their
faith Abraham and Sarah received the promise of descendants. But even these
descendants, Hebrews says, would not see for many generations the fullness of
God’s reward for their faith: The resurrection from the dead we as Christians
believe is made fully possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Still, from at least the time
of Abraham and Sarah, people have been acting “by faith”; decisively and with
conviction that God has promised them (and promised us) eternal life; a
permanent homeland in heaven with God. We hear from Hebrews that these long-ago
generations, and every generation since, has had one fundamental longing in
common that has driven us to act with faith; with conviction; without delay:
We long for heaven. We, like our ancestors in faith, “desire a better country,
that is, a heavenly one,” Hebrews says.
Like the Book of Wisdom and
the Letter to the Hebrews, Jesus’ two parables we hear today in Luke’s Gospel, those
of the Waiting Servants and the Faithful and Unfaithful Servants, also favour
people who are ready; who act with decisive and faithful conviction. Jesus’ parables
urge us to be ready to encounter God, “the master” of his parables. Jesus’ parables
are full of strong, decisive action verbs: “Be
dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the
wedding banquet… You must also be ready,
for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
Luke’s Gospel was probably
written fifty or so years after Jesus’ ascension to heaven. By that time, the
faith of Luke’s Christian community, a generation or two removed from those who
had known Jesus personally, had become a bit slack. Jesus had promised to
return at the end of time. And, well, the end of time had yet to happen, so writers
like Luke, leaders of their early Christian communities, had to rally the
people, to keep their faith ready and active. If we are able to understand how
people in Luke’s time may have allowed their faith to become a bit slack, not as
ready for Jesus’ return as they had once been, can we not understand how this
may be an even greater challenge today, more than two thousand years after
Jesus walked this earth?
We “must also be ready”: This invitation to faith; to
convicted decisions and actions oriented toward our desired goal, heaven, is
just as timely now for us as it was in the time of Luke’s Gospel. Today’s Gospel
reminds me of an experience when I was about twelve years old and visiting my
father in Montreal. Dad had been in Montreal, away from home for a year, on a
course needed to begin his career in meteorology. One day, like most days Dad
was on his meteorology course, he arrived home, exhausted from a long day’s
studies, and set his clipboard on the end table in his apartment. I was constantly
fascinated by the complicated math formulas that would fill the pages in Dad’s
clipboard, so I would look in awe at Dad’s clipboard when he set it down on the
end table. This one day must have been especially exhausting for Dad because,
when I looked at his clipboard, thinking I would see some awesomely complicated
math formulas, the page was completely filled with, “Stay awake, stay awake,
stay awake”… written in capital letters!
“Stay awake”… “You must also be ready.” I doubt that, on that
day, Dad was anticipating the immediate return of Jesus, although the swift
arrival of the end of time then might have relieved Dad’s exhaustion and
boredom in that class. I may just now have given anybody here who is a student
an idea for when we are bored or tired in class: Fill a sheet of paper with, “Stay
awake, stay awake, stay awake”…
Whether we are simply trying
to ward off exhaustion or boredom, or (at least I hope and I believe that, ultimately,
we are as Christians) faithfully anticipating the promised return of Christ at
the end of time, the message is the same: We “must also be ready… Be dressed for action and have your
lamps lit; be like those who are waiting
for their master to return.” “Stay awake”!
But to heed this call to
action; to alertness to the presence of the Lord even now among us; to await
heaven faithfully; to orient our decisions and actions with conviction toward
the eternal life with God we desire can be easier said than done. Do we not
often experience situations in our lives when it is best to delay: To “sleep on”
or, better yet, give ourselves time to pray over a key decision or important
message we need to communicate? In these kinds of moments, our delay in acting
or deciding something important is anything but disobedience to the call of God’s
Word today to faithful action; alertness; convicted orientation of our
decisions and actions toward heaven. On the contrary.
And our discernment of when it
is better to delay, especially prayerfully, a key action or decision, or when
it is better to act or decide immediately and decisively, is often difficult. From
our hearing today of Wisdom, Hebrews, and Luke, might it seem to us that it was
all too easy for the people of Israel to leave Egypt under Moses; for Abraham,
Sarah, and their descendants, and for the people to whom Jesus addressed his parables
in Luke’s Gospel to remain faithful, convicted, alert, and not to delay unreasonably?
We know from the rest of the Bible that obedience to this urgent call from God was
often difficult for all these people.
It is and will always be
difficult for us, too, to remain faithful, convicted, alert, and to orient our
actions and decisions toward our ultimate heavenly goal. This takes a
commitment on our part to depend on God; to prioritize God and our relationship
with God in our prayer and our worship as a community of faith above all else.
In this way, we will remain faithfully and decisively alert to how God calls us
to act in the concrete situations of our lives. We will be like the people of
Israel whom Wisdom describes; like Abraham and Sarah; like those who “seek an
unfailing treasure in heaven,” who are “dressed for action” with our “lamps lit”;
like those who are constantly alert for the Lord’s final return for our
salvation. We will be the people who “Stay
awake”…
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