For the 33rd Sunday (Year A, 2020)

His master said to him, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant.
Since you were faithful in small matters,
I will give you great responsibilities.
Come, share your master's joy.'"

—Matthew 5:21

As the Church year comes to an end, a single point is brought into sharp focus: we’re waiting for the fulfillment of time and of hope-filled promises of an untold future. We are awaiting the return of Christ. 

As we know, in the final weeks of the liturgical year, “end times” readings permeate our liturgical worship to a point that might seem unnecessarily negative and even macabre, especially for those Christians who have had the threat of judgment used as a weapon against them, like a divine hammer hovering always just above their heads, and ready to strike.

The liturgical texts for the end of the Church year, like the “Parable of the Talents” (Matthew 25:14–30) and the “Lesson of the Fig Tree” (Mark 13:28–32), offer us important insights into what our expectant waiting should be like.

In this Sunday’s Parable of the Talents, a wealthy man gives talanton to his slaves—five, two, or one, “according to their ability.” One “talent” was worth 6,000 days’—or 16 years’—wages, which was an imaginable amount of money for the average person in Jesus’ day. The slaves with five and two talents succeeded in doubling their master’s money; the slave with the single talent buried it in the ground to avoid the risk of losing it. The master in the parable rewards the first and second slaves, but the third slave who buried the money out of fear was condemned as being “wicked and lazy” and thrown “into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”

Some might use this passage from the Gospel as an opportunity to reflect on economic inequality but we can’t ignore that the Church has chosen this text at the end of the year, and paired it with a passage from Proverbs 31 which praises the productive activity of the God-fearing woman. She stands in stark contrast to the timid servant of the Gospel who was so frightened of failure that he chose not to act at all.

The point of the pairing is that we are supposed to use the time we have to do something. We not only have to foster and develop the unique gifts that have been entrusted to each of us, we must also allow those gifts to enrich the world around us. Each day is itself a gift, and if we are truly living for the future, we have an obligation to make the most of today.

But these last days of the Church year should also inspire us to act with urgency because, as Paul reminded the Thessalonians, the Lord will return “as a thief in the night” (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6). We will hear the same theme repeated in Advent, as we watch and wait for the coming of Christ in the celebration of his birth in history, in his presence among us today in mystery, and in his final coming in majesty.

Amid talk about the decline of Christianity and of a post-Christian society, I wonder if this is happening because so many Christians have lost a sense of purpose and the urgency of now in the work we have been called to: feeding and clothing the poor, comforting those who mourn, protecting the innocent and the victimized, healing the sick and addicted, and raising up those who have fallen down. Acts of selfless charity and hospitality are the most effective means of spreading the Gospel. Our Gospel next Sunday will certainly speak about these things.

Ultimately, the Gospel requires us to be open to change, and to a way of life that is far different from what we might choose for ourselves. Pope Francis has certainly spoken about this urgency and this is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “the cost of discipleship.” Søren Kierkegaard took another approach to these themes as he wrote of admirers and followers of Christ:

A follower is or strives to be what he admires. An admirer, however, keeps himself personally detached. He fails to see that what is admired involves a claim upon him, and thus he fails to be or strive to be what he admires.

These final days of the Church year provide the answer to our question to the “point” of all this—we fulfill our commitment to follow Christ, with all the graces and burdens that entails, because this is what it means to be a true follower of the One whom we believe will come again in mercy and judgment.

Are you an admirer or follower of Jesus? How do you demonstrate this in your life?

How does the example of the God-fearing woman in the Book of Proverbs speak to you?

Is the promised coming of Christ a comfort for you? A challenge?  

Words of Wisdom: “The expectation of the Lord’s return is the time of action — we are in the time of action — the time in which we should bring God’s gifts to fruition, not for ourselves but for him, for the Church, for others. The time to seek to increase goodness in the world always; and in particular, in this period of crisis, today, it is important not to turn in on ourselves, burying our own talent, our spiritual, intellectual, and material riches, everything that the Lord has given us, but, rather to open ourselves, to be supportive, to be attentive to others.”—Pope Francis