FREE AND VIGILANT

October 20,  Wednesday

TWENTY-NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 

 

      Persons who have been set free from the slavery of sin, says Paul, should live in the grace of God as free persons. They can only serve what is right and good. They should live as a free and responsible Christians.

      In the Gospel, Luke speaks of the vigilance of Christians and their leaders. They are responsible for the grace and the talents God has given them. And, says Jesus, the more has been given to us, the more is expected of us, the more we have to be responsible for those entrusted to us.

 

First Reading: Romans 6:12-18

That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.

So, since we’re out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we’re free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it’s your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!

 

Gospel: Luke 12:39-48

“You know that if the house owner had known what night the burglar was coming, he wouldn’t have stayed out late and left the place unlocked. So don’t you be slovenly and careless. Just when you don’t expect him, the Son of Man will show up.”

Peter said, “Master, are you telling this story just for us? Or is it for everybody?”

The Master said, “Let me ask you: Who is the dependable manager, full of common sense, that the master puts in charge of his staff to feed them well and on time? He is a blessed man if when the master shows up he’s doing his job. But if he says to himself, ‘The master is certainly taking his time,’ begins maltreating the servants and maids, throws parties for his friends, and gets drunk, the master will walk in when he least expects it, give him the thrashing of his life, and put him back in the kitchen peeling potatoes.

“The servant who knows what his master wants and ignores it, or insolently does whatever he pleases, will be thoroughly thrashed. But if he does a poor job through ignorance, he’ll get off with a slap on the hand. Great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities!

 

Prayer

Our God and Father,
in the generosity of your creative imagination
you distribute among people
a variety of gifts and talents
of mind and heart and grace.
Convince us, Lord, that what we have received,
we have received for others,
that if we have been given more,
we are not greater or better,
only responsible for more.
Help us to use what we are and have
in the service of others.
We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Our Father wants us to behave
The parables on vigilant waiting for the Kingdom are continued for our reflection. Today’s parable describes the unexpected arrival of the thief. Jesus exhorts: “You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (v. 40).
The disciple is one who awaits the Lord and his Kingdom. The Gospel clarifies this perspective with the parable of the stewards who look after the household in the absence of the Master: In the first scene, the steward faithfully carries out his tasks and receives compensation. In the second scene, the steward abuses his authority, and mistreats the servants. This situation is also frequent in our time: so much daily injustice, violence and cruelty are born from the idea of behaving as masters of the lives of others. We have only one master who likes to be called not “master” but “Father”. We are all servants, sinners and children: He is the one Father.
Pope Francis explains this parable in one of his homilies that our opportunity to be stewards of God’s Household does not give us any additional authority over the lives of other members of the household; instead, it entrusts us with the additional responsibility to make “our common home” more just and more liveable.
When Luke was writing his Gospel, the expectation of an immediate return of Jesus was gradually fading. The early Christians believed that Jesus would return during their lifetime but, as time went on and there was no sign of Jesus, Christians were tempted to become less vigilant and begin to ‘give it up’. Through this passage, the evangelist is trying to address this attitude of lethargy and warns the faithful to behave.
There are two points for our reflection: First, we are not the owners of the household, but only stewards. But God has endowed us with the privileges of being His Children. This is a gratuitous gift and not something that we could demand from God. Second, being the Children of God, He has entrusted our fellow brethren – especially those who struggle in their lives – to our care. Abusing their inabilities, which appears to be the norm of the day, will not escape the anger of the Lord. Our lack of empathy and leaving the poor in their misery and refusing to stand for them and care for them is a sin – the sin of omission.

 

Video available on Youtube: Our Father wants us to behave