A Reflection for Wednesday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
You can find today’s readings here.
“To everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
When I read today’s Gospel, at first, it seems strange—as though the wealthy are blessed, and the poor will be left even more destitute. It’s even stranger coming from Luke, who shows such concern for the poor throughout his Gospel. What happened to “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied” (Lk 6:20-21)?
Today’s Gospel, with all its imagery of monetary wealth, seems to counteract this message: Why is Jesus rewarding those who profit financially?
I think we lose the full meaning of the Gospel if we interpret this literally—or at least too literally, holding on to our notions of wealth as mere money. We interpret it through our worldly logic, one of material wealth and zero-sum games. Instead, Christ, about to enter Jerusalem and go to his Passion, is using money to signify the gift God has given us: Divine love. It’s a much greater gift than any coin, which means that we are even more responsible for what we do with it.
The King in this parable is despised and rejected by many. Christ, the King, will prove this all too true in the coming chapters of Luke’s Gospel, as humanity scorns his love and sends him to the cross. In the King’s absence, each servant is given one coin, which suggests a true equality in Christ’s outpouring love. Christ died for each of us equally; his Passion and Resurrection invite every one of us to share in the divine life. As Christians, we have all been invited to share in God’s love; this gift has already been given to us. So the question is: What do we do with it?
It is a question that should make us stop in our tracks. No response could ever pay back the gift we have been given. It would not even be adequate to do such momentous tasks as feeding the entire world, ending all wars, bringing all souls to God—and since we can’t do these, is any response adequate?
St. Teresa of Avila writes in The Interior Castle, “Sometimes the devil gives us great desires so that we will avoid setting ourselves to the task at hand, serving the Lord in possible things, and instead be content with having desired the impossible.”
This is the great sin of the servant who stores his coin in the handkerchief: Paralysis. Struck with the King’s gifts and the demands he makes, the servant has taken on a false humility and decided he can do nothing at all. He is content with his desire not to displease the King.
The other two servants take a risk—they go out into the world and trade what they have been given, knowing that they might lose everything. But they trust in what they have been given, and they trust that their work will be rewarded, and it is: For their meager returns of five and ten coins, they are granted cities, worth far more than what they are given.
Ironically, it is exactly the third servant’s fear of doing it wrong which angers the King. He has this cautious servant give his coin to the one who earned 10 back, the one who went out and traded, pursuing profit as the King had commanded him to. Trusting entirely in the King’s call, the first two servant’s actions pay off mightily. The cautious servant, on the other hand, is locked in the logic of the world—that life is a zero-sum game, that we should only go out and do work that is guaranteed a return.
The Kingdom of God does not operate under the usual logic of financial investments, and this is what the cautious servant did not understand. God’s math is not our math. Instead, God’s logic is one of gratuitous love, freely and recklessly given. This gift of infinite love does not work in zero-sum terms, so neither should we in our response of love. In the Jerome Bible Commentary for the Twenty-First Century, Michael Patella writes, “The implication is that the kingdom of God comes only with a full-hearted, open, and unrestricted risk—in Luke, giving one’s all—with the faith that it will grow. Timidity for the kingdom is not an option.”
In the Kingdom of God, we all have been given much: God’s entire life, God’s total self-giving love. We are called to be like the reckless servant in our loving response to that gift, for our work to bring about the Kingdom of God by loving God and neighbor is always fruitful. If we receive God’s love, and make the same response in love, even if it does not solve world hunger or end all war or bring all souls to God, much will be given—to the world, and to ourselves. Our only risk is paralysis, the belief that we cannot do anything at all.
To quote another St. Teresa, this time Mother Teresa of Calcutta: “We can do small things with great love.” If we respond to God’s great love with our whole heart, freely given back to God and neighbor, ever more will be given.
