First Lesson: Zephaniah
1:7, 12-18
Be silent before the
Lord GOD! For the day of the LORD is at hand; the LORD has prepared a
sacrifice, he has consecrated his guests. At that time I will search Jerusalem
with lamps, and I will punish the people who rest complacently on their dregs,
those who say in their hearts, “The LORD will not do good, nor will he do
harm.” Their wealth shall be plundered, and their houses laid waste. Though they
build houses, they shall not inhabit them; though they plant vineyards, they shall
not drink wine from them. The great day of the LORD is near, near and hastening
fast; the sound of the day of the LORD is bitter, the warrior cries aloud
there. That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of
ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick
darkness, and day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities
and against the lofty battlements. I will bring such distress upon people that
they shall walk like the blind; because they have sinned against the lord, their
blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. Neither their
silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the LORD’s wrath;
in the fire of his passion the whole earth shall be consumed; for a full, a
terrible end, he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.
Reflections on the First Reading: Addressed to a
self-satisfied and complacent people, this prophetic passage warns that the Day
of the Lord will not confirm their comfort or their status. It will confront
them with the superficiality of their way of life and the values that support
it. What does God desire of us? What does God call us to do and to be?
Psalm 90
Lord, you have been our
refuge* from one generation to another.Before the mountains were brought forth, or the land and the earth were born* from age to age you are God.
You turn us back to the dust and say* Go back, O child of earth.
For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past* and like a watch in the night.
You sweep us away like a dream* we fade away suddenly like the grass.
In the morning it is green and flourishes;* in the evening it is dried up and withered.
For we consume away in your displeasure;* we are afraid because of your wrathful indignation.
Our iniquities you have set before you,* and our secret sins in the light of your countenance.
When you are angry, all our days are gone;* we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
The span of our life is seventy years, perhaps in strength even eighty* yet the sum of them is but labor and sorrow, for they pass away quickly and we are gone.
Who regards the power of your wrath?* Who rightly fears your indignation?
So teach us to number our days* that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.
Reflections on the Psalm: The psalmist sets side
by side the eternal and the mortal, which certainly puts our preoccupations in
perspective. Such a beautiful, humbling psalm. We are fleeting, insignificant—yet
we are beloved by none other than God.
Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11
Now concerning the times and the seasons,
brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of
the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, “There is peace and security,”
then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a
pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you
like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of
the night or of darkness. So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and
be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at
night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the
breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for
obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or
asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each
other, as indeed you are doing.Reflections on the Epistle:
And the warnings continue! But for all their predictions of wrath and punishment, apocalyptic texts do not look backwards to what we have been, but forwards to who we are becoming. Paul invites us to live into our destiny.
In this text, St. Paul continues to
address the church’s concern about the believers who have passed away before (imminently
expected) Coming of Christ. But we need not worry about those whom God loves.
Their destiny is Christ. And our own is bound up with them.
Gospel: Matthew 25:14-30
For it is as if a man, going on a journey,
summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he
gave five talents (valued at more than fifteen years’ wages of a
laborer), to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.
Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went
off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same
way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one
who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid
his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves
came and settled accounts with them. Then the
one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents,
saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more
talents.’ His master
said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy
in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of
your master.’ And the one
with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me
two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master
said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy
in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of
your master.’ Then the
one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew
that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where
you did not scatter seed; so I was
afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is
yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy
slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I
did not scatter? Then you
ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have
received what was my own with interest. So take the
talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all
those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from
those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this
worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth.’
Reflections: Like you, I’ve heard this parable numerous
times, and I’ve heard my share of homiletic attempts to unpack it, with varying
degrees of success. It’s clearly unsettling. In last Sunday’s parable, the bridegroom
(a figure we interpret as Christ) disowned the foolish virgins. This week a slave
master with dubious business practices casts out his meekest slave/servant. “This
equates with Christ?” we ask, horrified. How can we not feel sympathetic towards the slave who buried the money?
In her sermon, Mother Karen shared with us that a talent in the culture of the time was
the highest unit of value—say, the wages of a lifetime—or of multiple lifetimes.
She pointed out that the master does not micromanage the wealth he distributes
before leaving; he leaves it up to the guardians of the wealth to do with it as
they see fit. What a risk he takes in doing that, especially if we consider
that he has amassed his wealth by questionable means. So, while the slaves are not given equal amounts, they are equally free to choose what to do with it. Upon his return, the master rewards the servants, not by how much they have increased the wealth, but according to what they have done with it.
The third servant, trembling under the master’s gaze, returns the talent. He has neither invested nor embezzled the money. Surely that speaks of his good character. But the master wants something else. The master wants the servant to have invested himself by using the resources at his disposal. I have been tempted to excuse the third servant’s behavior because he knows the master is a hard, unethical man. However, as Mother Karen pointed out, if the servant had really feared the master, he would have scrambled to get a return on the talent. The servant’s “fear” is an unconvincing excuse.
While clearly the master and Christ aren’t very similar at all, Mother Karen identified a central message for us. Like the characters in the parable, we too are servants of a Master, and we have all been freely given gifts that, like the talents, are too great for us to get our heads around. Moreover, the gifts are as unique as we are. The gifts are not to be hidden away, but courageously embraced and shared.
The apocalyptic context of this reading once again reminds us that life is short; our time is precious. And so we must ask ourselves: How do we relate to our gifts, to our givenness? What gifts and talents do we pretend not we do not have? What interests do we not dare follow? How can we live into see and embrace opportunities God extends to us? In what ways are we timid? What are we afraid of?
Ultimately, to be “cast out into the outer darkness,” is to close our eyes and turn away from God here and now. For God’s gifts are themselves grace, sacramentum, God’s gift of Godself, God present to us, and to the world in us and through us. May we embrace the possibilities with joy.
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