33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Prv 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31; 1 Thes 5:1-6; Mt 25:14-30

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“Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting.”
The Book of Proverbs offers this 
as advice for finding a wife,
and it is not bad advice.
In fact, it’s pretty good advice
for finding a husband as well.
Childhood tales of a happily ever after
with a Prince Charming 
or a Sleeping Beauty
may have lodged deep in our psyches,
and good looks and smooth talk
can give us a momentary romantic thrill,
but over time looks fade, 
and the challenges of daily life
are not typically met
by sweet nothings 
whispered in our ears.
Far better, Proverbs tells us,
to find someone 
who has practical skills
and a generous heart,
someone who possesses inner beauty
that time cannot bear away.

This, of course, is not just 
good advice for seeking a spouse;
it’s also good advice for living a life.
For experience tells us 
that time runs in only one direction,
and as it runs it takes its toll
on the superficially charming 
and the passingly beautiful.
And our faith tells us 
that time itself will one day end,
that “the day of the Lord will come
like a thief at night,”
and that we will not be judged
on the basis of our charm and beauty,
but on what use we have made of the time
that God has entrusted to us.
Like the master in the parable,
God has given us a measure of time,
and on the day of Christ’s return
we will have to give an accounting
of how we have spent that time:
whether we have hidden it away
in a futile attempt to preserve it,
or have taken the risk of spending it
in service to God’s kingdom,
reaching out our hands to the poor,
and extending our arms to the needy.

We know our time is limited.
We believe we will be asked 
for an accounting of that time.
Why, then, do we not feel 
more urgency about our lives?
Why do we continue to say, 
“peace and security”
as the tumultuous day 
of Christ our Master 
draws ever nearer?
Why do we dig a hole in the ground
and bury our lives beneath trivialities,
which may be charming and beautiful
but which time bears inexorably away?

This is a question that I ask myself.
If I truly believe the things I say that I believe—
things that I say every week in the creed,
things like “he will come again in glory 
to judge the living and the dead 
and his kingdom will have no end”—
why then does my life look 
pretty much like the lives of those 
who do not believe this?
Why, if I am a child of light and day,
do I live my life like a child of darkness and night?
I don’t mean by this that I am some great sinner;
in fact, my sins are somewhat embarrassingly mediocre.
No, to live like a child of darkness and night
is simply to live a life of drowsy indifference,
a life that might have a kind of 
superficial charm and beauty,
but which lacks a sense of urgency,
lacks a sense that eternal life itself is at stake
in what transpires in this brief span of time
that God has entrusted to me.
Why is God not at all times my top priority?
As one of the early desert fathers put it,
“Why not be utterly changed into fire?”

This is one of the great mysteries of the spiritual life.
What is holding me back from living a life
like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Ignatius Loyola,
like St. Teresa of Calcutta or St. Oscar Romero,
like venerable Mother Mary Lange 
or servant of God Dorothy Day?
How can I see the power of God at work in them
and not want God to work in me in that same way?

But I do want God to work in my in that way.
And I suspect you do too. 
We human beings, however, 
are complicated animals.
We are somehow completely captive 
to deceptive charm and fleeting beauty
even as we feel an urge 
toward a goodness that is true 
and a beauty that is eternal.
We say to ourselves “peace and security,”
even as we suspect that the Lord is coming
to overturn our lives.
We bury our time beneath trivialities
even as we long to hear those words,
“Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
How do I let the part 
that hungers for holiness
direct my life,
and not the part 
that drowses in indifference?

Alas, I fear I don’t have an answer.
Like I said, we’re complicated animals.
But I do know this:
I know we must lean 
upon the grace that comes to us 
through Jesus Christ. 
I know we must pray that his grace 
would grow in us a yearning for him,
a hunger for his holiness, 
a longing for the day of the Lord,
the day when Christ will speak to us
the truth about our lives.
I know we must pray 
that these will not have been lives 
of deceptive charm and fleeting beauty
but lives utterly transformed 
by the fire of divine love.
I know we must pray that God, 
who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all.

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6; Matthew 25: 14-30

In today’s Gospel the master says to the servant
who buried his single talent in the ground,
“You wicked, lazy servant!”
But was laziness really the servant’s problem?
After all, digging the hole to bury the money in
must have required some effort—
perhaps even more effort than putting it in the bank,
which was the master’s suggestion.
I think the servant was speaking truthfully
when he said that it was out of fear
that he buried the talent in the ground.
After all, his master was a demanding person
and while a talent was a lot of money
(about a thousand dollars),
he had still been given less
than the other two servants,
so he had less margin of error
and had to be careful.
According to rabbinic law
if someone entrusted you with something and you buried it
then you could no longer be held liable for its loss,
since you had taken the safest course of action
(far safer than entrusting it
to the speculation of bankers).
The servant’s problem was not laziness, but fear:
a fear of a master who would hold him
to an exact accounting
and a fear of losing what he had
in the pursuit of something greater.

This parable is not, obviously, about how we need
to be industrious entrepreneurs with our money,
and about how laziness is a great evil.
Nor is it simply, I think, about how we need
to be industrious entrepreneurs
with the spiritual gifts that God has given us
and about how spiritual laziness is a great sin.
I think it addresses a deeper question of how we see God:
whether we see God as one who’s chief interest
is exacting from us what is owed,
or as one who wants to say to us,
“Come, share your master’s joy.”
The problem is not spiritual laziness.
As shocking as it may seem
in the context of contemporary American culture,
Jesus is not calling us to work harder,
to invest more wisely,
to put in more hours,
or to “lean in”
so that we can “have it all”
(spiritually speaking, of course).
Rather, Jesus is calling us to dig up the gift
we have buried in our fear—
the gift of the good news of Jesus himself—
and unleash it on the world.

To do this, we must let our fear be replaced by love.
If we act out of a conviction that God’s desire
is not to exact his due
but to have us share our master’s joy
then we become radically free
from the fear of loosing what we have
and radically free
for taking risks for the sake of God’s kingdom.
Indeed, according to the logic of God’s kingdom,
it is only if we risk all we have
that we can keep anything.
Perhaps more than any other,
love is a treasure that can be lost through fear.
We can keep it only if we risk its loss
by opening our heart to another
and setting that other’s good above our own,
never knowing ahead of time whether our love will be returned
or will be met with indifference and even hostility,
just as the love of Jesus was met with the scourging pillar,
the crown of thorns, and the cross.
The path of love might seem imprudent
but it is only if we take the risk of Christ
that we can share in the resurrection of Christ
and hear the invitation,
“Come, share your master’s joy.”

We should be willing to risk everything
for Christ’s kingdom of love.
But what does this mean in the concrete?
Well, it might mean in part something as simple
as installing showers for the homeless
in the public restrooms in St. Peter’s Square,
as the Vatican announced it would do this week.

And what about us, here at Corpus Christi?
We might feel as if we, being such a small parish,
are a bit like that servant
who was given but a single talent.
We have limited resources,
so perhaps it would be wisest
to focus on preserving what we have
and not to risk new ventures.
But this is the path of fear,
not the path of love;
this is not the path of resurrection,
which is the path of risk.
Not to put too fine a point on it,
but if Jesus is right, and he usually is,
we will lose everything if we seek only to maintain,
if we fearfully bury out talent in the earth
rather than thinking of new ways
of living our Christian life together
and proclaiming the Gospel
in our neighborhood and city.
With our new small Christian communities
and outreach to immigrant children
we are beginning to do this,
but we must always be looking for new risks to take.

If God is truly the one revealed
in the cross and resurrection of Jesus,
what risks can we undertake
for the sake of God’s kingdom?
We must always be asking ourselves what new thing
the God who desires nothing more
than that we share his joy
is calling us to do,
is calling us to be.
I believe that we are being called to be,
by God’s grace, true to our name:
Corpus Christi, the body of Christ;
by God’s grace we can be the body
that opened itself in love on the cross
and was raised by God to new life
to bring life and faith and healing to the world.
As the parent of teenagers,
I never thought I'd utter these words,
but get out there and engage in risky behavior.