Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, August 6, 2022

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, C, Vigil
August 6, 2022

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday when he will tell us the incredible gift God the Father wants to give us and what we need to do to obtain that gift. But then he will make plain to us the practical choices we need to make to seize that blessing and the whole Gospel hinges on whether we will be faithful and prudent stewards who do so or unfaithful and imprudent ones who don’t. Let’s enter into this dramatic conversation.
• Everything begins with Jesus’ extraordinary words, “Your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom!” He wants to give us his Kingdom, in this world and forever. Doing so, Jesus says, would give the Father great joy. He tells us, therefore, “Don’t be afraid any longer.” Sometimes we are afraid of God, we are afraid of displeasing him, we are afraid of our weaknesses and our capacity to choose against God, others and ourselves, we are afraid of the eternal consequences of our sinful choices. But Jesus encourages us not to be afraid, because his Father is delighted to give it all to us, shown in his sending his Son into the world to announce to us that the Kingdom is at hand, to teach us how to enter it, and, at great personal cost, to lead us there.
• Jesus wants us to be as happy about receiving that kingdom as God the Father is to give it. That’s why he tells us that we need to let go of a desire to build our own material kingdom here on earth and use everything we have to obtain God’s kingdom. “Sell your belongings and give alms,” he says. “Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy.” The way to seize the kingdom is through Christ-like charity, to use the money we have, the time we have, the goods we have, to lift others up. To love in this way is like transferring all we have to a celestial bank account that can never be taxed, where it will form an “inexhaustible treasure” that will never cease giving dividends. But Jesus wants us to make a choice as to whether we are going to build up this heavenly treasure or, like the fool in last Sunday’s Gospel, whether we will seek to build up towers for our grain and wealth here on earth. “For where your treasure is,” Jesus tells us, “there also will your heart be.” Is our heart really in God, in his kingdom and in his eternally secure treasure? Or is it this fleeting world?
• If our heart is really in God, Jesus next tells us how to prove it. He tells us, “Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.” He wants us to be vigilant, alert, hungry for him, to light our lamps like the wise virgins Jesus described in a parable in St. Matthew’s Gospel, ready always for his return, to gird our loins like the Jews in the desert, ready to run out to meet and embrace him. A little later in the parable, he drives home the point with two other images. One is of a security guard. “Be sure of this,” he says. “If the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.” Jesus wants us to be as alert to his joyful arrival as a shepherd is for the advance of wolves who want to attack his flock, or a father is to protect the family members and property in his house. The second image is of a steward. “Who, then,” Jesus states, “is the faithful and prudent steward who the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute the food allowance at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds already doing so.” Jesus wants us to be faithful, prudent and distributing what he has put at our disposal for the care of others. Notice the tense of the verbs Jesus employs: he will put in charge the one he finds already doing so voluntarily. He doesn’t want us to wait for an official appointment; he wants us caring for others now. That’s what it means to be faithful. That’s what it means to be prudent. That’s what good stewardship means. He adds, in words that could apply to both images, “And should he come in the second or third watch and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants.” The Jewish night was broken down into four watches or four three-hour periods: 6-9 pm, 9 to midnight, midnight to 3 am and 3-6 am. Jesus is communicating that if he finds us vigilant for him with the lamp of our heart burning, loins girt ready to greet him, and generously sharing his blessings, even at night when we and others are tired, even when most others aren’t even watching, how much more blessed we’ll be, because we’ll really be showing that charity is not some quid pro quo because we have to or are looking for a reward, but has become so much a part of our nature that we do it even when we’re exhausted.
• But that’s not the only response Jesus describes. There are those who don’t light their lamps. There are those who not only don’t gird their loins but take off their sandals. There are those who don’t distribute God’s blessings to others, but who, instead, thinking he’s long delayed, begin to “eat, drink and get drunk” and beat and abuse others. These are the unfaithful and imprudent stewards, these are the co-conspirators of the thieves, these are the ones who will be, Jesus says, with images I don’t think I need to interpret, “beaten severely” and assigned a place with the unfaithful. It’s a sad possibility of human freedom that people to whom God wants to give the kingdom can respond to his offer in such a way. It begins by placing our heart not in God and eternal treasure, but in the pleasures of this life and things of the world. That leads to the corruption of our heart, such that it’s drowsy rather than vigilant, lazy rather than prompt, drunk rather than sober, evil rather than generous, stupid rather than smart, and unfaithful rather than true. Which set of adjectives and actions best describe us? What about in the second or third watch of the night? Is our heart really in God or elsewhere? Are we already doing what he asks us, or do we wait until he or others seem to start paying attention?
• There are two objections that come up in the conversation. The first is from St. Peter, who queries, “Lord, is this parable for us or for everyone?” The question implies that he thought that the apostles might be exempt from what Jesus was teaching. Often we can listen to Jesus’ words and immediately apply them to others, rather than to ourselves. In priestly work, I’m often approached by people who ask me to preach or write an article about x or y, not because they need help in that particular area, but because they think a family member, or a friend, or someone at whom they’re wagging a finger needs to hear it. But all of Sacred Scripture applies to each of us. Perhaps some passages are more obviously relevant to some disciples rather than others, but none of us is exempt. Every parable is meant for us and for everyone, including what Jesus is communicating to us this weekend. Those of us who, like the apostles, may be more known for following Jesus, striving to live by his teachings and spreading love of him, rather than being exempt are called to be examples.
• That leads us to the second objection. We might think that even though we are not exempt, there are others who need to listen to Jesus’ words more carefully and follow them more assiduously. In terms of being faithful and prudent stewards, for example, we may think that it applies more toward bishops, priests, and religious, teachers, business owners and parents. In terms of being vigilant for the master’s arrival, we might think that it really focuses on those who are advanced in years or facing a life-threatening diagnosis. In terms of converting from placing their treasure in things that thieves can pilfer and moths destroy, we might deem that those words pertain far more to those far richer than we are. But Jesus at the end of this Sunday’s passage says, not, “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and little will be demanded of the person entrusted with little,” but rather, “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.” The point is that we’ve all been entrusted with lavish gifts, filled to overflowing. Others may have more than we think we have, but each of us has still been blessed with a great deal. Others may be multibillionaires, but we’re still millionaires. And God wants us to spend what he’s given us! Much is demanded of us. He wants us to use everything we have, not to eat, drink and get drunk, not for our own aggrandizement, but to make money bags containing an inexhaustible treasure that will not wear out. He has given us the resources, the time and the trust that we need. Rather than making excuses or thinking ourselves somehow exempt, he wants us to purify our hearts, light our lamps, gird our loins, and distribute his blessings.
• If we do so, Jesus promises an extraordinary reward. He guarantees he will “gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.” That is what he did for the apostles during the Last Supper as he fed them with his own body and blood, and that’s what he promises to do for us at the eternal wedding banquet. God the Father indeed is pleased to give us the kingdom and he shows it by giving us the King of Kings as our food even here on earth. Let us lift up our hearts to the Lord and place our treasure where our hearts are. May this Sunday’s celebration of the Eucharist increase our faith in God’s promises and our desire to be his prudent and faithful stewards, so that we may come through a life of vigilant, prompt charity to their eternal fulfillment in heaven.

The Gospel on which the homily was based was: 

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