19th Week in Ordinary Time Year C

Wisdom 18:6-9 

Psalm 33:1, 12, 18-19, 20-22 

Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19 or 11:1-2, 8-12 

Luke 12:32-48

Today’s Gospel may surprise those faithful who are used to relating such a message with the end of the liturgical year or the beginning of the Advent season. It is true that warnings to be watchful for the return of the Master are regularly connected with the so-called Eschatological Sermon of Mark 13 or Matthew 24-25. As a matter of fact, the Alleluia verse comes from Matthew 24: “Stay awake and be ready! For you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”  

While Luke’s Gospel repeats some of that content in a similar location (Chapter 21), today’s passage appears in the section of his gospel titled by the New American Bible Revised Edition as “The Journey to Jerusalem: Luke’s Travel Narrative” (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/9), which is what we are reading now in the Sunday Liturgy. The distinctiveness of this section in Luke’s Gospel can be appreciated by a simple comparison. While Mark dedicates one chapter to Jesus’ travel from Galilee to Jerusalem and Matthew dedicates two, Luke uses 10ten for the same trip. 

We may find the clue to understanding why so much attention is given by the third evangelist if we turn to the second volume of his work, the book of the Acts of the Apostles. Here, the term “the Way” is used to designate the Christian community itself or perhaps better the mode of life followed by them, what is otherwise called the gospel. Luke’s travel narrative is focused mostly on Jesus’ teachings to his disciples, a privy teaching. 

The scene portrayed in the Gospel passage is not difficult to picture even in our own times. But the passage contains expressions that are unique to Christian believers. First of all, when Jesus makes a concrete application of the story, He says, “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” The “Son of Man” title is virtually unique to Jesus throughout the Gospels. Jesus uses it in the Last Supper (see Luke 22:22) and also to answer the High Priest’s questioning (see Mark 14:62). 

Then the reference to the reward given to the faithful steward is absolutely stunning! Jesus says, “(the Master) will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.” This was not only unheard of but absolutely unthinkable in Jesus’ times. The unmistakable reference for such a reward is the eternal banquet. 

The teaching of Jesus’ parable boils down to one essential thing, to know the necessity to be always ready to open immediately to the master. (Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me.”) 

What makes it possible to have such a disposition? Faith. This is what the first reading from the book of Wisdom highlights in reference to the night of the Jewish Passover in Egypt, the “sure knowledge of the oaths in which they put their faith.” It is what the second reading stresses in reference to the heroic patriarchs of Israel.  

And it is what still makes the difference in the outlook we Christians possess. Javier Cercas, a well-known Spaniard writer and self-declared agnostic, has recently published a book in which he chronicles the trip of Pope Francis to Mongolia. He describes his work as what “an insane (Spanish ‘loco’) without God” (himself) sees in the life of “God’s insane ones” (the missionaries). He declares that he accepted the challenge as soon as he was offered it because he thought of his mother, a firm believer who said as soon as her husband died that she would see him again after death. This is, he asserts, the heart of Christianity itself, faith in the resurrection of the flesh and eternal life, namely faith in the encounter with the Master. 

Hebrews 11:1, the opening verse of the second reading, provides the best biblical definition of faith: “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” At the core of this expression, there is a Greek term, here translated as “things,” whose meaning is powerful. The term is prágmata. When we want to describe somebody who is very down to earth, we say “he is a practical man.” They are typically grounded, realistic, and focused on achieving tangible outcomes rather than theoretical or idealistic pursuits. The term prágmata has that connotation. Faith simply accepts it and then guides our lives, because the Lord said, “where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”