A Value Far Beyond Pearls – Homily for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
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Description
As the church year begins to wind down over the next two weeks, many of the the Scripture readings are about the end of time, when Jesus will come again. So today’s first reading may seem out of place. In the cycle of readings for Sunday, the first reading is paired with the gospel. But today’s reading from Proverbs about the worthy wife seems a bit disconnected from the gospel. Why are these two readings paired together today? Since the gospel seems to fit this time of year more appropriately, we’ll start with that and work backwards to the first reading. In the gospel Jesus tells a parable about a man who goes on a journey. Before he leaves he entrusts enormous amounts of money to his servants. The word talent that’s used is roughly equivalent to a person’s entire earnings over a lifetime. So to one servant the man gives 5 lifetimes of salary, to another he gives 2 lifetimes, and to a third he gives 1 lifetime. Jesus is using exaggeration here– these are ridiculous amounts of money. In fact, these are the man’s entire possessions. The gospel tells us the man entrusted his possessions to them. That’s a lot of trust to place in these servants, and that trust comes with two expectations. The first expectation is that he is coming back, he will return. And the second expectation is that expects his capital to be greater than it was when he left. While he’s gone, he expects his money to be growing. By placing this reading towards the end of the liturgical year, the Church reminds us that Jesus is the man who has gone on the journey. Jesus has ascended into heaven, and someday he is coming back. And if Jesus is the man who has gone on the journey, then we are the servants to whom he has entrusted an enormous treasure. What is this treasure? We have been entrusted with life, existence, our very being. We’ve also been entrusted with freedom, intellect, imagination, compassion, creativity, speech, all the qualities that make up human life. These are tremendous gifts, invaluable possessions. They enable us to run businesses, to cure diseases, to write novels, to score touchdowns, to perform concerts, to put a man on the moon. And as valuable and precious as those gifts are, we’ve been entrusted with even more. Through our baptism God has entrusted us with faith, with the Good News, and with the gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, fear of the Lord. Each of us, at our baptisms, received these gifts, gifts which were strengthened at confirmation. They enable us to know God more intimately, to spread the Good News, to comfort the sorrowing. They give us strength to care for the poor, understanding to hand on the faith. The gifts we have from God enable us to do all these things and more, but only if we do the work. We always have the freedom to not do them. We can choose to be like the third servant who buries the money, or we can be like the industrious servants. We can be like a worthy wife. This is where today’s first reading from Proverbs complements and sheds light on the gospel; and through the gospel we come to better understand the first reading. In the gospel the master entrusts his possessions to his servants, and in the first reading,
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