My brothers and sisters in Christ only our Lord Jesus can tell parables.
Why is that? Why can only our Lord tell parables? Well parables are about
the way things are in heaven. Parables are about the way things are with
the kingdom of God. Our Lord Jesus can tell parables concerning God because
He alone is God. And we pay close attention to the parables because in
them our Lord Jesus encourages us, or teaches us, or warns us.
In the parable of the three servants which the Church gives us today,
this is a parable of warning, our Lord Jesus is warning us, and because
He warns us in love, we listen closely to the warning that comes from our
Lord.
Our Lord tells us: "Your Father in heaven has showered upon you His
love, His blessings, His graces. He has filled your life with His blessings.
Like a master giving his servants thousands of silver pieces. But your
life will come to an end, and you will have to stand before me in judgment,
and then the Father will ask you: "What return have you made on My investment?
What do you bring before Me as a return to all of the graces I have given
you."
I get ahead of myself actually here. Let me talk about the parable
first.
Once upon a time a man went off on a long journey and he called in three
of his trusted servants, and he gave them five thousand, and two thousand
and one thousand silver pieces. And the amount that the master gave them
was based on their talents and upon their abilities so that no one was
burdened with more than he could handle. With each servant though, the
amount of money given was very large. The master went away for a long time,
while he was away two of his servants worked very hard to earn more for
their master. They know that the master expected a return on his investment,
and so they worked very, very hard to please him. Why? Why do they work
so hard? Well, the answer is a very simple one: They loved him, they love
the master, and that love made them work hard. Their love strengthen them
to work hard, not for their own interest but to make happy the master whom
they are pleased to serve.
At last the master returns, he called the servants before him to account
for their hard work; and he praises them for all that they return on the
master’s investment, they have proved themselves worthy of the master’s
love and trust, and so he rewards them lavishly. "You were dependable in
a small matter, come, come, share your master’s joy."
The meaning of the parable is quite clear, the servants are you and
I. The silver pieces are the gifts and graces that God has entrusted to
us, not given to us, entrusted to us in order to yield a return of souls
for God; our intelligence, our talents, our ability to love, our ability
to make others happy, our material goods, are all the gifts that the master,
our Father in heaven has entrusted to our care. God, like the master, expects
a return for His investment. The journey of the master symbolizes the length
of our lives. His unexpected return is the hour of our death. The settlement
of accounts is our judgment, and the joy of the banquet, well of course
that is heaven.
I’ve talked about the first two servants of course there is a third
one, what about him? This is a parable of warning and judgment, and so
when we hear about the third judgment, the third servant, there is a sense
of unsettleness in our hearts, and well there should be because here is
our Lord’s warning to us.
This servant makes us uneasy, and he should. The last servant does
absolutely nothing with the money that the master has invested in him.
He buries the master’s money and does nothing until the day of his return.
Then he gives the thousand silver pieces back, albeit I’m sure very tarnished
and dusty by then. And he says to the master: "I know you to be a hard
man, I was afraid, and so I hid the silver pieces. Here is your money back."
What is the third servant’s excuse for doing nothing ? What is the excuse
that he gives? Actually we know the excuse very well, it’s a golden oldie
and we all use it: "I was afraid and so I did nothing." How does the master
respond to the servant’s excuse that he is afraid? The master does not
say: "My poor afraid servant don’t worry, all is well." He cries out: "You
worthless lazy lout!" And that is our Lord’s warning to us because those
words are directed to every one of us. The master’s answer to the third
servant is a warning that Jesus gives to us out of love. God has given
us so much and we are constantly saying to the Lord if we are not careful:
"I was afraid and so I did nothing." We don’t tell the truth to another
person whose soul is endangered because of sin and we are afraid to hurt
their feelings, which really means that we are afraid to be unpopular...
we do nothing. We take the wide road instead of the narrow path of heroism
which God calls us to take. We squander our days with nonsense instead
of earning a return on our master’s investments. We watch TV hour after
hour after hour, day after day, and let it deaden our soul, and yet we
are never in church kneeling before the God who has made us in the adoration
chapel before the tabernacle in adoration and love of God.
The master’s answer is a warning to us. He calls him lazy, he is worthless;
not as a person but because he has not brought a return on the master’s
investments. God’s clear sightedness wipes away the servant’s excuse. God
sees things clearly. What is wrong is not fear but laziness, and laziness
brings from lack of love. The first two servants love the master. What
is the third servant’s judgment of the master? He had a chance to know
him just as well as the first two. Does he love him? His judgment is: "I
knew you to be a hard man." There is not much love there.
Without love there is laziness in responding to God’s wishes. Without
love there is no desire to please; without love there is no desire to serve
God. The problem with us is not one of fear but lack of love which makes
us absentminded to the desires of the Master who has made us. What is the
result of this lack of love? Our Lord’s warning becomes very strong here,
the master cast the third servant out into the darkness where he wails
and grinds his teeth because he has lost everything.
Because Jesus our Lord loves us so much He warns us with parable and
He says: "I have given you so much, and I expect a return. Fear must not
be an excuse because I expect you to love Me and to serve Me and bring
souls to Me by your prayers and works and good example." Our lives are
so short, the time for returning the master’s investment is not long, and
so we redouble our efforts. Not our efforts to earn our way into heaven
because we can’t do that. Heaven is a gift given us through the blood of
Christ Jesus on the cross and renewed today in the Holy Mass. No, we redouble
our efforts to love God, to serve Him with our deeds, to speak the truth
to our families, and workers and neighbors.
The darkness of no faith, the darkness of disbelief is spreading over
our country more and more. You can feel it, can’t you? And so our Lord
says to us: "At this critical time I have invested in you and I expect
a return." When we stand before God at the hour of our death, what will
we have in our hands of lasting value that we bring before the Lord for
His loving investment that He makes in us?
