Gird your loins and light your lamps
Jesus called his disciples to readiness, similar what the Lord commanded at the time of the Passover.
And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord's passover (see Exodus 12:11).
Just as those ancient Israel were to be ready for the angel to come in judgment against Egypt the disciples were to be prepared for the return of the "master", "the Son of Man". His coming too would be unpredictable, at an unexpected hour, like the coming of a thief. It could not be calculated in such a way that one could not allow himself to grow slack in zeal (see Romans 12:11) and then prepare all at once at the last minute. Only a life of sustained faithfulness would allow the servant to be ready.
and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding,
ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.
The wedding of heaven and earth, of God and man, has been consummated by the incarnation, cross, and resurrection of Jesus himself. We now await his return to usher his people into the fullness of the wedding banquet in heaven.
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready (see Revelation 19:7).
This is the blessed and joyful hope that we await. This is the final goal of destiny and the deepest hidden desire of our hearts. However, we do not see this reality with clarity during our mortal lives. Hence all of today's readings speak of the posture with which we should await it.
Blessed are those servants
whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.
We are called to a posture of faith, "is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen", the same sort of faith that made Abraham and the other Old Testament saints acceptable and well attested before God. For us this faith serves as a reminder that we are all servants of the master, that we have higher obligations than those that are only of this world. Such readiness precludes usurping the master's role and becoming thereby destructive in our use of the gifts we have been given or abusive in our discharge of positions of responsibility.
But if that servant says to himself,
‘My master is delayed in coming,’
and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants,
to eat and drink and get drunk,
then that servant’s master will come
on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour
and will punish the servant severely
and assign him a place with the unfaithful.
Faith reminds us that we have a master with plans that are ultimately better than our own plans. It is not merely fear that keeps our evil will in check, afraid that he might at any moment appear. It is rather a desire for what he promises, a readiness to open the door of the one who might at any moment come to begin the wedding feast.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me (see Revelation 3:20).
Faith keeps our desires fixed on "a better homeland, a heavenly one", recognizing that here below we are strangers and aliens. We are not permanent residents, but are rather on a pilgrimage through through the things of this life, things that are temporary and destined to pass away. Faith allows our hope to remain firm even when our trust is severely tested, just as it did for Abraham. The fact that "God was able to raise even from the dead" gives us a hope that outlasts any challenges this life can throw at us.
It is true that those in the clergy and other positions of authority have a special responsibility, since each of them is a "person entrusted with more". But notice that no one is entrusted with nothing. None get off the hook for having no responsibility to begin with. We have each been given gifts and spheres of influence with which we are meant to, in our own small way "distribute the food allowance at the proper time". And so we can't shrink from this challenge and expect clergy and religious to do it all. Even if our role is small and hidden behind the scenes it is nevertheless important, just as was the role of the holy children during the original Passover.
For in secret the holy children of the good were offering sacrifice
and putting into effect with one accord the divine institution.
We are called to faith. But how to respond? To us, faith is often a binary, either something we possess or lack. It may almost seem as if there is nothing we ourselves can do about it ourselves, to gain it or to grow in it. But Jesus offered this parable and others like it precisely because a posture of mental readiness was a real possibility that we could, by a gift of grace, choose to live out. Peter understood this, and would later write, "gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (see First Peter 1:13).
It is is worth it to have a posture of faith, for only this can make the truth of the words of psalmist become a reality to us even here and now, as we await the master's return: "Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own".
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