Whom the Master finds vigilant...

These few phrases from the Gospel reading for last Sunday are packed with meaning. The full reading has all this and a lot more. The reading has several lessons. Let’s look at just one.

“Gird your loins…be like servants who await their master’s return … ready …when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.”

We don’t wear the same clothing as people did in a mid-eastern desert two thousand years ago. So, we may have to work hard figuring out what Jesus wants us to do. Let’s try. He told them to be dressed for the occasion and be ready to react to something unexpected. In twenty-first century terms it would be something like this: Get up; get dressed; go to work; be ready when the boss comes in, because he’ll be very happy to see you like that. And he will reward you for it.

Notice, too, that His words would have reminded the people of  the instructions for preparing the Passover meal and leaving their slavery in Egypt. A coincidence?

He’s telling us that we need to be ready on short notice, or maybe no notice, to do His holy will. That need could come in any form or at any time of the day or night.

Vacations are nice; a good night’s sleep is nice; a nap is nice. How do we react when we’re just about to sit down for the evening, and we suddenly discover one more household chore that still has to be done? When someone calls us and asks for help? When the request for help interrupts our TV show, our movie, or our music? When we have to change our vacation plans because of a death in the extended family?

The name for this virtue is VIGILANCE. The opposite vice is complacency. Jesus is warning us not give in to the temptations of that vice. Relaxing isn’t sinful; complacency might be.

When I was a little boy, I learned that this parable was all about being ready to face the “Judgement Seat of God” at the time of my death. Also, I learned that death could come at any second, when the nasty Soviet/Russian Communists dropped their atom bomb directly on out little Catholic school. We practiced for that. When the siren sounded, we huddled under our schoolroom desks, face down, hands over our eyes, not looking up toward the windows. We said the Act of Contrition. We hoped and prayed that our contrition was perfect. Then we started to pray the Rosary and continued until the siren sounded again: ALL CLEAR. “Go back to what you were doing.”

There was a moral truth in that lesson sixty-plus years ago; there’s still truth in it now. Is that the only lesson available? Is there some other meaning? Of course there is!

That lesson was good enough to scare the ten-year-old and make him promise to be good all the time. It was good enough for him then, not good enough for the seventy-plus year old now. He needs a deeper, broader and more mature understanding of other possible meanings in the words of the Incarnate WORD.

Did we just reveal one?

Let’s Pray.

Jesus, I know that some day I will face Your judgement. I also know that You are not waiting to spring the trap and catch me. In your mercy, You really want me to be with You forever. You want me to be ready to serve You by serving Your holy people here on earth so I can be among those blessed servants whom the Master finds vigilant.

Jesus, I live in Hope, because I have faith in Your mercy.