09 Aug Friday

Everyone likes an orderly home, just not the effort and work that it takes to keep it that way. Owning a home is a huge investment, not just of money, but of time and constant attention. The list of “honey-do’s” is endless, and something is always falling apart. Care, stewardship, time.

When the master returns from the wedding, he is so happy to find his house in order that he serves his own servants. One can imagine here a late night scene when the master arrives; he is sated with food and wine. The temptation would be to head for the bed. He does the unexpected, and Luke uses this motif in his gospel of reversal of the normal way of things.

The master of the house is of course the Lord. dHe has two concerns: that things are in order and that the house has been kept safe from intruders, the thief, who is of course the devil. The house is the church.

Notice in the explanation Jesus gives, that the wicked servant deploys the same logic of eat, drink, and be merry, that we saw in the previous Sunday’s gospel in the rich man, building bigger barns.

A golden thread that runs through these sayings of Jesus is the word “faith” and its related words. This is one of the valuable qualities of the good servant, as for Abraham in the second reading, and as for th ancestors in the first reading book of wisdom.