24th October >> Fr. Martin's Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Luke 12:35-38 for Tuesday, Twenty Ninth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘Have your lamps lit’. (2024)

24th October >> Fr. Martin's Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Luke 12:35-38 for Tuesday, Twenty Ninth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘Have your lamps lit’.

Tuesday, Twenty Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Luke 12:35-38Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit.

Jesus said to his disciples:‘See that you are dressed for action and have your lamps lit. Be like men waiting for their master to return from the wedding feast, ready to open the door as soon as he comes and knocks. Happy those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. I tell you solemnly, he will put on an apron, sit them down at table and wait on them. It may be in the second watch he comes, or in the third, but happy those servants if he finds them ready.’

Gospel (USA)Luke 12:35-38Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.

Reflections (7)

(i) Tuesday, Twenty Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

The image of ‘the knock on the door’ tends to have a negative meaning in our culture. The knock on the door is more often than not something to fear and be in dread of. In certain parts of the world, the knock on their door can spell great danger and even death. However, in today’s gospel reading, the knock on the door suggests a benign presence. According to Jesus’ image, when the master of a house returns from a wedding feast, knocks on the door, and finds that his servants are there to welcome him, he shows his appreciation by behaving as a servant to them. He sits them down at table, puts on an apron and serves them. This is an image of a master that goes beyond anything that would have been experienced in reality in that culture. Jesus is really speaking about himself here. He is declaring that if he finds us waiting for him when he comes to us at the end of our lives, he will serve us in ways that will surprise us. He will show himself to be the Son of Man who came not to be served but to serve. The Lord also stands ready to serve us here and now. He is among us now as one who serves and he will serve us in a way that is beyond imagining beyond this earthly life. What Jesus calls for in the gospel reading is a readiness on our part to welcome his service. He calls on us to be alert to his serving presence, ‘dressed for action’ with our ‘lamps lit’, as he says. We are to let our light shine, by actively living out our relationship with him, showing ourselves to be his servants by relating to others in love as he relates to us in love. If we daily show ourselves to be his servants in this way, then we will receive from him a much greater service than we could ever give him.

And/Or

(ii) Tuesday, Twenty Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

The little parable in this morning’s gospel reading has an unusual image in it. On his return from a wedding feast, the master of the house finds his servants ready to receive him. In response, he sits his servants down at table and, putting on an apron, he serves them. The image of a master serving his servants would have seemed completely incongruous to Jesus’ contemporaries. It simply wasn’t done. Yet, as Isaiah the prophet had said many hundreds of years earlier, ‘God’s ways are not our ways’. Jesus is the one who gives expression to God’s ways, in what he says and what he does. Jesus is declaring that if we remain faithful, if we keep the flame of faith alive in our hearts, then he will serve us in ways that will surprise us. The servants in the parable did not forget their master simply because he was away for a time. They kept him in mind; they were as mindful of him as if he were physically present. In return they experienced his unconventional generosity. If we keep the Lord in mind in all we say and do, even during those times when he seems remote from us, we too will know his loving service.

And/Or

(iii) Tuesday, Twenty Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus often draws on his experience of the world around him in presenting his teaching. He refers to incidents and happenings that would have been very familiar to people. In doing so, however, he very often speaks about these very ordinary experiences in ways that surprise or even shock people. Everyone was familiar with the dangers of the road from Jerusalem to Jericho; a Jewish man falling foul of robbers and being left half dead by them was not all that uncommon. However, the notion that a priest and Levite would walk past this unfortunate victim while one of the hated Samaritans looked after him was really shocking. Everyone was familiar with wealthy households where there were several servants. If the master of the household went on a business journey he would often put the most trusted servants in charge. However, the notion that when the master returned he would sit the faithful servants down and behave as a servant towards them would have been truly shocking. This is the image that we find in this morning’s gospel reading. Jesus is portraying a world here that has something in common with the world that most people were familiar with but that was also completely at odds with that world. Jesus was portraying God’s world, how God relates to us, how Jesus, as God’s representative, relates to us. He came not to be served but to serve; he stands ready to serve us, now and at the end of our earthly journey. What he asks of us is that we would be his faithful servants in our ordinary daily tasks. If we are, he will serve us in ways that far exceed how we serve him.

And/Or

(iv) Tuesday, Twenty Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

In the gospels Jesus is often presented as doing something that is completely at odds with the prevailing culture. A very clear example of that is to be found in John’s gospel when at the last supper Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. The Word who was God and who became flesh performs a task that only slaves would be expected to do, washing other’s feet. In this morning’s gospel reading from Luke, Jesus uses an image which would have been just as shocking. It is the image of a rich man who on returning from a wedding feast shows his appreciation for his faithful servants by sitting them down at table and waiting on them. This is the kind of role reversal that would never have happened in real life. Yet, Jesus seems to be saying that life in the kingdom of God is not like real life. As Jesus will say a little later in Luke’s gospel, ‘I am among you as one who serves’, not as one who sits at table. He has come to reveal the hospitality of God, to invite people to his table where they can have an experience of God’s welcoming and hospitable love, and through that experience allow themselves to be transformed. The Lord does call us to be his faithful servants, faithful to the end, awake and alert to the Lord’s coming whenever that happens. More fundamentally, the Lord calls on us to receive his service of us. It is in learning to receive his service of us that we are empowered to become his faithful servants in today’s world.

And/Or

(v) Tuesday, Twenty Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

The gospel reading this morning calls on us to be alert to the Lord’s coming and his presence. It is a call to be faithful, to be found attentive to the Lord, whenever the Lord comes and knocks. We think of the Lord coming at the end of our lives, but there is a sense in which the Lord comes and knocks on the door of our lives every day. In the book of Revelation the risen Lord says, ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock’. The Lord comes to us in and through the people and events that make up our day. If we are attentive and alert to the Lord’s daily coming, we will be alert to his coming to us at the end of our lives. There is an extraordinary reversal of roles in the gospel reading. The Lord who finds his servants faithfully watching and waiting becomes their servant, putting an apron on himself, sitting his servants down at table, and waiting on them. It would have been unheard of in that culture for a master to behave like a servant towards his servants, treating them effectively as if they were the master. Jesus is saying to us that if we are faithful to him, if we are attentive to the various ways that he comes and knocks on the door of our lives, he will serve us in ways that will amaze us. In giving to the Lord, we will receive from him in abundance.

And/Or

(vi) Tuesday, Twenty Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

In the parable that Jesus speaks in today’s gospel reading, we have the very unusual image of the master of a household putting on an apron, sitting his slaves down at table and then waiting on them. The kind of picture Jesus was painting there had no place in the culture in which he and his disciples lived. Yet, the picture in the parable that Jesus speaks there does put us in mind of the scene in John’s gospel where Jesus puts a towel around himself and washes the feet of his disciples. The Lord, it seems, wants to serve us; the Lord wants to be our servant. Normally, the role of Lord and the role of servant are at opposite ends of a spectrum, but in Jesus they are combined. In the parable Jesus tells in today’s gospel reading, the master’s service is in response to his servants’ faithfulness and vigilance. The Lord who serves us looks to us to be faithful and vigilant, so that we are ready to open the door as soon as he comes and knocks. We are reminded of that saying of the risen Lord in the Book of Revelation, ‘behold, I stand at the door and knock’. The Lord is always knocking at the door of our lives; he comes and knocks every day. If we respond to his daily coming, today’s gospel reading assures us that he will be our servant in ways that will surprise us.

And/Or

(vii) Tuesday, Twenty Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

The parable of the servants faithfully waiting for their master to return from the wedding feast and ready to open the door to him as soon as he comes and knocks is an image of the Christian life. In many ways our life as followers of the Lord is about being alert to the various ways that the Lord comes knocking on the door of our lives. In the words of the book of Revelation, the Lord stands at the door and knocks. Every day we are we hear his call, his knock in a whole variety of ways, and we are prompted to respond with lamps lit, ready for action. The Lord is constantly taking some initiative towards us. In the parable that Jesus speaks, the disciples who open the door to their master discover that, in an extraordinary reversal of roles, they are served by him. The Lord seems to be saying to us that whenever we respond to the Lord’s call, whenever we open the door to him, we will discover that we will always receive from him far more than we give to him. Our alertness to him allows him to show us extraordinary hospitality.

24th October >> Fr. Martin's Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Luke 12:35-38 for Tuesday, Twenty Ninth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘Have your lamps lit’. (2024)