Wednesday of Week 33 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 19:11-28

Immediately following the story of the tax collector Zacchaeus comes a parable about the use of what God has given to us. Jesus and his disciples are near Jerusalem where:

…they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.

How right they were! It was indeed going to appear in Jerusalem, but not at all in the way they expected—with the political and military defeats of enemies. As the beginning of Acts reveals, they “were hoping” that Jesus was about to restore the political kingdom of Israel. In time, they would learn that a kingdom of far greater significance was coming into being and that they would play an important part in its inauguration.

The parable which follows differs significantly from a similar one of the talents in Matthew (25:14-30). In Luke, too, there may be two parables fused into one—that of the coins and that of a disputed claimant to a royal throne (symbolising Jesus himself).

Jesus begins the parable by saying that a man of noble birth went to a far country to have himself appointed king and then return. This may have reminded his hearers of Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great, who went to Rome in the year 4 BC to get himself appointed king. On his return, he succeeded his father. It may seem a rather unusual procedure, but the Herods used to go to Rome in order to get appointed as rulers over the Jews.

Similarly, Jesus is soon to depart and in the future will return as King. During his absence, his servants are entrusted with their master’s affairs.

In the parable, the king, before leaving, gives ten units of money to each of ten servants and tells them to invest the money until his return. The coins are called ‘pounds’ (or minas in some translations) and were each worth about 100 drachmas, where a drachma was the equivalent of one day’s wages. Each coin then was the equivalent of about three months’ wages. This is a much smaller sum than those in Matthew’s parable. The other difference is that there are ten people and each one gets the same amount. Recall that in Matthew’s parable there are three people who get respectively 10, 5 and 1 talents.

In the parable, we are told that the people despised this man and did not want him as their king. In fact, a Jewish delegation had gone to Rome protesting at the idea of Archelaus becoming king. In the same way, Jesus was soon to go away and return some day as King and Judge. While he is ‘away’, his ‘servants’ will be entrusted to take care of their Master’s affairs. But others will reject him completely.

When he returned, the new king asked each of his servants to give an account of their trading, just as Jesus will do at the Judgement. One had made another ten pounds on his capital of ten, and he was rewarded by being put in charge of ten towns. Another had made five, and was rewarded with five towns. But a third came along with just the capital he had been given (i.e. the original ten pounds). He had not traded the money for fear of losing it, but kept it in a safe place. He was afraid of the king, of whom he said:

…you take what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow.

The king became angry. He did not dispute his ruthlessness, but he said that the man could at least have lent the money and gotten some interest. He ordered the ten units be taken from him and given to the one who had already made ten—this man was obviously good at business. The lesson of the parable is then spelt out by Jesus:

I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.

The last sentence of the parable, in a way, describes a third set of people in the story. The first set consists of those who used their coin well and profitably. The second is the one who kept his ten coins and carefully guarded them. But finally, there are those who did not want this man as king and these are executed:

But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to rule over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.

They are the greatest losers of all, and it probably points to those Jews who rejected Jesus as King and had their city destroyed, referring to the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD. The punishment of those who rebelled and actively opposed the king was much more severe than that of the over-cautious servant.

The context of the whole parable is emphasised by the last sentence of today’s reading:

After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

We are coming near the end of our story and the climax to which it is headed.

The parable points to all those who are being called by Christ. It is the final part of one large unit (Luke 18:18—19:28) which includes the story of a rich man with good intentions, but not able to respond to Jesus’ call; a prediction of Jesus’ passion not understood by the disciples; the story of a blind man who, after having his vision restored, becomes a follower of Christ; the story of another rich man who was willing generously to share his wealth with the poor; and ending with the parable of the proper use of what we have.

The first rich man claimed to follow the commandments (the Law), but wanted to keep his money safely in his own possession. He is like the man who buried his money and did not invest it in the love and service of his brothers and sisters, especially those in need. The other, Zacchaeus, generously shared his wealth with the poor. He had invested his money well—he had learned to see. Anyone who can really see where Jesus is has no alternative but to go his Way. Finally, there are those who totally reject Christ and all that he stands for. Their blindness is total.

Today we are asked to reflect on the special gifts that God has given to each one of us and how we are using them for the benefit of brothers and sisters in need. What are our attitudes to money, to property, to professional status, academic or other qualifications or other gifts with which we are endowed? Where do we invest our gifts and our talents, both inborn and acquired?

The message is clear: the more we invest, the more we will gain. We cannot stand still or just cling to what we have. The only way to gain is to let go, to give and to share. Good examples of this would be St Francis of Assisi or St Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa). It is an attitude very foreign to many people’s way of thinking, who feel that life consists of amassing more and more, that security is in having.

But the gospel way is really the only way that makes sense. It is not in collecting, but in sharing that generates wealth, the wealth that really matters—freedom, security and peace.

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Wednesday of Week 33 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on 2 Maccabees 7:1,20-31

Today’s reading is another story of fidelity under persecution. It is part of a famous story about the martyrdom of the Seven Maccabees, all brothers, together with their mother. They gave their lives one after the other rather than betray their Jewish faith by eating unclean food.

Having given the example of a venerable teacher of the Law (Eleazar, from yesterday’s reading), the author now gives that of a mother and her sons. We know that the persecution, in which exceptionally savage methods were adopted, did indeed extend to women and children. The story, therefore, has a historical basis, behind the literary elements, such as the speeches ascribed to the characters (a common literary device).

As the reading opens, we are told that seven brothers were arrested together with their mother. King Antiochus tried to force them to eat pork, forbidden by the Law, by torturing them by scourging with whips.

When one of the brothers, in the name of his siblings, stood up and told the king he was wasting his time and that they were prepared to die rather than violate the laws of their ancestors, the king became furious and prepared terrible instruments of torture for them. One by one, six of the brothers were subjected to the most excruciating and inhuman torture in the sight of their mother. As each one died, they had words of defiance for the king. All of this is omitted from our reading.

We pick up the reading again with just the mother and youngest son still alive. Through all the terrible experience of seeing her sons, one by one, subjected to torture and death, she maintained an extraordinary dignity “because of her hope in the Lord”. In fact, she was proud of her sons for their loyalty to God and their Jewish beliefs and their readiness to sacrifice their lives.

Speaking in “the language of their ancestors”—Aramaic—so that the king and the torturers would not understand, she actually encouraged her sons. The author puts a speech on her lips to express her thoughts and feelings. She said she did not know when her children appeared in her womb, nor was it she who gave them the breath of life nor was she the cause of their physical development. But she is confident that the same God will give them back the breath and life because, for the sake of God’s laws, they have had no concern for themselves.

As she spoke thus to her son, Antiochus, who could not understand what she was saying, thought she was speaking insulting words about him. With this last son, the king tried a different approach. He promised to make the boy rich and happy if only he would abandon the traditions of his ancestors. He would even make him a “Friend and entrust him with public affairs”. ‘Friend’ was a title of honour, a survival from the court of Persia and there were various grades. ‘Friends of the King’ had free access to the sovereign who from time to time assigned them certain tasks.

When the boy paid no attention to these tempting offers, the king turned to the mother to urge her to advise the young man to save his life. After the king had pressed her for a while in this manner, she finally agreed to persuade her son. She then quietly spoke to the boy in the language that only they could understand.

She begged her son to have compassion on her. She had looked after him lovingly from his earliest days in her womb and brought him up to the age he was now. She asked him to look at the world around him and consider how God had made everything out of nothing. This is, in fact, the first explicit allusion to creation ex nihilo (Latin, ‘out of nothing’) in the Old Testament. Namely, that God made all things solely by his omnipotent will and his creative word. In Genesis, the world is not so much created as formed from a pre-existing Chaos; order is brought into what had been pure disorder.

The mother then urges her youngest son not to be afraid of his executioner, but to prove himself as loyal as his brothers and accept death. Then “in God’s mercy”, she will receive all of them back again in the life that is to come.

The mother had hardly finished speaking, when the young man called out to Antiochus and the executioners:

What are you waiting for? I will not obey the king’s command, but I obey the command of the law that was given to our ancestors through Moses.

As for the king himself, he will not escape the hand of God for the terrible things he has done against the Hebrews.

Our reading stops at this point, but the son’s speech continues in the same vein for several verses. The king was enraged at the young man’s words, which he had not expected to hear. The outcome was that this last brother was subjected to even more cruel tortures, but remained loyal to his God to the end. And, after all seven brothers had been martyred, the mother too was executed.

The cult of the ‘Seven Maccabaean Brothers’ spread into Europe, where it clearly made a great impact in a church which had its own share of Christians dying painful deaths for the sake of Christ and the gospel. Several churches were dedicated in their honour, for instance, in Antioch, Rome, Lyons, and Vienna. Also, a composition known as the Passion of the Holy Maccabees became widely distributed and served as model for several Lives of Martyrs.

It is, on the face of it, a tragic and cruel story. But it is clearly meant to be an inspiration to all Jews to put their faith in their God above all other considerations, including their own lives, in times of oppression. It is a message which many Jews have followed and one also followed by thousands of Christians down the centuries, people who chose to be faithful to the call of Christ even at the cost of their own lives. And there have been some outstanding examples in recent times.

Each one of us needs to ask to what extent we have ever compromised our faith in order to cling to something of lesser value. What price are we ready to pay to see that the values of the gospel are upheld?

…therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. (Luke 14:33)

And these “possessions” may include our life. Am I ready for this?

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