25 Aug, Thursday of Week 21

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1 Thess 3:7ff. Paul is consoled by the faith of the Thessalonians and prays for them until the coming of Our Lord.

Matt 24:42ff. The faithful, farsighted servant always awaits his master who may come by surprise.

Honest Stewardship

The local Pauline churches were eager for the glorious second coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle prays, “may he strengthen your hearts… at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” Similarly in the greeting for the first letter to the Corinthians he prays that they be “blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus.” The gospel develops the theme of the opening words, “Stay awake, therefore. You cannot know the day your Lord is coming.”

We are to be alert and prepared, but not to the extent of some who quit their jobs so as to give full time to prayers and vigilance. Paul handled that crisis briskly. He wrote, as we read yesterday, “Anyone who wil not work should not eat.” And in today’s reading he is not tempted to ignore other problems and questions just because of the second coming. He prays to see them again “and remedy any shortcomings in your faith.”

Jesus calls for good stewards who treat others in the household with love and respect, eat and drink temperately, and always alert. Such is “the faithful, far-sighted servant.” But if the Scriptures do not tolerate sleepy dreamers, neither are we to become mere busy-bodies, masters of trivia, activists with no time for contemplation, strategists with no moral principles, manipulators without mercy or personal concern. We are asked to judge everything in light of the Lord’s return “like a thief in the night.” Today’s texts ask us to be practical and diligent; to be men and women of vision and moral perspective; most of all to be prayerful and personally aware of the presence of our Lord Jesus.

First Reading. 1Thess 3:7-13

For this reason, brothers and sisters, during all our distress and persecution we have been encouraged about you through your faith. For we now live, if you continue to stand firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.

Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Gospel: Matthew 24:42-51

Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

“Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves their allowance of food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possession. But if that wicked slave says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and he begins to beat his fellow slaves, and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know. He will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
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