The 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time
The readings today sound strange to our ears. The perfect wife 'is always busy with wool and flax, she does her work with eager hands.' Wisdom is associated centrally with industry and concern for the poor. 'She holds out her hand to the poor, she opens her arms to the needy.' Wisdom is personified as the perfect wife.
In our second reading, Paul addresses a Christian community at Thessalonica. The Christians there were a small group of no more than 60 people and they believed that the 'Day of the Lord, or the end of the world was immanent. They had become so obsessed with the future that they were neglecting the present moment. But Paul is saying that this 'opting out' is not right. Faith that doesn't find expression in activity is useless. Though our liturgical passage ends abruptly with Paul's command to stay alert and sober, he goes on to tell his readers to "live together with [Jesus]... to encourage one another and build one another up...to be at peace among yourselves." Paul believes his readers should be concentrating on forming community instead of worrying about the "times and seasons" that will precede Jesus' triumphant arrival.
The parable as we have it here went through many stages of development in the young Church. The parable began as a simple story that Jesus told from human experience. The owner of an estate had to go on a long journey, so he left his money to three servants in trust, lest it remain idle during his absence. Two of them put it to wise use, made capital gains, and were commended by the master on his return. But a third servant carefully hoarded it and, on the master's return, gave him back the exact sum he had been entrusted with. Instead of commending the third servant for his caution, the master rebuked him and handed the money over to the most enterprising of the three servants.
The next generation of Christians take up that parable and they attach to it an additional interpretation. In the early community the parable was moralized by the addition of the maxim "To every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away."
The next group to take up the parable transform it into an allegory: the master was equated with Christ, his departure with the ascension, and his delayed return with the delay of the Parousia. The words "enter into the joy of your master" are inserted so that the reward becomes participation in the eternal banquet.
So many layers have been added since the original parable was told that it is difficult enough to excavate the original core of wisdom.
The most obvious thing to say is that Jesus was really rubbishing the law. The investment that he praised so highly and rewarded some handsomely was entirely forbidden by the Jewish law. When Jesus first told this story, he must have applied it to something quite concrete in his ministry. Perhaps he was condemning the Jewish religious authorities. They were like the third servant, so carefully obsessed with preserving the tradition that they went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid it. Jesus is here talking about faith: faith is not preserved through hoarding it; on the contrary, faith will only flourish if it is shared.