The following is an abridged version of a homily that I prepared for my preaching class. I hope you enjoy:
I am very blessed to be able to live in the resident community at Catholic Theological Union.
As the youngest member of the community, I feel perfectly poised to gather as much wisdom from my brothers and sisters as possible. I am sure that they would tell you that I am in need of it the most! Whenever I am feeling overwhelmed, depressed or worn out there is always a spiritual companion close by.
A couple weeks ago I was feeling overwhelmed with the realization that I would be following this same grueling schedule for at least four more years. I wanted to quit.
Distraught late at night I found Dorothy, a minister from Africa who has been living with us for a couple of months.
Upon hearing my predicament, Dorothy issued one of the strangest pieces of advice that I have ever been given…
She said, “Don’t stay in the same bush for too long or the hunter will get you.”
“What?” I responded. I had come to seek pastoral advice and had instead received nonsense.
Dorothy explained that this was a common phrase in her country. She said “imagine that you are the rabbit, if you stay in the same bush for too long the hunter will find you and catch you.”
Suddenly, I realized what Dorothy was doing. She was communicating wisdom to me, but she wanted me to unpack it for myself.
We have a natural tendency to want everything spelled out for us. Unfortunately, growth rarely occurs when things are spelled out exactly. Good students know that wisdom often has to be unpacked from “nonsense.”
Dorothy’s advice helped me to see that if I didn’t find ways to very my routine and make my studies more enjoyable, it could cause the death of my vocation. So, I needed to identify and confront my “hunters” -- those things that weigh me down most.
Once I had unpacked these insights from Dorothy’s advice, I was hungry for more. Just the other day I heard her say to a student she hadn’t seen in a long time… “You are like a grain of salt lost in the cabbage stew.” I’ll be wrestling with that image for quite some time!
In today’s Gospel Jesus doesn’t spell out exactly what he means to his disciples either. Like Dorothy, Jesus understood that his disciples wouldn’t grow unless they could unpack wisdom from the Word of God on their own, especially in his coming absence.
Perhaps the most troubling statement in this passage is “to the one who has more will be given and to the one who has nothing, even what little he has will be taken from him.”
At first it sounds like Jesus is talking about material possessions. If so, not only is this terrible news for the poor, but it doesn’t sound anything like the Jesus that all of us know!
So let’s unpack it…
Based upon the fact that Luke includes this passage in a wider section on hearing and responding to the Word of God, we can safely conclude that this is the Jesus that we know… and he is not talking about material possessions.
I think that Jesus is trying to communicate the beauty and benefits of unpacking Wisdom from the Word of God….
The one who takes the time to unpack Wisdom from the Word of God will be blessed with more Wisdom. This could take the form of a charismatic gift or simply a desire to unpack even more! The one who waits for Wisdom to be spelled out exactly will lose even the wisdom that he does have… perhaps due to apathy or mental degradation.
If this is true, what else can we learn from this passage?
Jesus’ disciples have gathered around him and he says “Nobody lights a lamp and then hides it.”
I am sure that they had a reaction similar to the one that I had when Dorothy told me to be a better rabbit.
“Duh Jesus, nobody does that. We came all of the way here and this is what you have to say?”
Let’s just accept the fact that Jesus is going to make us work for this, he’s going to make us unpack it for ourselves…
Perhaps we can unpack that:
The Word of God is not a secret, it is meant to be shared.
The Word is most useful in places where darkness abounds.
We should invest in those things that make the Word visible.
Hiding the Word can be dangerous.
The beauty is that we could sit and unpack wisdom from these statements forever!
These passages reveal that if we approach the Word with a willingness to engage it and unpack It’s Wisdom for ourselves—rather than waiting for God to spell everything out exactly—we can delve deeper into Wisdom than we had ever imagined.
