“Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”
In today’s Gospel reading, after saying these words, Jesus goes on to tell the disciples a parable about vigilance by describing servants who await their master’s return from a wedding. As a reward for their vigilance, the master waits on the servants. Just as a master of a house had known when a thief would come and prevent him from breaking in, so it is with being prepared for the coming of the Son of Man, especially for those disciples he put in charge. “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”
Thank you, God, for this parable your Son spoke to the disciples but also to me. Help me understand the meaning of “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” In it, there are two references to time, is and will be and time and eternity. Where my treasure is today and as habit makes daily, there also my heart will be in the future and for all eternity—an inexhaustible treasure in heaven. How am I providing for myself things that don’t wear out and that no thief can destroy? “Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward whom the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute the food allowance at the proper time?”
I think of the loss of things, things that time erodes—the fading light of a sunset, the end of summer, the end of an era, the end of long-held grief or anxiety. Each of those houses its own treasures and are found again and embraced on return to them. But they finally end, each of them. But you, Lord, are present always, and I find you again every time I journey away and make a return. In you is unending light and warmth and joy—an inexhaustible treasure—even in the midst of suffering. Provide for me today, Lord; let me be ready for you.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.