An unskilled worker goes for a job interview and demands a pay higher than that demanded by skilled workers. When asked why he demands so much for his unskilled work he explains that because he is new to the job he would put in more effort and time than the skilled workers to do the same job. Therefore, he should be paid more. This is certainly an unusual way of reasoning. Booker T. Washington echoed a similar sentiment when he said, "I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which one has overcome while trying to succeed." This rare way of thinking is reflected in today's gospel.

 Today's gospel is on the theme of remaining faithful as we wait for the return of the Lord. Jesus uses two parables to make the point. First there is the Parable of the Watchful Servants where Jesus encourages his disciples to be vigilant and ready for action as they wait for the coming of the Master. That he will come is certain, but when he will come no one knows. The Lord comes unexpectedly into our lives everyday through events and people we meet. But the ultimate, unexpected coming of the Lord in our lives is the moment of death. We should be watchful to recognise the Lord and prepared to meet him in the little unexpected opportunities of everyday life. This is the best way to prepare for the ultimate encounter with the Lord at the hour of death.

In the second parable, the Parable of the Faithful or Unfaithful Servant, Jesus reiterates the lesson of the first parable under the heading of faithfulness. He portrays two different attitudes of disciples in the absence of the Master. The wise disciple remains steadfast at his duty post even in the master's absence. The foolish disciple takes to a complacent lifestyle and takes the law into his own hands. The day of reckoning comes with the master's return. The faithful servant receives a promotion, the unfaithful one is "cut to pieces" and given a place with the unbelievers.

Jesus then goes on to expand and throw more light on the issue of reward and punishment.

 That slave who knew what his master wanted, but did not prepare himself or do what was wanted, will receive a severe beating.
But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. (Luke 12:47-48a)

 We are all to familiar with the two groups in which disciples will be separated on judgment day: the sheep on the right and the goats on the left, the blessed and the accursed, the faithful and the unfaithful. But what is this extra teaching that Jesus gives here on those who will receive "a light beating?" Surely it is not the blessed in heaven for they receive no beating at all. And it is not the accursed in hell for they receive a severe beating.

 Passages like this lead one to the conclusion that beside heaven and hell, there is an in-between state of remedial punishment. Catholic teaching calls it purgatory, a state of temporary, remedial punishment for believers who die in venial sin. They cannot be admitted to heaven directly because they have guilt and yet they cannot be consigned to everlasting punishment in hell because their sin is not mortal (1 John 5:16-17). Many Protestant Christians have a problem with the doctrine of purgatory. One reason for this is that the Reformation Bible does not include some of the books in the Catholic Bible, such as 2 Maccabees, which clearly support this doctrine. But the doctrine of purgatory makes sense, especially in light of biblical passages, such as today's gospel, that provide a third alternative to outright blessing and outright condemnation.

 The doctrine of purgatory satisfies God's mercy as well as God's justice. It is good news to the struggling brother or sister who never quite seems to make it to the Christians ideals we all aim at. It is a great source of hope for us to know that even if we die in this imperfect, struggling state we may receive "a light beating" but we will still be admitted to the eternal happiness of heaven by and by.

 The gospel passage for this Sunday consists of sayings of Jesus, so it would be good to look first at some general principles that must be respected in interpreting sayings.

 Remember, first, that in gospel meditation a passage must be read very slowly. I mention this because the sayings of Jesus are short, and often people tend to read them quickly. This happens especially in a passage like this, where we have several sayings on one general theme. It is, however, not a logically constructed teaching, but a collection of sayings, each one different and with its own way of putting across the theme. We must therefore take them separately, letting each one in turn rest in our hearts. Each one is like a special wine, and God invites us to be connoisseurs who take time to savour each one and discover its distinctive flavour.

 Secondly, the sayings of Jesus are usually metaphors, speaking to our imagination. This is another point that we are inclined to forget, because in the modern Western world teachers speak in the abstract and to the reason. We must make an effort to stir up our feelings, bringing back memories of our own deep experience, or the experience of people who have touched our lives. In this way we discover for ourselves the truth of the sayings, and within this process we experience God calling us to spiritual growth. This will take time, especially when - as we shall see in some of the sayings in this passage - the metaphor is complex and leads us in more than one direction.

Finally, the sayings of Jesus are universally true. Many people read them as true only of our relationship with God, and of spiritual growth. But they also apply to what happens to our Church communities, our village, our country, and the world. We must be open to discovering this universality, so that gradually (it always takes time) we enter into the many ways in which the saying is true.

All the sayings in this passage are about waiting. This is a difficult metaphor for us today, because in our culture we experience waiting as something negative. "I am waiting" means that I am doing nothing and furthermore that I resent it: "How could you keep me waiting?"

 For the Bible, however - and this is good common sense - waiting is a creative moment, or at least can be if we enter freely into it. When I wait for others, I give them the space to be themselves, paying them the respect of letting them exercise their creativity, and I do it not with indifference or grudgingly, but with love, so that we can walk together in solidarity and mutual enrichment.

 It is in this perspective that we must understand the Bible expression 'waiting for God', which we find, for example, in Psalm 146:
"His delight is not in horses
nor his pleasure in warrior strength.
The Lord delights in those who revere him,
in those who wait for his love."

 People sometimes imagine God sitting in heaven and looking down at his creatures. God in the Bible is not like this at all. "My Father goes on working," St John quotes Jesus saying, "and so do I." God is always at work in our lives, in the lives of others and in the world, and this work is always to break the rod of the oppressor and to set captives free.

 To wait for God is, then, to say to him that we know he is at work, and we are prepared to let him carry out his loving purpose when and how he pleases. At times, of course, we become impatient, and even panic and cry out, "How long, O Lord!" But at other times, we feel able to make our act of adoration and tell God that we are willing to wait for him.

 The moment is also creative for ourselves. When we wait, our latent tendencies to dominate and manipulate come to the surface, so that we are open to experiencing this as a moment of grace - we will go beyond these evil tendencies and enter that deep inner space where we are in trusting communion with God and with one another; free in ourselves and allowing others to be free.

 As you read this passage, then, and enter into the various sayings, remember waiting experiences that were moments of grace for you or for others. The times when you were able to wait for a child or a friend, and, at some unexpected moment, they opened up to you and you entered into a new and deeper relationship with them. Perhaps you struggled for years with drinking or drugs or an unhealthy relationship; you went through agony, unable to make up your mind about moving into a new life-style; and then one day the way became perfectly clear and easy; reading this passage today, you realize what it means to wait for God's moment. Be with people you know who are tired of waiting; read the passage in solidarity with them, letting the message flow through you so that it touches them and renews their courage.
Waiting is important in our relationship with a community too, a church community or any other. So often we try to manipulate a community rather than letting it grow organically according to its own dynamic. As you read this passage, remember great leaders you have known who have trusted the community, knew how to wait for it, according to the saying that everything happens in its own time; and so, when the moment came, the growth was solid, "the seed grew tall and strong," as Jesus expressed it in the Parable of the Sower.

 This teaching on waiting is tremendously important today, when influencing people has become a skill that can be acquired like any other; when people boast openly that given sufficient money, they can make the public buy anything, not excluding a President or Prime Minister at election time. In this cultural context, we Christians will be tempted to think that grace can also be manipulated in this way, and that if only we could buy more time on television, or if our religious magazines were more glossy, or if we could work more sensational miracles, people would be converted. These sayings remind us that the laws of spiritual growth are different, and we remember with gratitude that in this area earthly power achieves little, but there is real power in trust, care and compassion - all that is implied in waiting.

Our age needs this teaching for another reason too. The Church communities of the New Testament time had little social or political influence. We tend to forget this, because the Roman Emperor became a Christian and, before long, Christianity became the official religion of the State. In the early years, however, there was no prospect whatsoever that this would ever happen. We can see why, in such a context, there was so much emphasis on a self-confident faith which would enable Christians to look calmly at the great Roman Empire and still believe that the values of Jesus Christ would triumph in the end.

The metaphor of waiting expressed perfectly this kind of faith. Can we not say that this is precisely the faith we need today - a trust in the power of our values that takes away any great need for success or quick results?

Remembering the importance of this teaching, let us now turn to the collection of sayings.
Verse 35. A friend has told you that he will take you out for a pint, but it is now very late and he hasn't turned up. Your parents, all your brothers and sisters have gone to bed, and you are still there, dressed to go out, and the lights in the house are still on. Your mother puts her head out of her room, "You still waiting? Why don't you go to bed?" You shake your head stubbornly, "I know he will come." Jesus is telling us that faith in him is like that; everybody else has sold out to the prevailing value system, they have fallen asleep, as it is often expressed in the New Testament, but you continue to believe that the values of Jesus will come good. We think with gratitude of Martin Luther King saying, as he received the Noble Peace Prize, "I still believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality."

Note that the saying is in the form of a command - "see that..." - which can be interpreted in two ways. It can be read as a warning - "better be careful or you will fall away like everyone else." But it can also be a word of encouragement - "Don't worry about all the negative signs you see all around you; I can promise you that I am coming soon." Either way, we see here the role of the Church or of the individual Christian to be the voice of Jesus in the World today.

Verse 36 points us in a new direction. We are waiting for a master who is away at a wedding feast. We Christians live in the real world with all its selfishness and its fragmentation; but we know that our master is celebrating a world of harmony and reconciliation, and the vision of that world gives direction and hope to our lives.

The verse also evokes for us the moment of grace always coming suddenly, as we saw above; and we respond immediately or not at all:
"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;
omitted, all the voyage of their life
is bound in shallows and miseries."

Remember the times when God knocked, fresh from the celebration of harmony, and somehow or other you were able to open immediately; you were able to give up that bad habit, to forgive, to move into a new and deeper relationship. Pray for those you know who are struggling that they may continue to wait in trust, ready to open the door as soon as the Lord comes and knocks.

Verse 37 focuses on the blessedness that comes over us when we have waited long and eventually experienced the moment of grace. It is as if a great and generous master whom we admire greatly, has put on an apron, has sat us down at table and is attending to our every need. We feel perfectly secure, all our anxieties have vanished, and we know that it has not been our achievement - he who is mighty has done great things to his servant.

 Verse 38 reminds us that waiting always seems long, just as the hours of the night seem longer than we had bargained for. You thought it would be for the first watch, but it isn't; it must surely be the second then, but it isn't; and you realize that it mightn't be the third either. Is not the fulfillment of our deepest aspirations like that? Who was the Jesus that God sent into your life to encourage you to continue waiting?

In verse 39 the metaphor shifts again. It is the moment when a person recognizes humbly, "he fooled me again" - the boxer became careless and let his guard drop; defenders were over-confident and let the forwards come through to score. I thought I was beyond lust and jealousy; our community was acting as if ambition, racism or snobbishness were dead among us; now we look ruefully at the wall of our house in a shambles and we reflect that if we had known at what hour the burglar would come we would not have let anyone break through it. We should not read this verse with bitterness, nor should we understand it to say that we must spend our whole lives on guard. God is inviting us to laugh at ourselves, caught out once again, and we know that a humble and contrite heart is worth more than tens of thousands of fatted lambs offered in sacrifice.

The "Son of Man" in verse 40 is a messianic term, the Saviour, the great leader whom God sends to rescue the oppressed. This verse is therefore a call to renewed hope. It is Isaiah and John the Baptist and all the prophets proclaiming to those who feel lost and abandoned not to lose heart because just at the moment when they feel most lost, the moment when they least expect it, God will intervene to save them. Remember when you experienced the truth of this saying, the times when you were just about to despair and against all the odds, the Son of Man came. Now say this to others: "You too must stand ready."

 By Bishop Kasomo Daniel

 The Bishop of The Society of St.Peter and Paul (SSPP)