To Be Faithful

What is the connection between the  Old Testament  portrait of an ideal wife, St. Paul’s passionate exhortation  to stay awake, and  Jesus’ strange  parable of the three servants?

What connects the three readings is the key word  “faithful.” But to appreciate this, you have to dig beyond the external details and focus on the word  “faithful.”

First, let us consider  “faithful” in the biblical sense. It is  God above all who is faithful. No matter how unfaithful the chosen people had been, they could always count on the God’s word,  count on  His promises. That  divine fidelity  finds its  human perfection in Jesus. He  fulfills His Father’s will  even to the cross, and  makes it possible for us to be faithful.

And how about  “faithful” in the New Testament? The faithful are reliable, dependable, and trustworthy. They are faithful – full, full of faith.

They  can be trusted completelybecause they have  entrusted themselves completely to God and His Christ, to God’s people, to God’s creation.

Such is the  ideal wife of the Book of Proverbs. She is faithful.  Everyone can depend on her: husband, children, servant, and merchants, even the poor. She fears the Lord  not with fright, not with terror, but simply  with reverential awe in the presence of the living God, a God  who never turns his back on His own promises.

In  Matthew’s parable Jesus was  addressing the religious leaders  of the  Jews, especially the  scribes. Much had been entrusted to them  – in particular,  the Word of God. Soon they would have to  render a reckoning. How had they used what had been committed to them? Had they been “faithful”  like the  first and second servants? Or had they been  slothful, idle, lazy,  like the  third?

Had they used God’s Word  in harmony with God’s will, traded on their trust, made it pay off? Or had they  frustrated God’s Word  by worrying about themselves, neglecting to use the trust, refusing to risk, renouncing responsibility for the money by burying it?

Similarly for  Paul’s Thessalonians, they were  waiting for the Lord to return  –  soon.

Paul believes that whenever the Lord comes,  it will be sudden. Therefore,  “Keep awake and be sober.”Awake  – not only with eyes wide open so that they can see Christ coming on the cloud of glory, but  wide awake in every way, watching for Christ in every circumstance.

Such was  fidelity then:  for a  Jewish wife,  for an  Old Testament religious leader,  and for  an early Christian.

To the question:  What does it mean to be faithful now?

Remember, it is  a  distinguished name  you and I carry  – we are  Christian faithful.

Faithful,  like many  too familiar words, rolls off our tongues without a second thought. And yet,  this word,  more than any other single word,  sums up who we are as Christians.  We are men and women who are  full of faith  and  who keep faith.

It tells  who we are,  because it tells  whom we love.

What do we mean? We are  Christian faithful, first because  we are committed to Christ. No commitment may take precedence over that. In baptism  God put His seal upon us,  the  seal of the Spirit. Somewhat as a  Roman soldier  was branded with the  seal of the emperor, somewhat as  cattle are branded  with their  owner’s trademark, so  Christians are stamped with the seal of the Spirit.

We belong to Christ,  and  through him to the Father. Renounce it we can,  with our lips  or  our lives, but  the seal is permanently there. From here to eternity  we belong to Christ.

The problem is –  how do we put this relationship into daily life?How do we  remain faithful  to the Christ who owns us? A double response: filled with faith, and  keeping faith.

Filled with Faith. We should not have a relationship with Christ that reaches only an  intellectual profession: “I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, born of the Virgin Mary…” This is important, indeed, but  not enough.

My  whole self must reach out to Him  –  mind  and  heart,  will  and  emotion. Such faith alone is  alive with love. Such faith alone is the  Christian response to the Love that is crucified for me, the  loving person apart from whom I can do nothing.

Such faith makes it  possible for me to keep faith. Because  I have entrusted myself completely to Christ, he can trust me completely. Because  I love him,  I will be like him. And  the more I like him, the  more likely I am to keep faith with him even unto crucifixion  –  “Not my will, but Yours be done.”

Furthermore, we are Christian faithful, because  we are faithful to the Body of Christ; we are committed to the community of Christ. Precisely here lies the  agonizing heart of our contemporary Catholic concern:

What does it mean  to be faithful to the community, to the Church? It would be fairly simple  if all of us were of a single mind. But we are not. We are dreadfully divided in so many issues.

There are  indifferent  Catholics, Sunday  Catholics, foxhole  Catholics, social  Catholics, KBL Catholics – Kasal, Bunyag, Libing (wedding, baptism, and burial)  Catholics, way-out  Catholics,  Catholics who are trying desperately to be faithful.

Still, it’s  a struggle:  between the clear call from Rome and the  crucifying confusion of home  and  environment; between  Gospel message  and  its challenges and  our struggling to survive  in this “dog-eat-dog” world, in a culture that  confuses what is popular or legal with what is moral.

How then to be faithful  – full of faith and keeping faith?

First,  a word  from Proverbs: Fidelity is where you are  – faithfulness is  here  and  now. The  wife of Proverbs  was not planning how to be faithful in her old age. Fidelity was right there. Fidelity  was to  husband  and  children, servants, and  merchants, the  poor of God. To each of these  she had pledged herself,  and  she was a woman of her word.

And so  for us –  fidelity is here and now.  You have  pledged yourself.  To  whom? To the  Christian community,  to  live this day in holiness of heart,  in  sinlessness,  somewhat as Christ our Lord lived. From your humble  “Lord have mercy”  to the  “Amen” you murmur to  “the Body of Christ,” you are saying to one another, “I am part of you, I belong to you, you can trust me.”

And now,  the word from Matthew. Christian fidelity  calls for risk. Which of the servants were called “faithful?” Not the  “segurista,”  the servant who  played it safe and  hid his thousand silver pieces in the ground. Only  the servants who took a chance, who  traded  the money their master had entrusted to them.

And so for you, it is one thing to be faithful, when the issues are crystal clear, when you know people will react favorably, when it doesn’t cost anything and doesn’t threaten your way of life. It is quite another thing to grope in darkness, when you are not sure, when you are afraid, when discipleship costs, when you must lose your life in order to find it, when the Lord simply says, “You have your gifts, my Church and your conscience, my grace and your good sense. Trade them till I come.”

When the Master comes He will not ask how often you were right, but  how honestly you tried, not how brilliant you were, but how loving.

Lastly,  the word from Paul: “Fidelity is a  Christ, who comes in unexpected ways.” If you want to hear,  “Well done, good and faithful servant” from Christ riding clouds of glory, then  welcome him when he comes hungry and thirsty, lonely and unloved, imprisoned by all kinds of fears, victim of wars, injustice and exploitation.

To be faithful,  all you have to do is  touch each hand that is stretched out to you. Examine at the end of each day: “How have I met Jesus today? Have I reached out to him?”