November 15, 2026 – 33rd Sunday “A”
Prov 31:10–13, 19–20, 30–31; 1 Thess 5:1–6; Matt 25:14–30
H O M I L Y
Anyone who has money invested in the stock market and has watched the value of their investments rise and fall over the past few months may wonder about the meaning of this Gospel. They may ask themselves whether, after all, the one who buried his money instead of investing it isn’t actually better off in the current situation! But this parable is obviously not a lesson on wise investing or the economy in general. It speaks to us of God’s generosity, whose rewards are always disproportionate to what we can offer Him.
This text is taken from Jesus’ great eschatological discourse in Matthew. Over the next few Sundays, we will often hear about the eschaton, or the end of time. When speaking of the “end of time,” however, we must be mindful of the fact that Jesus’ conception of time—like that of all Jews of his time—was very different from our own. Our notion of time is quantitative; theirs was qualitative. The Jews thought of time and spoke of it as a quality. This is very clear in the reflection in Ecclesiastes (3:1–4): “There is a time for everything, a time for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die… a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”
For them, “knowing the time” did not mean knowing the date of something. Rather, it meant understanding the quality of a specific moment. Was it a time for weeping or a time for laughter? What mattered was understanding the quality of attitudes and events.
We think of time as a progression of moments along a continuous line, with a long series of moments behind us and another long series ahead of us. We imagine that one of these moments will be the last; that will be the end of time and the end of history. Such an approach would have been incomprehensible to the Jews in Jesus’ time—and therefore to Jesus Himself. While we place ourselves on a long imaginary line of time, the ancient Jew did not place himself anywhere on it. He situated events, places, and times and saw himself as traveling along these points of reference. Sacred events such as the Creation and the Exodus; places such as Jerusalem and Mount Sinai; and times such as the Festivals and days of fasting or sowing were fixed points. The individual traveled along these fixed points. His ancestors had passed through them before him, and his descendants would do the same. When an individual arrived at one of these fixed points—such as Passover or a time of famine—he became a contemporary of his ancestors and descendants who had passed through or would pass through that same qualitative moment in time. All shared the same moment, the same time, even though many years might separate them.
It was believed that the nature of the present was determined either by a salvific act of God in the past (e.g., the Exodus) or by a salvific act of God in the future. God’s future act was always viewed by the prophets as an entirely new and unprecedented event. This act represented such a profound break with the past that it could not be conceived as a continuation of what had come before.
Therefore, when we read texts concerning the eschaton or the end times, to view this eschaton as a moment beyond history—that is, beyond the measure of time—would be to confuse two entirely different conceptions of time. Historical events are acts of God. Consequently, when Jesus announces the imminence of God’s final and definitive kingdom, what he is announcing is that God himself has changed and that this can be seen in the signs of the times.
The God of Jesus—his Father—is radically different from the image of God in the Old Testament, and even from the God whom many Christians worship. In reality, Jesus does not present an image of God. What he proclaims is that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was about to do something entirely new and unprecedented. God himself had been moved by compassion and was about to express his mercy and love in a way completely out of proportion to our actions. Any faithful service would earn its performer the privilege of being admitted forever into his master’s joy. This generosity would be denied only to those who had closed themselves off from it through fear and lack of trust.
We can, of course, if we wish, draw a lesson from this parable regarding the use of the talents we have received. But Jesus’ concern in this text is not the use of our talents. It concerns the Father’s generosity and benevolent compassion toward us.
Armand VEILLEUX
