17 November 2021
Memorial of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Religious
How do we see God? That is the question implicit in today’s gospel reading. Are we like the servant who sees God as “a demanding man” that takes up what he did not lay down and harvests what he did not plant?
If this is our image of God, then life will always be a burden to be carried. We will be alone with what little we have, always fearing to lose it. This is why the servant places his gold coin in his handkerchief. What was meant to be used to clear the sweat from his labors, meant to make him presentable to the world, becomes a place of hiding. There is no room for grace, no room for hope and growth.
Notice how it is not the nobleman who condemns, but the words, the perception of the servant himself. The perception we have of God can mark the difference between a life of Christian joy or one of hopeless anguish. It can mark the difference between laboring in love and for love or laboring (or not laboring) out of fear.
What leads the servant to have such a perception of the nobleman? What leads so many of us to have skewed perceptions of God? It seems unfair to think that we alone have to correct the flawed images of God that have often been transmitted to us. But even this outlook is flawed. God can help us to see him as he wishes to be seen. We are never alone on the road from fear to love. Even there, God is with us.