The Demanding King

Gospel Reflection for November 22, 2013

Detail of the donors in the Ghent Altarpiece (open) by Jan van Eyck, 1432, St. Bavo’s Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium

In today’s Gospel, we hear of a parable that Our Lord tells on His way up to Jerusalem. There are two main parts that I want to meditate on, the first being the nobleman who returns as king and the second being the citizens who are given money.

In the first place, we have the nobleman who goes off to a distant country to obtain his kingship.[1]

“A nobleman went off to a distant country to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return…His fellow citizens, however, despised him and sent a delegation after him to announce, ‘We do not want this man to be our king.’” Luke 19:12, 14.

In this parable, the nobleman is Christ who, going up to Jerusalem, is set to receive His kingship. It is in Jerusalem that Our Lord will be rejected and put to death. Much like the nobleman in the parable, His people want nothing to do with Him. Even so, the nobleman returns as king and comes to collect on the people’s work. It is not coincidental that this Gospel is read in the weeks prior to Advent which is a liturgical awaiting of the coming of the king in glory as well as in the week before Christ the King Sunday.

The second part of this parable is the people who are given money and expected to return it to the King with interest. We should read ourselves into this role in the story. We are the people to whom the King has given grace, and it is up to us to cooperate with that grace while the king is away. The differing amounts returned to the king are the differing degrees to which each individual man corresponds to the grace he is given for salvation. In his commentary, Fr. George Leo Haydock says of this parable:

“All the disciples of Christ have not the same degree of honor in this world nor in the next; because all do not make an equal use of the graces they receive.”^[2]

Each of us is given the needed graces in order to get to heaven. Every time we go to the Sacraments, spend time in prayer, do charitable works, etc., we are cooperating with the grace He has given us. Upon His return, the king will ask us what we have done with those graces. Knowing that He is a “demanding man” will we return to Him a life filled with grace or will we return to Him nothing? Today, let us pray for Christ’s help in responding to His grace and for final perseverance.  

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[1] Christ uses a historical event that had recently taken place to teach the people. Herod Antipas had to go to Rome to be confirmed by Augustus Caesar as the new king of Judea in succession to his father, Herod the Great. While he was there, the people advocated against him to Augustus since Antipas had slaughtered hundreds of Jews. Falling on deaf ears, Herod Antipas is appointed king by Augustus and returns to Judea to the disdain of the people.

^[2] George Leo Haydock, Haydock’s Catholic Bible Commentary (New York: Edward Dunigan and Brother, 1859), Lk 19:19.