Eucharistic meditation

Matthew 25:21: His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful slave; you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your lord.

The master in the parable of the talents distributes talents based on ability right from the beginning. He gives the talents “each according to his own ability” (v. 15), and His rewards are also proportionate. When the servants are faithful in little, they receive more; when they are unfaithful in little, what they have is taken from them, and they are cast into outer darkness.

One of the rewards for the faithful servants is the reward of entering into the joy of the Master. Joy is usually associated with feasting in Scripture. Now that the Master has returned from his long journey, his household is celebrating his arrival, and a feast has begun. The faithful slaves are invited to join the festivities.

Notice the other side of this. Good and faithful servants are not only rewarded with access to the feast, but rewarded with more stuff, more stuff to take care of, more stuff to be responsible for, more stuff to handle and care for.

This may not seem like a reward. If we’ve done well, shouldn’t we be allowed to take a break, take a rest, put our feet up, sit back and enjoy ourselves? How is it a reward to get more work to do?

For Jesus these two things go together. Entering the joy of the Master, and receiving more responsibility are two sides of the same reward. That’s what we receive here. We enter the joy of Jesus, the Master. He invites us to His table, commending us as good and faithful servants.

But that is not all. The bread you hold in your hand is the body of Christ; that is a gift to you, the joy of the Lord made food, but it is also the body of Christ that you are to minister to others. The wine you take is the blood of the Lord; that is a gift, the joy of the Spirit made wine, but it is also the sacrificial blood that calls you to give yourselves in service of your Master.

When Jesus places this bread and wine in our hands, He fills our hands with a gift, which includes the gift of new and greater responsibility, new and deeper demands.