"To whomever much is given, much will be required" (Lk 12, 41-48)

by Franco Cardini

The entire chapter 12 of Luke is inspired by vigilance and foresight. A topic that evidently interested Peter, who at a certain point intervenes - in fact - directly to ask if the need to be "always ready" concerned only the disciples, or anyone. Jesus responds with another famous parable: that of the prudent servant, who is always found at work by his master as he never tires of doing his duty by interpreting the will of the master, unlike the improvident one who does his comfortable trusting that it will not be discovered. The owner, in fact, loves to do improvisations: he arrives at the most unexpected moments, when no one expects him. And he punishes those who catch him in error, rewards those who find them in compliance.

We usually tend to assign a somewhat pedestrian ethical-didactic role to this parable. Always behave well, because you know there is a redde rationem but you ignore the date. Hence, perhaps, the other pedestrian interpretation, that of Dostoevsky's "If God does not exist, everything is permitted": because, on the contrary, if God exists, then one must be careful about what one does or there will be trouble for the eternity.

I believe that one of the worst problems afflicting Christianity is the lack of courage and imagination of Christians. Thus, in this vision that smacks of middle school or barracks, where God makes us look like the janitor or the corporal of the day who stealthily swoops down on the naughty boy or the disorderly recruit, the center of the Christian experience is precisely missing; and it is not surprising if a religious faith founded on these foundations collapses at the first secularizing breeze. And so, how many good Christians complain - in silence or aloud - that they cannot do like the others, because what complicates their life is not, let's say, the Superego, but that janitor, that corporal on the day of the day. existence which perhaps one doubts, but which - one never knows - could even really exist.

Of course: there is, I believe, no expert parent or astute pedagogist who will deny that virtue is a habit, and that therefore children who act well, at first, because they are afraid of punishment, then learn to act well on the basis of the law morality that imposes it on him and without the need for recourse to or the threat of sanctions. But, since faith is also measured by the yardstick of intentions and thoughts, abstention from evil for fear of punishment is evidently not enough. You sin with the woman you desire even if she simply sins in thought: which is just as serious and much less fun. In the same way, someone who doesn't kill his enemy because he doesn't know how to do it, because he is unarmed, because he is cowardly, and uses Christian makeup to forgive his renunciation of killing, is in any case essentially a murderer.

The profound teaching of the parable of the wise servant does not aim at all to impart lessons in existential tactics. If anything, he places us before the boundless drama of the irreversibility of metanoia. He tells us that behaving in a Christian manner cannot be a question of moments and circumstances, that a choice of faith is a militia for life and not a dress that is worn or stored in the wardrobe depending on moods and circumstances.

A harsh parable, which shows among other things how Christianity is a heroic religion. Whether or not we are Christians cannot depend on others. We cannot, for example, derogate from the duties that the choice of faith imposes on us when in life we ​​find ourselves faced with a particular and unrepeatable occasion. You cannot conceptually choose to be a Christian only 14 hours a day, or five days a week, or in 75% of situations. This, of course, can actually happen due to human weakness that makes us continually stumble: and our spiritual life is in fact all about falling and getting up again. But falls cannot be planned; failures cannot be considered as legitimate and perhaps deserved holidays of the spirit.

This is why the estote parati sounds, even today, like a military delivery; and it is often used in that sense. The prudent servant reminds us of life understood in Pauline terms as a militia, as a service in which distractions, drowsiness and abandonment of one's post are not admissible.

And all this must be said without, of course, giving up hope in divine mercy. The good corporal of the day has his old tricks to ensure that the comrade notices his arrival and has time to tidy up: he slows down his pace, coughs in the corridor, gives some orders in a louder voice. Rest assured that the God of Armies has more experience than many corporals of the day.