In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Beloved in Christ, at the end of the Epistle to the Romans, Saint Paul allows us to look over his shoulder as he finishes his letter. A man named Tertius has been holding the pen, and he cannot resist adding his own greeting: “I, Tertius, who write the letter, greet you in the Lord” (Romans 16:22). Then come more names: Sosipater, Quartus, and “Erastus, the treasurer of the city” (Romans 16:21-23). Today, the Church remembers these men among the Seventy Apostles. They are not famous. Yet their names are written in the Scriptures and in the book of life, because they served.
We should notice the title given to Erastus. In Greek, the treasurer of the city is the oikonomos, the steward, the manager of the household. It is exactly the word the Lord uses in the Gospel appointed for today: “Who, then, is the faithful and wise steward whom his master will set over his household to give [his people] their allowance of food at the proper time?” (Luke 12:42). Erastus managed the money of Corinth. The question the Lord asks is whether we will manage, faithfully and wisely, what belongs to Him.
Everyone Is a Steward
The Gospel today follows a series of teachings on watchfulness. The Lord has just spoken of servants waiting for their master to return from the wedding feast, with their lamps burning. Saint Peter asks a very human question: “Lord, are you telling this parable [only] to us, or to everyone?” (Luke 12:41). The Lord does not answer directly. Instead, He describes a steward, and lets each of us decide whether the shoe fits.
It fits everyone. The master is the Lord Jesus Christ, who has gone, as it were, into a far country, and who will return. We are His servants, and this is true not only of Christians but of every human being, for there is nothing we have that we did not receive. Our life, our time, our health, our minds, our money, and above all the people placed around us: all of it is entrusted, none of it is owned. The steward does not own the household. He feeds it.
We should also notice what the steward is asked to do. He is not asked to perform great exploits, but “to give [his people] their allowance of food at the proper time.” The task is ordinary, daily, and directed toward others. The Lord does not measure faithfulness by spectacular moments but by the steady care of those entrusted to us. In this sense, the most precious talent we receive is not money or ability; it is people: a spouse, children, aging parents, a neighbor, a co-worker, the members of our church family, the stranger who crosses our path today.
The Two Temptations of the Delayed Master
The Lord then describes the unfaithful steward, who “says in his heart, ‘My lord is late in returning’ and begins to beat the [other] male and female slaves, and also to eat, drink, and become drunk” (Luke 12:45). Everything begins “in his heart,” with a thought. The thought is simple and almost reasonable: there is time. The Lord is delayed. Judgment is far away.
From that one thought come two temptations. The first is to dominate: to treat those entrusted to us as if they belonged to us, to use them, to become harsh, impatient, demanding. The second is to consume: to eat and drink and use the master’s goods for our own pleasure. These two temptations have not changed in two thousand years.
There is a word for what the unfaithful steward produces: waste. Waste is something valuable that is not put to its proper use. Food, money, and time can all be wasted. Yet the deepest waste is a life that is not offered to God. A wasted day is not only a day spent on idle things; it is a day that was never lived with the intention of offering it to the Lord for His glory. A person can be bedridden for a year and that year be precious in the eyes of God, while another can be busy, successful, and admired, and still be a waste in the eyes of the Master.
The Catechism of the Orthodox Faith reminds us that “Christians do not know when the Son of God will return in his glory; therefore, we should live so as to be always ready,” and adds that “we do not even know the hour our own life will end” (cf. Luke 12:20). The time between the Ascension and the Second Coming is not a sign that the Lord is late; it is His patience, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
Much Given, Much Required
The Gospel ends with words that should make every one of us pause: “From everyone to whom much is given, much will be required; and from whoever was entrusted with much, much will be asked” (Luke 12:48). The Lord distinguishes between the servant who knew his master’s will and the one who did not. Knowledge does not excuse; it increases responsibility.
We who are Orthodox Christians have been given much. We have received the Holy Scriptures and the faith of the Apostles. We have the Divine Liturgy, the Body and Blood of Christ, the prayers of the saints, the treasure of the Fathers, the gift of the Holy Spirit in Chrismation. It would be a strange thing to treat such gifts as a private possession, or as a comfortable inheritance that asks nothing of us. Much has been given; much will be asked.
Today, the Church also commemorates our Venerable Father Arsenios of Cappadocia, a humble priest-monk who served his flock through years of hardship and led them into exile, and who baptized the child who would become Saint Paisios of the Holy Mountain. He could not have known what that small act of stewardship would bear. This is how the Lord works. The faithful steward simply does what is entrusted to him today, at the proper time, and leaves the harvest to God.
Saint Paul, in the Epistle read today, shows us the heart of a true steward. He does not write to the Thessalonians as a manager of a project, but as a father who cannot stop thanking God for them: “What thanksgiving can we give back to God for you, for all the joy you give us to experience before our God?” (1 Thessalonians 3:9). His prayer is that the Lord would make them “increase and overflow in love for each other and for everyone,” and “establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father even to the end, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints” (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13). Here is the program of every faithful steward: love that overflows, hearts made firm in holiness, eyes turned toward the coming of the Lord.
Let us therefore examine our stewardship. Let us ask what has been entrusted to us, and whom. Let us resist the thought that says “my lord is late,” and live each day as an offering. Then we may hear the words that every servant longs to hear: “Blessed is that slave whom his lord will find doing so when he returns” (Luke 12:43).
To Him, the faithful Master who comes to serve His servants, be glory, honor, and worship, together with His Father who is without beginning and His all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.