The author Jay Cournier in reflecting on the word later says this:
Many of us have become “later” people.
Later is that time that will never come, I will call you later, let’s get together later, I will have to read that later, I want to watch that later.
Our lives are so busy that the things that we’d really like to do, the things that give us joy and a sense of fulfillment, the things that enrich our spiritual souls, are assigned to the black hole of time, “later.”
Later is often a strategy for putting off a tough decision or a way of allaying our fears, if only for a moment. Later is stalling for more time, but that later will eventually catch up with us.
In today’s gospel Jesus is telling us that ‘Now is the time. Later may never come.’ Jesus is telling us that now is the time to make peace with our God and our fellow men.
In the second part of the reading Jesus gives the example of the unwise servant that made two mistakes.
He said that “I will do what I want while the master is away.” How often do we not divide our lives into compartments? The times when we want God to be present, and then there are the times that we don’t even think of God. It is easy to draw a line between the secular and the sacred. And yet God is always present whether we are comfortable with that reality or not.
The second mistake the unwise servant made, he said, I have plenty of time to make things right before the master returns. As Jesus says, “the servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour.”
Someone once said that the definition of tomorrow is “a mystical land where 99 percent of all human productivity, motivation, and achievement is stored.
One of the most dangerous moments in a person’s life is when they discover the word tomorrow.
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Image: “Yesterday You Said Tomorrow Nike Just Do It” by thenext28days is licensed under CC BY 2.0.