The readings for this Sunday initially appear unconnected. The first is the familiar passage from Proverbs about the qualities of a worthy wife. Psalm 128 is the one usually used for weddings; note the reference to the wife who is “like a fruitful vine in the recesses of your home.” Then there’s the letter to the Thessalonians, with its reference to the end time coming like labor pains on a pregnant woman. Finally, the Gospel is the parable of the master who gives part of his treasure to his servants, and of what they do with it.

In the context of the end of the liturgical year—the Feast of Christ the King is next week—readings that seem oddly unrelated at first suddenly take on a tone of warning. If the Lord is to return at any moment, then the baptized are called to vigilant living—not taking any part of life for granted, but working and praying, “alert and sober.” And isn’t it interesting that both the First Reading and the Psalm posit a woman as the model of vigilant living?

Again, Psalm 27 (“The lord is my light … ”) or another of the common psalms for the season might be a better choice to tie the readings together. Some of the images in the readings suggest musical settings: “children of the light and the day,” and “the day of the Lord,” and burying one’s talents in the ground. The third verse of Kathleen Thomerson’s “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light” (HOUSTON) contains the pertinent line, “I’m looking for the coming of Christ.” The great gospel anthem by Andrae Crouch, “Soon and Very Soon,” sings of the coming of Christ not as something to fear but as long-awaited deliverance.