When Timidity Is A Sin

2 Mac. 7:1, 20-31 & Lk. 19:11-28

Rather than violate his conscience or give poor example to the young, the 90 year old Eleazer accepted death in yesterday's reading. Today the scene switches to the young, and they prove themselves to be as strong as those who are older.

The youngest boy of the family, along with his mother, had witnessed the courageous deaths of his six older brothers. He, like Eleazar, is given the opportunity to avoid death if only "he would abandon his ancestral customs" but when the persecuting King Antiochus asked his mother to dissuade him, she only encouraged him to persevere and to die rather than to deny his faith. He, like his brothers, chose to accept the martyrs’ death and so did his mother.

Who would fault any mother who might use questionable tactics to keep her children alive? Since her six older sons had all been martyred, she might have reasonably told the youngest to do anything necessary to avoid death. Yet that was not her decision.

These stories from the Books of Maccabees give hints of what would happen over a century later on Calvary. There would be a scourging, a public trial and a general spectacle. A young man would make a choice to die, and His mother would be there at the foot of His cross to give Him courage. It would become a never-to-be-forgotten scene. We thank God for giving us these courageous people who inspire us to live our faith.

Our religion takes a very harsh view of pride. In fact, many theologians regard pride as the original sin. The temptation that led Adam and Eve to disobey God was the promise that they could become equal to God. This attempt to overreach our finite limits has dogged humankind ever since the very dawn of history. Wars have been fought, crimes of violence have been committed and deeds of treachery have been done because of pride. When we stop to think about it, pride stands at the root of virtually every sin and evil. Given the dangers of pride, many Christians seem to have made a virtue of those forms of behaviour that stand in opposition to pride. To them, humility and timidity are the cardinal virtues.

There is something to be said for both but the parable Our Lord tells in today’s Gospel reminds us that there are times when timidity is anything but a virtue. A certain nobleman put each of his three servants in charge of a quantity of money while he travelled to a far country. Upon his return he was pleased to discover that two of his servants had increased their money through shrewd investments. But the third had earned his master nothing out of fear of losing what he had been given. The master was furious over his servant’s timidity and fired him on the spot. Here we see that when timidity cuts us off from life it becomes a sin.

We are working in our Father’s kingdom; we do not work with purely human wisdom or effort. We will not be judged by how hard we have worked. Rather, we will be asked whether we allowed the Spirit to work in and through us. He is the one who gives us the gifts and when we allow Him to work through us then we bear the fruits of those gifts.

Lord Jesus like the Maccabee martyrs may we always be on the side of truth, and never let pride rule our lives.