Homily for 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C 2016
Amos 8:4-7; 1Timothy 2:1-8; Luke 16:1-13
Introduction
It might surprise us, it should shock us,
that the hero of today’s gospel parable is the thieving, lying and conniving
steward. How can that be? Surely Jesus could not possibly condone
theft, lies and dishonesty!
Thankfully, the meaning of this parable can
be found at the end of the gospel story, in the three conclusions about
stewardship that Jesus makes.
Scripture and Theology
The first conclusion is about wise
stewardship. He says: “I tell you, make friends for yourselves with
dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal
dwellings.” With these words, Jesus
commends the steward, not for his theft and lies, but for his decision to use
his position to secure his future; faced with a crisis of losing his job, the
steward employed the tools at his disposal, his ability to treat his master’s
debtors kindly, and so secure friends.
Jesus is hereby urging his disciples to be
equally enterprising in their use of the world's goods for a much loftier goal
than earthly happiness – they should use their wisdom and cunning to establish
the Kingdom of God and to secure their place in it. Like the steward and even business people
today use ingenuity to secure a passing advantage, the followers of Jesus must be
ingenuous in how they use material resources, so as to secure a lasting
advantage with God. In short, Christians
must exercise wisdom in our stewardship of material goods.
Besides ingenuity, in the second conclusion
Jesus calls for trustworthiness in our stewardship. He says: “If,
therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you
with true wealth? If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who
will give you what is yours?” It is
exactly the lack of trustworthiness that landed the steward in trouble in the
first place: he was squandering his master’s goods. And it might be argued that lowering the
amounts of the master’s debtors is another example of being untrustworthy. But according to Bible Scholars, it is likely
that the amounts by which the steward lowered the debts were simply his
commission and not the master’s principal amount. That is why the Master on learning this does
not further condemn the steward but rather commends him for his prudence.
Similarly we Christians are stewards of
what God has given us. We do not own it. In the kingdom, rewards will be given
to those who demonstrate faithfulness in their earthly stewardship, using well
what they had been given; that in fact is the very definition of a steward, one
who takes care of another's property, like a supervisor of an apartment complex
or a nanny of children, or an executor of a will. Earthly things are basically dishonest wealth
in the sense that they pale in value when compared to heavenly things. That is why Jesus is adamant that unless we make
good use of something that does not really have much value, we cannot hope to
be given that which is really valuable, namely, eternal life. Our trustworthy use of material things is a
kind of dress rehearsal of our appreciation for the real gift of life with God.
Besides exercising wisdom and
trustworthiness in our stewardship, in the third conclusion Jesus calls for
detachment. He says: “No servant can serve two masters. He will
either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and mammon."
This statement calls for the kind of letting go that the steward
exercised when he gave up his commission, by lowering the debts of his master’s
debtors. He let go of one thing – his
cut – so that he could secure another – his future.
Similarly for Christians, Jesus teaches
that there is a fundamental incompatibility between serving God fully and being
a slave to material things. Using material things is one thing, being a slave
to them is another. In our wise and
trustworthy use of material goods, we must see them only as instruments or
means to a greater end, see them as servants and not as our masters. To be completely dependent upon wealth is
opposed to the vision of Jesus who taught complete dependence on the Father as
one of the characteristics of the Christian disciple.
Christian Life
And so Jesus does not condemn earthly
riches and money in themselves; he only condemns their abuse and misuse. For example, many of us have smartphones,
which are very useful in communicating with each other, even seeing the video
of people who are so far away, like some you do with your grandchildren or I do
with my mother who is all the way back in Africa – smartphones are essentially
good things. But we can also misuse
these good things, like when we use them to play games or send text message
while at table or in company or worse still, when driving, and God forbid, in
Church.
Like we don't stop using smartphones
because they can be abused, Jesus too does not throw the baby out with the bath
water, when it comes to material goods. Rather,
he encourages the wise, trustworthy and detached use of material goods, for building
the Kingdom of God, something most us already do.
We do use material things wisely,
trustworthily and detachedly when we work hard to feed our families, send our
kids to school, and even give them a treat or a holiday every now and
then. This use of material things is
certainly a sign of taking seriously our responsibility as Christian parents,
and thus preparing the way for us and our children for the Kingdom.
We use money wisely, trustworthily and
detachedly when we faithfully pay our fair taxes for the good of our society,
when we contribute to other community causes, and take care of the needy. Using
our resources for the benefit of the community and especially the hungry and
thirsty, the sick and imprisoned, the stranger and the naked, is certainly a
way to secure our entrance into heaven, as Jesus promises in the parable of the
Last Judgement.
We use our money wisely, trustworthily and
detachedly when we give to the Church, both local and missionary, for the work
of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.
There can be no surer way to secure the Kingdom of God and our
membership in it, than by making sure that Kingdom becomes a reality in the
first place.
Conclusion
During our working lives we set aside some
money in investments and 401ks, to ensure that we shall have a pension or
social security to care for our needs when we retire. Similarly during our earthly lives, we should
use what we have wisely, to ensure that at the end of this earthly life, we
shall have an everlasting pension.
A story is told of a young girl who earned
some money, helping around the house with various chores. She then went to the dollar store and found
some fake jewellery, which she really liked, because she had bought it with her
very own money. She used to wear that
necklace all the time; to church and to school, to visit friends and even to
bed.
Now one night, several months after she had
bought her fake pearls, just before he read her a bedtime story, the dad asked
her to give him the necklace as a sign of her love for him. She said: "No daddy, not the
necklace. Perhaps you can take the
Barbie."
The next night he asked her again, but she
still said no.
On the third night when he came into her
room, she was already seated on the side of the bed, with the necklace in her
hands. She told him: “Daddy, I have been
thinking. I love you so much. Please take the necklace.”
The dad was so touched and broke down in
tears. And then he did what he had been
planning all along; he took a necklace with real pearls from his pocket and
gave it to her in exchange for the fake one.
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