Ordinary Time 25th Sun C

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: AM 8:4-7
Responsorial Psalm: PS 113:1-2, 4-6, 7-8 
2nd Reading: 1 TM 2:1-8
Gospel: LK 16:1-13

The readings today are about money, property, stuff, and how they can get in the way of our ultimate purpose in life, and how they can be put to use. The first reading is a warning by the prophet Amos to the people of the kingdom of Israel. Back then the Holy Land was divided into two kingdoms. The poor little kingdom of Judah in the south, centered on Jerusalem and the temple; and the large, rich and powerful kingdom of the northern ten tribes of Israel. But it was too rich, and its leading citizens were focused only on getting richer, often by cheating in business and by taking advantage of the poor. Amos warns them that God will remember all their misdeeds. The Gospel is an unusual one, and perhaps hard to understand. It talks about a steward, and in our day that word is usually applied to a servant of some kind. In the large hotels where I worked, the stewards were those who washed dishes and mopped the floors in the kitchen and service areas. But in Jesus’ time, a steward was an executive, like a general manager, someone who runs things, like a business he doesn’t own. Why is Jesus giving compliments to the dishonest steward who was acting so shrewdly?

When he was calling in the debtors and reducing their promissory notes, he wasn’t cheating his master, he was removing his share, his commission from the amount of the notes. That’s how stewards got paid, not by a salary from the master. Under the circumstances, it was the smart thing to do, to give up his own profit for the moment, to make friends for his uncertain future. So Jesus is telling us to do the same, give up some of what we could have now, so we may have a secure and happy eternal future. We should give up cheerfully all those things we could have if we sinned, and lied and cheated, like many others do to get ahead, like the steward probably did – until he got caught. Nice guys might finish last in this world, but we do get the last laugh in the next world.
 
So we are like that steward in many ways God trusts us with our lives and lots of blessings. But we sin, like the steward did; we don’t always act or live like we should. And we know that there will be an accounting God will judge who we are. What should we do so that we don’t get judged harshly? Jesus is showing us what to do in the Gospel today, because God does not want to punish us. It says in the Gospel of John: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” No servant can serve two masters. It is easy to think that what Jesus is talking about is just money, but we can’t all be rich anyway. Jesus is talking about anything that trips us up in this world. Our second master could be our ego, our good looks, our intelligence, some talent or ability we have. All these things are entrusted to us by God, our true Master, in order to serve Him, to help others and to make our way through this world. It’s easy to find these other masters to enslave us, easy to see enslavement in others, but harder to see it in ourselves. So finally Jesus asks “If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your very own?” Here Jesus is speaking about not just our gifts but our life as a whole. Our life is a loan from God. God gives it to us and He looks to see how we will use it, how we repay it. Life is a test of sorts. Will we use our lives just to enrich our own selves, or will we use it to enrich God’s creation? By raising a family and living to help our children and grandchildren; by helping those who are in need or trouble; by being of service to others and to our community. If we do a good job with this life that God has loaned us, then he will entrust us with our very own share of his own eternal life in what we call heaven. It’s not rocket science, as they say, but it is difficult to forget ourselves, to love others – like our enemies – and to treat even those we don’t like just like they were Jesus Christ.
 
The Steward is an example for us not because of his dishonesty but because he was smart, smart enough to change what he was doing and how he was living. He knew how to adjust to reality. This is what we call conversion, and it is not a one-time event. It is a process all through life of becoming more and more like the person God intended us to be. The steward knew he could only really serve His true master, and not his self-interest. He knew how to make things right with God, and that’s what we should do. We should do good as it is given to each of us to do in the unique circumstances of own lives. Why? Not because God will punish us. When we do bad things, when we sin, we punish ourselves. Doing bad things makes us into a bad people, and bad people, serious unrepentant sinners are unhappy. They may look happy in People magazine, and MTV may say they’re happy, but they are not. Unrepentant sinners would not like the things of heaven so God doesn’t let them in; He doesn’t force heaven on anyone. God does not want unhappy people with Him and with all the happy and good people in that state of being we call heaven. You wouldn’t want to be around bad or unhappy people either.
 
So it turns out that we punish ourselves when we sin, and we will end up judging ourselves too when we come to God. We will each have made ourselves into a good happy person or just the opposite, and it will be obvious to God, to ourselves and everyone else. So, like the steward, we must get busy and try to be and do as much good as we can. As Saint Peter says: charity, love, covers over a multitude of sins. We must try to be truly happy so that we can be united with God, Who will make sure we are the happiest we could ever be. More than anything else, God loves us and wants us to be happy. May God give us the light, strength and grace to do a little bit better this week, to give God a better return on His investment in our lives.