25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
First Reading: Am 8:4-7
Second Reading: 1 Tim 2:1-7
Gospel Reading: Lk 16:1-13
In this Sunday’s Gospel Reading, a steward is about to be dismissed for squandering his master’s property. In order to ingratiate himself with his master’s debtors, he reduces their debts, thus defrauding his master, and his master “commends” him!
Was Jesus commending dishonesty? Impossible; for God’s commandments forbid stealing. What, then, was the point of the parable?
Look at the final two sentences: “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light,” and “Make friends for yourself with dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”
Worldly people, Jesus says, think that their security (their “eternal homes”) lies in wealth. Accordingly, as the First Reading says, they long for the Sabbath to be over so that they can buy and sell again; they “measure out less and charge more” as simply good business practice. Their efforts are doomed to failure, but in the “shrewdness” they exhibit in pursuit of their unworthy goal, they put us to shame.
We believe that God is our only security, but we are tempted to think that there will be time enough to think about him later, after we have made enough money to secure our own future. In the meantime, we labour on Sundays as we do the rest of the week, disobeying his command to keep his day holy. We put a minimal amount into the Sunday collection, disobeying the Church’s precept to help provide for its material needs “each according to his abilities.”
I am often told, “I can’t put much in the Sunday collection, Father, but if I win the lottery, I’ll give half of it to the Church!” Thus we behave like “fools,” as Jesus said in the Gospel Reading a few weeks ago, for “this very night” our lives might be demanded of us; “the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
Speaking to young people who questioned whether they should pursue their education when a second world war appeared imminent, Christian writer C.S. Lewis said, “Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment ‘as to the Lord.’ It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.”
Christ warns us plainly that we cannot serve both God and wealth; we must love God with our whole heart, with our whole soul, and with all our mind. We cannot, as Lewis says, “keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be ‘good’”; we cannot let our minds and hearts “go their own way, centered on money or pleasure or ambition,” and, in spite of this, “behave honestly and chastely and humbly.” If we try, we will hear those terrible words, “I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.”
In the Second Reading, St. Paul urges us to pray for “kings and all who are in high places.” Perhaps they are even more tempted than the rest of us to disobey God’s laws for the sake of some imagined future good.
For example, in the film A Man For All Seasons, Cardinal Wolsey urges Thomas More to help him secure a divorce for King Henry VIII of England. “England needs an heir,” he explains. Certain measures, perhaps “regrettable,” but “necessary,” have to be taken.
“Now explain how you, as Councillor of England, can obstruct these measures for the sake of your own, private, conscience.”
More replies, “Well, I believe that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.”
