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September 23, 2007
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
READING 1:
Amos 8:4-7
The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing they have done!
Psalm 113
Praise the Lord who lifts up the poor.
READING 2: 1 Timothy 2:1-8
This is good and pleasing to God our Savior, who wills everyone to be savedand to come to the knowledge of truth. For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all.
GOSPEL: Luke 16:1-13
Jesus said to his disciples, “A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, ‘What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.’ The steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.’ He called in his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’ Then to another the steward said, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘One hundred kors of wheat.’ The steward said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note; write one for eighty.’ And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.
“For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. 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? 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 [the temporal things].”
Jesus didn’t waste his time telling stories limited to his own time and place. His stories continue to resonate in our economic news about interest rates. We are all stewards of this world’s goods and how we live with them has ultimate consequences.
A woman died and St. Peter met her at her grave to review her life. He discovered that just once in her life she gave five dollars to a beggar. Otherwise she lived only for her own gratification. He told an angel to hand her five dollars. When she took the fiver dollars she started to rise up, rise up, rise up. Finally she could see the gates of heaven wide open revealing paradise. She was delighted. She looked down one last time and saw that the beggar she had given the five dollars to was holding her foot and behind him a long line of people held on. She was conditioned by the way she led her life to want to go on her way without pulling all those others so she started to shake her foot. She shook her foot until she finally broke free from the beggar. With that she triumphantly shouted, “It’s all miiiiiinnnnnne,” as she fell down and down and down and down.
…The woman didn’t realize the beggar was Jesus Christ and he wasn’t holding her back, he was lifting her up. The pattern of her life; old bad habits; the way we live our lives, are hard to break, she suffered the consequences.
Jesus is blunt about it, “You cannot serve God and the things that moths can eat and thieves can steal.” We’re a hard working, ambitious people; our homes, our cars, our possessions reflect our efforts. None of us, though, has enough to feel truly secure if we think our security in contingent upon our personal assets. I can personally testify because you are my evidence: the most secure people are those we would call “generous stewards”. Jesus tells us it is a choice not a compromise: everyday, in so many ways, we choose to love the temporary goodie or the eternal God. The habits we form in this life lead to our destiny; let’s pray that is good news!
Fr. Jeff McGowan
Queen of Peace Catholic Community
Gainesville, Florida |