September 18, 2022, Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Today we learn a lesson about the place of wealth in our lives, and not letting money and possessions be the guide to how we live. The message from Amos in the First Reading (Am. 8:4-7) is rather clear. However, in the Gospel (Lk 16:1-13) Jesus teaches this to us in a parable which seems a bit confusing.

Amos was a prophet who preached in Israel around 800 BC, during the monarchy, the time of the kings in the Old Testament. At that time the major world power was the nation of Assyria. In this particular passage, Amos is speaking for God to those who “trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land” (Am. 8:4). These would be the wealthy citizens of the city who oppress the unfortunate and manage to deceive them in their business dealings.

They can barely wait until the time of the harvest when they can over weigh the grain on fixed scales. This they do by measuring a smaller stack of wheat to an inflated cost on a scale known as an ephah. While the shekel, which is used to weigh valuables such as gold and silver in exchange for the wheat, is also altered to defraud the buyers in the transaction.  Thus, the seller gives the buyer less wheat and receives in return a larger amount of silver than is actually due.

In addition to the sins of idolatry and hypocritical worship, the Lord is angry with these businessmen of Israel for taking advantage of the poor. He has sworn by the pride of Jacob, the very Spirit He had blessed Jacob with, that He will never forget any debauchery they have done. And so it happened that the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell into the captivity of Assyria in 722BC.

In the Gospel, Jesus addresses the touchy subject of affluence in the lives of his followers. He tells the story of a rich man who had a steward, a man to handle his accounts, who was mishandling his property and so was being fired from his position. The steward fretted because he knew he was not fit for manual labor, and he was too proud to beg. And so, he devised a scheme to care for himself once he became unemployed.

He called each of the debtors who owed something to the rich man and reduced the amount of the commodity that each one owed. In actuality, he was probably decreasing each debt by the amount of commission he had added to skim off the top for himself. He figured that the debtors would then befriend him for decreasing the amounts that they owed and help him once he was unemployed. Upon seeing this, the master commended the stewart for acting so shrewdly and so made it seem as if he approved of the steward’s dishonesty. But what the master was really doing was commending the cleverness of his employee for finding his way out of a bad situation.

Jesus, too, seems to approve of the dishonest steward ending this parable by saying, “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light” (Lk. 16:8b). But this is not the case. For the “children of this world” are those people who are more concerned with their situations here on earth. They, therefore, deal better with others with worldly obsessions, than with “children of the light” who are those with priorities other than those of this world, that is the ways of the kingdom of God, which are not impacted by temporal, earthly concerns.

Jesus also seems to confuse the moral of the story with the following verse: “I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings” (Lk. 16:9). But what he is actually doing is encouraging us to be generous with our wealth in this life so that in the life to come new friends will receive us “into eternal dwellings.”

Jesus finally clarifies saying, “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 you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours? 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.”  (Lk. 16:10, 12-13).

Jesus is urging that we invest the gifts from God wisely.  When we give financially to our church or other charities, when we give to people who are in need, and when we are generous with our time, what we are really doing is helping to bring God’s kingdom here to earth. And when we use our personal possessions to help others, we are ensuring our place in the kingdom of God.

This is why we pray daily, “Our Father who art heaven, hallowed be the name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven….”