As followers of Christ, we are called to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
So when we hear that first reading from Amos it is hard.
“Hear this, you who trample upon the needy
and destroy the poor of the land!”
Clearly these people will have a day of reckoning.
Anything that got in their way, even Holy Days, were an obstacle to endure – for they couldn’t buy and sell on those days. They were focused on one thing, money and there was no room for God, and consequently, no thought of the poor.
Fast forward to our Gospel today and we see another steward. He too is squeezing every penny out of others he can, and he must make his commission too. After all, that is how he can afford to live as well as he does. He has power over others who owe his master.
But the first clue we hear that tells us how Jesus sees things, is the use of the word “squandering.” When the rich man, the stewards master says he was squandering the master’s money. And he orders him to balance the books and is fired from his job.
Squandering…..That is the same word used in the preceding parable in this Gospel about the prodigal son. The younger son, who took his inheritance and squandered it on dissipation, totally wasted everything his father gave him. Not what his father expected him to use it for. And this “whole” idea of using someone’s money for something other than its true purpose, is an important point and brings us to dishonest wealth.
Dishonest wealth can be confusing or distracting for us. Especially when it sounds like Jesus is praising dishonest wealth. If asked, we would say of course, we have nothing to do with dishonest wealth. We don’t scam or swindle anyone. But dishonest wealth is money that we didn’t earn or have a right to. But let’s look deeper.
A parable is usually a story where we can see ourselves as an actor in it. In today’s parable, the master or rich man is God. All money and property and debt belong to and are owed to him. The debtors are the poor, and you and I are the ones handling money God gave to us.
We know God is the master and that this could never be a real story, for the only master that would approve of his steward giving away money or commodities is God himself.
And the purpose of the money or blessings, advantages and opportunities that are given by God is to provide not only for ourselves, but also to help the poor and build the kingdom of God always collaborating with God.
This means…
We may be very good at accumulating wealth but, if we did not help the poor and love others as we were commanded, we have squandered the blessings given us and will face our God one day.
And he will order a balancing of our books on how we lived as children of God. If we are using wealth we were given for the wrong purposes, in God’s eyes we are wasting dishonest wealth.
We are taking from the poor what we were supposed to share. Much like the people in Amos.
The steward in the gospel realizes, finally, that it isn’t his money and all he has is someone else’s money to work with. To better his prospects he gave it away. Reducing commodities owed drastically. He did this to ensure that later, after he loses everything, there would be people to welcome him into their homes.
And to be clear, Jesus wasn’t admiring the dishonest deeds.
He instead was revealing the distinction he saw between those who serve the world and those who serve God. In scripture, serving is the same as worshipping. To put all ones time and energy and self into focusing on the commands of who or what we worship. Mammon – the god of wealth and greed has many people firmly in his grasp. Relentless in their pursuit of money and power. And they were very shrewd in their focus.
Jesus saw that the children of this world were singularly focused on that pursuit. They bent their entire world toward the goal of gaining wealth. They involved every facet of their life and mind and heart.
While those who worshipped God.
Well, not so much. Not much has changed today.
Many people today only serve God by attending Mass once a week when they can, or by saying prayers at meals or maybe even add a prayer now and then when things get difficult. But it’s not enough.
Not for a God who requires us to put him first and— not a God who requires us to love others as much as we love ourselves. And as always it’s all about our relationship with God and others.
How are we doing in our pursuit of that relationship? How do we compare with the children of the world in our singular efforts to align all things with God’s will?
The commandments haven’t changed “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
And those aren’t optional commandments. We can longer just do the minimum and assume all will work out.
Jesus was very clear about this.
We must live those two commandments as a beginning and end to our life and each day put them into practice.
Everything we do must be for God…… We must invite him into every aspect of our life. From the smallest chore to the most important moments and relationships.
The good news is, we can begin now to share more of our blessings and make God first, really first, in our life.
Once we truly understand we own nothing ourselves, we can begin to build a life with God at the center, the source of all we have.
We can do this if every morning we empty our hearts and minds of fear or anxiety or worry, anything that stops us from bringing all focus on Jesus Christ and trusting in his word in each moment of our day.
The day is coming when we will find ourselves standing before God with nothing more than what we were born with. No money, no wealth, no home, no nice clothing…nothing. It was never really ours.
Who will be standing beside Jesus Christ to welcome us into our forever home in heaven? If we are as clever as the dishonest steward, we will see
—-those we shared our treasure with,
—those we spent time helping and
—those we loved.
And Jesus will say to us, “Well done, good and faithful steward! Come and share your master’s happiness!U
Deacon Tony Pynes 
Leave a comment