TWENTY-FIFTH
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
(Amos 8:4-7; 1 Timothy 2:1-8; Luke 16:1-13)
No Gospel
shows Jesus as concerned about money as the Gospel of Luke. A few weeks ago, we
heard the parable of the rich fool, in which Jesus warned against greed. Today,
the Lord teaches his disciples about the proper use of money. And in just a
week, the same gospel will show Jesus rebuking the Pharisees for their
disregard of the poor. We should pay close attention to these lessons. For if,
as the First Letter to Timothy says, “the love of money is the root of all
evils,” its corrupting influence has only grown stronger today.
People
stumble over money when they see it as the highest good. It is not hard to
understand why: money can buy the unrepentant heart’s great desires—power,
pleasure, and prestige. Today’s first reading shows this clearly. The prophet
Amos denounces the wealthy of his time who bragged, “We will buy the lowly for
silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals.”
These
idolatrous values of power, pleasure, and prestige easily distract us from the
gratitude, praise, and love that belong to God alone. In our day, the
accumulation of money has also become one of these false idols. Consider a
recent headline: billionaire Elon Musk was offered salary and stock options
that could raise his fortune to a trillion (that is, a million million)
dollars. It is unimaginable what anyone could do with so much wealth. And yet,
such stories not only catch people’s attention, but also capture their hearts.
God alone
is the supreme good. He created us and saved us from the pride that deceived us
into thinking of ourselves as his rivals. He sent Christ, his Son, who humbled
himself to become human and die on the cross. By this, he freed us from the
power of the evil one, so that we may live, as the Second Reading from Timothy
says, “a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity.”
In today’s
Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the dishonest steward to teach us what to do
with money. It is a curious parable, because it almost sounds as if the master
praises dishonesty. But this is not the case. The master only acknowledges the
steward’s cleverness, without approving his behavior. It is like when we say,
“give the devil his due.” We are not holding up the devil as a model; we are
simply recognizing his craftiness. In the same way, the steward is shrewd in
preparing for his future, even if he acts unjustly.
Jesus is
urging his disciples to prepare for the future by using money in ways that
secure eternal life. We do this when we share our resources for the
good of the poor. St. Vincent de Paul, whose feast we will celebrate this
Saturday, taught that generosity toward the poor shapes our eternal destiny. In
a conference to the Daughters of Charity, he said: “Because God loves the
poor, he also loves those who love the poor; for when someone has a special
affection for a person, that affection extends also to those who show
friendship or service to that person.”
The poor
are truly God’s friends because they depend on his goodness. But in many cases,
money prevents us from living with the same trust. We tell ourselves that we
pay doctors to cure our illnesses, or that we buy insurance to protect us from
risks. If that is our mindset, we are only deceiving ourselves. In the end, it
is God who delivers us from our troubles and who saves us from perdition.
