Ordinary 25

The Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Amos 8:4-7; Psalm 113; 1 Timothy 2:1-8; Luke 16:1-13

Tax Collectors [1520s] Quinten Massy

Are you trustworthy?

More importantly, do other people regard you as trustworthy?

Outside of immediate and intimate spousal and family circles, do other people use you as a confidant or a sounding board? Have you been asked to be an executor of a Last Will and Testament or a Health Care Proxy? If you are in the position of a guardian or trustee, how do you treat other people’s money, property or possessions? Does your employer consider you trustworthy?

Obviously the rich man trusted his steward until he heard a rumor. Rumors are insidious. Regretfully people eagerly believe them and prefer to presume the worst in other people, even people they know well. How trustworthy are you and I of other people’s reputations when we hear a rumor? What bothers me is that the rich man believes the rumor, gives no opportunity for the steward to clear his name and is prepared to dismiss him. How trustworthy is the employer? Or is this latest rumor in a series of incidents?

Then there is the steward, who continues his dishonesty to selfishly protect his own uncertain future shrewdly makes other people complicit in his crimes. And who would not want their debt reduced, the mortgage, the college loans, the car payments, the credit card bills? But no longer in debt to the rich man, they are now in debt to the steward who is looking for a return favour. Gifts and favours can be manipulative. That feeling of indebtedness? The web that is woven in this story entangles and grips everyone in its sticky strands.

In the end the steward is not penitent for stealing and the rich man does not forgive the squandering but rather commends the steward for acting prudently?  Does any of this make sense to you?  Should any of these characters: the rich man, the dishonest steward, and the dishonest debtors deserve to be commended?  Are they no better than the merchants whom the prophet Amos condemns for false religious observance so they can victimize the poor seeking the basics of life?

Are we not experiencing similar situations in the present political, business and economic spheres?  Why is Jesus offering us the actions of such unscrupulous and unprincipled people to imitate?

What virtue do you find in the story?

Last week we heard a story about a wasteful son who squandered his share of his father’s inheritance.  This week a steward squanders his master’s money and property and then goes on to squander more by involving others to engage in corporate stealing.  Next week we will hear another story you know well.  The rich man who lives sumptuously while poor Lazarus sits on his doorstep with the dogs licking his wounds.  The rich man serves wealth and squanders his spiritual resource.

Mighty this be a key to the virtue we are called to imitate?

The son used the wealth of his father to live what many people have always sought: “the good life.” The unjust steward is seeking a stable home, possessions and security through other people. The rich man, we will hear about next week, has everything the son and steward are seeking: wealth, fine foods and fashion. The son ends up destitute and hungry. The steward, is he dismissed or not? And if so, do the debtors take him in as he planned? As you know, life does not always go the way we plan. And the rich man?  He ends up in a fiery torment of his own making.

How much of our lives are spent looking for all the wrong things, often masquerading as good things, in all the wrong places? How important are stability, security, and possessions to you?

Consider how many of our seniors, our parents, old friends, our aunts and uncles and grandparents (and us in the future) end up having to sell the family home and spend the bank accounts to pay for a healthcare facility at the completion of life. I have experienced how difficult those decisions are for many good people who find it hard and tearful to let go of stability, security of the familiar and possessions. But Jesus promises us none of those things.

Consider the person with the infirmities of age, a chronic, weakening illness or the person who is dying.  The hidden invitation present in these situations to let go of stability, security and possessions. Sickness and dying strip away of the illusion that wealth provides us with security and stability. And Jesus promises us none of those things.

The son, the steward and the rich man found it quite easy to squander, waste, and spend their wealth and possessions, didn’t they? Might the parable be inviting us to a holy squandering, a holy dispossession if you will?

Perhaps Jesus is inviting us to let go of our desires, our poisoned ulterior motives that our gift giving produce the benefit to us of indebting others. Not knowing whether the steward was taken in after being dismissed, perhaps Jesus is inviting us to let go of the illusion that wealth brings us security. Perhaps Jesus is inviting us into a freedom by our holy squandering so we are unhindered to live the life of a pilgrim toward eternal dwellings whose mobility requires we travel light.

The question then becomes not whether we are trustworthy but whether we regard for our security and stability God as trustworthy?