Twenty Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time (Year C)

Amos 8.4-7;
I Tim 2.1-8;
Lk 16.1-13

If you want to know the secret to good financial success and happy life—a life you cannot possibly regret—today’s gospel is for you. For most of us, the only real problem with money is that we never have enough of it. Indeed, the only people to whom that doesn’t apply are those who are so fabulously wealthy that they hardly know just how rich they really are. The accounts of the seriously rich are so complicated that it takes very large numbers of highly qualified and well-paid staff to keep track of it all. It’s never possible to say at any one moment with total precision “I am worth so much” because perpetually fluctuating markets, interest rates and the like, make the financial world a constantly shifting sea. The film Wall Street, released a few years ago, before the appalling destruction of the World Trade Centre, was an intriguing exposition of greed and its effects. In themselves the huge quantities of money amassed by the characters seemed, in a way, rather admirable. It was the unpredictable effects of such enormous wealth on vulnerable human hearts that made their lives so depressing.

Today’s gospel certainly encourages mental gymnastics. Our Lord seems to be commending astuteness in financial affairs, even to the point of sharp practice. “The master praised the dishonest steward for his astuteness. For the children of this world are more astute in dealing with their own kind than are the children of light.” It’s always tempting to try and strain too neat a punch line or too simplistic a meaning out of the gospel parables. In this case, the message does seem to be quite a sophisticated one. What’s being commended is surely not dishonesty, but rather the resourceful determination of the steward in providing for his own future security. The hint of the real orientation of the parable is given in the unexpected words “tents of eternity”. By linking the notion of astuteness with our eternal destiny, the Lord is teaching us that preparing for our eternal future should be approached with even more determination, with an even greater sense of urgency, than the crafty schemings with which we manage our financial affairs. To put it bluntly: plan for eternity even more carefully than you plan for your pension.

The moral of today’s gospel is this. By all means use money to make life easier and, perhaps even in some strange way, potentially more spiritual. But don’t let it chain you down. One day you will leave this world, perhaps sooner rather than later. Then you will be called to give a precise and detailed account of your stewardship. Did you use your money for your own comfort or for the good of others? You might well say to the Judge “If I had had more resources, I would done more good”. This is by no means an adequate defence, in the light of today’s gospel. We children of light are required to be even more astute in the way we manage our salvation than the children of this world are in the way they manage Wall Street. Dancing at the end of time, as if the world were going to last for ever, is not an option. It’s all rather difficult. So difficult, in fact, that it’s almost enough to make one want to take a vow of poverty – almost, but perhaps not quite!

Fr Joseph