Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
My
dad’s trade is business. As long
as I have known him, my dad has been running the financial operations of a
company: first Friedland Industries, a recycling/scrap processing company in
Lansing, and now the operations manager for St. Jude parish in DeWitt. And yet, I would also say that my dad,
like so many parents, is also a de facto
teacher. He never went to school
to get a teaching certificate, but he’s taught me a lot about what he knows,
especially finances. Whether it
was not buying Gushers because they were too expensive and too extravagant, or
cutting out coupons for our regular grocery needs; or when I was getting ready
to leave for college and he was teaching me the importance of building credit,
and how to apply for and properly use a credit card; or when he would make sure
that I didn’t spend more than I have, my dad taught me how to use money well. And it has paid off for me when I lease
a car, or when I’m deciding how I want to invest my money to save up for
retirement (if I’m ever allowed to retire).
Whether
we like business or not, most of us are very particular about how we spend our
money, especially if we are adults.
And we try to teach the next generation the same lesson. I even found myself this summer, after
I returned from school, talking to a Lansing Catholic alumnus about the
importance of a credit card, as long as it is used responsibly. We tend to treat money as a precious
commodity, because without it we don’t have a roof over our head, clothes on
our back, and food in our bellies.
In
our Gospel today, Jesus invites us to treat our life in God with the same
cunning as we treat our money. He
commends the dishonest steward for making sure that he was taken care of, even
after he found out that he was being fired for squandering the master’s
property. This parable comes right
on the heels on the parables we heard last week, and they’re in the context of
Jesus speaking to the Scribes and Pharisees who were upset with Jesus spending
so much time with sinners and tax collectors.
And
Jesus tells the Scribes and Pharisees that the sinners and tax collectors are
to be commended, not because of what they have done in the past, but because of
how they are changing their life when confronted with their sins. They are honest enough to realize that
their life is not godly, and so they decide they better take faith and religion
quite seriously. Just as the master
in the parable was impressed by the dishonest steward making sure he was taken
care of after his employment had ended, so Jesus was impressed, not by the sins
of those who were following him, but by how seriously they were taking Jesus’
call to conversion, to turn away from sin and be faithful to Him.
Our
culture does not deal with sin very seriously. How many times have we seen on TV, whether from a politician,
or a rock star, or an athlete, “I am sorry if…” or “I apologize if…”? That is not the message of someone who
realizes the severity of the offense.
That’s someone who is not really concerned and just wants to get away
with whatever was done. That’s not
the message of repentance. That’s
the message of excuse.
If
we are to be commended, then we have to face our sin head on, and make
changes. We have to truly turn
away from our sin and give it the gravity it deserves, especially those grave
sins which destroy our relationship with God and make us His enemies, rather
than His beloved sons and daughters.
A lot of times people face their sins near the time of death. When faced with mortality, and
recognizing that a judgment is coming, people get very practical about how to
make sure they’re not going to suffer.
But, as Jesus said so often, “Stay awake! For you do not know the day nor the hour.” We don’t know when our time to be
judged will come upon us. And, to
quote Francis Cardinal George, “Jesus is merciful, but he is not stupid.”
When
faced with our sin, and this doesn’t only happen on our deathbed, what is our
response? Are we like the sinners
and tax collectors of the Gospel who leave behind their past evils in order to
follow Jesus? Do we do all we can
to make sure we are spiritually taken care of, just as the dishonest steward did
all he could to make sure he was materially taken care of, or do we figure
we’ve got time to keep living it up, and we can always repent later? Do we treat our spiritual life as
seriously as we treat our financial life?
If we
do, then God is not just a three-letter word. Our faith is not restricted to these walls. It is something that changes the
decisions we make. It guides the
way we vote. It guides what we
watch in the theater, on TV, and what we listen to. It changes the way that we spend our time so that we are
giving of our time and talents so that they’re not just used for our work to
earn us money, but are used for the benefit of our Catholic family to show our
acceptance of God’s grace and love.
It even changes the way we handle our finances: which charities we give
to; how much we spend on niceties; how much we give to the Church. We realize that, just because we don’t
personally benefit from the Undergraduate Retreat, Alternative Spring Break,
our Catholic schools, Senior Ministry; Youth Ministry; etc., does not mean that
we do not volunteer our time or the things we do well, and even our money to
these worthy causes.
Jesus
today confronts us with our sins, not to beat us up, but to give us the
opportunity to make the changes so that we are taken care of spiritually in the
life to come. Make the change so
that you will not be left outside of the gate, where there is wailing and
gnashing of teeth, but will be welcomed to the wedding feast of the Lamb in the
banquet hall of heaven.