The Parable Shocks But Christ's Message Is Powerful

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Course 2025

Reading today’s excerpt from the letter of Saint Paul to Timothy, you might get the impression that the goal of any church congregation is to “lead a quiet an tranquil life in all devotion and dignity.” That sounds like an average middle-class suburban lifestyle, does it not? But remember that Paul was writing to Timothy as bishop of Ephesus, and all of them were operating under the control of the Roman emperor. What Paul is asking is that all kinds of prayers—supplications, prayers, petitions, thanksgiving, be offered for everyone, especially kings and authorities, so that we can lead a quiet and tranquil life in devotion to the mission we have from Christ. And that mission is to please God our savior so that we can bring everyone around us to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth. The goal is to spread the message of Christ and His Church of the will of God to save all human beings. If the authorities are dragging us off to jail it’s hard to fulfill that mission, so we want the guys in charge to let us alone with the freedom to bring Christ to the world.

Let’s follow Paul’s direction to lift up our hands, made holy by God’s grace and forgiveness, in supplication for the authorities without anger or argument.

Part of our ministry to a world in dire need of the love and law of Jesus is putting into effect the divine response to the situation laid out in the first reading from Amos. Israel, at least the breakaway northern kingdom, was pretty affluent in the time of Amos. At least there was a lot of affluence among the upper class, but they were not making their money honestly. They fooled with their weights and measures so they were selling their wares with unfair markups. Amos was clear—they were cheating! The Lord swore by Himself, because He was the pride of Jacob, that He would never forget the injustice.

God would, as the psalm proclaims, look down from heaven and raise up the lowly and put down the haughty. God taught through Moses to treat the poor well, and if we do, He will repay us with His graces in abundance.

In the Gospel, briefly, a steward has been cooking the books and raking off merdida for himself and his boss gets wind of the theft and fires him. Then the steward calls in buyers who owe the boss money and writes down their debt so they might hire him when he has to vacate his job. No, Jesus is not recommending this behavior to His disciples. The boss commended the steward because he still got paid, he made the same money as before since he didn’t lose the steward’s “rake-off.” Jesus is shocking His disciples with this story because it illustrates an important reality, both in commerce and in religion. Things, or “stuff” cannot be our goal. They are means to a goal. We tend because of original sin to plot to use people to get stuff. Bad habit. What we should do is use things to form relationships with people.

It's very true: you cannot serve two masters. You’ll love one and hate the other, or you’ll be devoted to one and despise the other. If your goal is piling up stuff, you’ll alienate people. If you goal is establishing and growing relationships with people and with God, you will put them first and put all your goods in service of that goal.

What, then, shall we do? Our goal is being in union with the Blessed Trinity in heaven forever, for ourselves and for our families and, looking more expansively, for all humans. Our material possessions, then, must be in service of that great objective. Turn to the practice of almsgiving with that thought. Give goods, services, honor and money for the use of the poor, the homeless, the abandoned mother or mother-to-be. Your reward will be great in heaven. That is a practical application of this shocking parable and of the Law of Love Jesus taught.