Today’s readings for mass are puzzling. The first reading for mass talks about material gain, taking advantage of the poor and needy, and deceitful business practices. It ends by saying “The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.” Then, the gospel today is about dishonest wealth. The rich man found out his manager squandered his property, he decided to fire him and demanded an accounting of his record keeping. The manager then decided to reduce his employer’s wealth even further, by cheating on the records of what the towns people owed his employer. To top it off, all the people went along with the manager’s scheme to reduce what they owed to his master, knowing full well it was dishonest. Then, it gets even more complicated when the master commended the dishonest manager because he acted so shrewdly. By reducing the amount of money the people owed him, the manager made a lot of friends by doing this. After he lost his job, the people in the town would all be his friends and would welcome him into their homes and maybe help him find another job.
This whole story gets even more complicated when Jesus said to, “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” It’s like, Jesus is supporting deceitful business practice, and lying and cheating others, for personal gain. (This contradicts the first reading for mass today.) Why would Jesus support such a thing?
Then Jesus goes on to say, “Whoever is faithful in very little, is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?” This seems to contradict the first statement he made to make friends by means of dishonest wealth. At first it seems like Jesus is contradicting himself, or presenting a paradox.
The clue to the meaning of the readings today may be in the last statements the Lord said in this parable, “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.” The reason this might unlock the seemingly contradictory statements Jesus made, is because at first the manager was concerned only about money and material gain. He acquired money using deceitful business practices that cheated his employer of what the people in the town owed him. Then, suddenly he was losing his job and the people in his life finally became important to him. In the past, the manager just used them to make more money for himself, but now that the money was gone, he realized that people would be what was most important to him after he lost his job. It was a wake up call to realize what was really the most important in his life.
Jesus ended this parable by saying, “You cannot serve God and wealth.” It’s an either or situation, because the desire for wealth is a selfish motivation, but the desire to serve God is an unselfish motivation. A person can not be selfish and unselfish at the same time. If you are selfish, then you resent doing things for other people. If you are an unselfish person, you love God and want to serve Him, by being of service to others. When you serve others, you will naturally make a lot of friends. This could be what today’s gospel is about. Many people want to become wealthy, and pursue too much of their time and energy into the pursuit of more money, but money has a way of disappearing rather quickly sometimes. It can be a blessing when that happens though, because when people become poor, they realize the things that are of the most value in their lives and that is, their faith in God and the other people in their lives.
Today could be a “wake up call” for us too. What are we spending our time, energy and effort on in our lives? Are we spending our lives in the selfish pursuit of money and material goods as the main focus of our lives? Or are we keeping in mind the important things in life, such as our faith in God and relationship with Christ, and our family, friends and the community that we live in? We cannot serve God and money. Our family, friends and Catholic community that we live with, is going to be who we spend eternity with in heaven one day.
We should remember that we are pilgrims on a journey and are only passing through this world, on our way to our eternal home. Let’s not lose focus of this, and get distracted by the desire for money, possessions or other temporal things of this world. There is a greater treasure to be found in our eternal home in heaven. Do we want to spend eternity with God, Jesus, Mary, our family and friends? Or money? In the grand scheme of things, money really isn’t all that important after all.
