TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME C

[cappie]

The moral of the unusual parable today is that Jesus wants his hearers to see that the choice before them is of the same magnitude as that of the steward. Their whole future hangs in the balance. Jesus wants them, like the Steward, to be shrewd, daring and willing to sacrifice for the future. This is an all or nothing proposition. The people, in fellowship around the table that evening, have already tasted something new in what life can be. Jesus is asking if this is going to be a one-night stand, or do they see the crucial importance of re-orienting the way they live to the Kingdom’s standards and values?

It is very important to see in this parable that Jesus cracks up the old equation of justification. If you have lots of stuff, God’s blessing is on you and if you don’t have anything it’s because you’ve lived an unrighteous life. Jesus neither condemns or condones having money and possessions. It is the choice to serve God, seeking God’s Kingdom and its righteousness, that will shape the believers’ relationship to their money and possession. We may have a little, we may have lot, just as the people around Jesus’ table that night long ago. Regardless of how much we have, we still have to decide how to use it.

The sayings of Jesus that follow the parable answer many of the questions that probably were buzzing in the heads of the people at the party. “If I am to give myself to God’s Kingdom and I am family, kin, in equal status with everyone here, how do I use what I have? ” “If I have lots, what do I give and receive; if I have little, what do I give and receive?” Jesus says, “Make friends with money!” In other words, get lots of it. Go for it so that you can use it, direct it, for God’s purposes. Ask, seek, knock to find out what God wants done with money and then do it!  Jesus says, walk the Kingdom’s ways now, so you will know how to get there later on; build riches that last unto eternal life. Money spent helping others teaches us to live as God does, giving and giving to build the other up, to widen the river of blessing, whose living waters nourish creation. In right stewardship of money, we learn God’s ways in the here and now in order to take our place as contributors to the uplifting of creation, to be creative and blessed. In so living now, we taste the eternity that is foundational to the Kingdom and the joy that only fulfilling God’s desire can bring.

All throughout these sayings, however, Jesus is clear. Money is not and can never be the end in itself, when it is a vehicle for God’s love, it will take us far along our spiritual journey through our interactions of working and giving to those whom God seeks to build up. The money is not ours; it is God’s.   

The prophet Amos puts it pretty plainly, and Jesus resounds this theme, that money pursued for itself becomes an idol, demanding service and sacrifice that has nothing to do with God’s Kingdom and everything to do with our own little ego fiefdoms. The end of money that is sought for itself, for myself alone, however, leads to smallness, not greatness of spirit. Money is destructive on its own because it demands that we treat others, sisters and brothers as Jesus has identified them, as objects easily sacrificed to the getting of more money. .

And neither Amos nor Jesus were fools. They knew that the servants of money frequented the Temple. They sat in the places of honour  even as they asked, in smug sighs of those going through the motions in order to exploit the potential that results from giving the right appearances, “When will the New Moon festival be over that we can get back to the real business of selling grain? (that is, making money)?”

The only way to “tame” money is to deprive it of its idol status and revert it to servant status. The only way to do this is to seek first  to commit your life and faith, your identity with as much earnestness as the crafty steward. We have to choose who will we serve; we can’t serve both.  Our identity and being is shaped by who or what we serve.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Even as Joshua was called to state his declaration three millennia ago, so, too, are we called to state our allegiance today. “Jesus calls us to name it and claim it; to go for it full steam ahead and say, like Joshua, “Choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”