A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Our lord said to his disciples, a rich man had a manager who was reported to him for dissipating his property. So the man summoned his well, it's really his slave, his steward, and said to the man, what is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your service for it is about to come to an end. He's firing him.
The manager or the steward or the administrator it's a it's a tough one to translate. The manager thought to himself, what shall I do next? My employer is sure to fire me. I cannot dig ditches, and I'm ashamed to go begging. Oh, he says, I have it.
Here is a way to make sure that people will take me into their homes when I am let go here. So he called in each of his master's debtors and then said to the first, how much do you owe my master? The man replied, a 100 jars of oil. The steward or manager said, take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it 50. Then he said to a second better, how much do you owe?
He answered, a 100 measures of wheat. Well, at that, the manager said, take your invoice and make it 80. Nice discount. The owner then gave his devious employee credit for being enterprising. Why?
Because the worldly take more initiative than the otherworldly when it comes to dealing with their own kind. What I now this is our lord speaking, no longer a parable. What I say to you is this, make friends for yourselves through your use of this world's goods so that when they fail you, a lasting reception will be yours. If you can trust a man in little things, you can also trust him in greater, while anyone unjust in a slight matter is also unjust in the greater. If you cannot be trusted with a losing wealth, who will trust you with lasting wealth?
And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's money, who will give you what is your own due? No servant, our lord now concludes, no servant can serve two masters either. He will hate the one and love the other or be attentive to the one and despise the other. You cannot give yourself to god and to money nor to anything else. Is that for that matter?
And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. What I our lord is speaking, just it's from today's gospel. What I say to you is this, that you make friends for yourselves through your use of this world's goods so that when they fail you, that is these goods fail you, a lasting reception will be yours. And as I said, these words are taken from today's gospel. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit.
Amen. And let me tell you right off that this is a tough one. Any the the translation itself is very difficult. It's difficult in this way because your choice of English words here can be terribly significant. The Greek words are are simple, but the the English words you give can be extremely definitive.
By that, it means it'll put a seal on this so called unjust steward. Now this I'm telling you the truth. I was coming over here this morning with this very of course, what I was going to say very much on my mind. I got a flash, and it's a story that I think that's that's It may not give a solution. Case.
And And I the story I read years ago goes as follows. A minister and his wife were taking an afternoon Sunday drive in the country, And they were driving along in their car when they came to a long, long white fence of a beautiful farm, magnificently kept. The grass all cut, the fence in excellent shape, the gutters all clean. It was just marvelous. And as they were driving along slowly to enjoy and to take it all in, they saw a man leaning on the fence down near the driveway.
And so so they stopped. And the minister says, is this your farm? And the man says, yes. It is, rather proudly. And then the minister, very sincerely, went on to say what a beautiful place it was and how this is a manifestation of god's power and love for us, how he makes things grow, the trees, the grass, the the harvest, and so forth.
And the man listened very intensively and very and very respectfully to it all. So when the ministers stopped speaking, the farmer turned to him and says, well, he said, I have no doubt that everything you said is true, but you should have seen this farm when god had it alone. That's it. It also reminds me, as I just said that, the story of the handless Christ. I have no other hands than yours.
Now that really summarized my main point because this problem of being in this world, of using the things of this world, and not being their slave, being owned by them, is a tremendous problem. It's a tremendous problem because we are human beings. And how can we be immersed in all these wonderful good things without losing ourselves? Well, I meant that to come at the end, but we've started with the end to make a beginning of it. But that's really what I wanna say.
That that's it. We're in a we are in a situation where we have to trust god, where god does take care of us. And on the other hand, we have a profound responsibility to do our part. I have no other hands than yours was the inscription on the handless statue of Christ. Now I have to say a few words about this text this morning because it's a toughie, And they're all I spent a lot of time on this.
There are all kinds of explanations for this. Some are I mean, contemporary, very strung out. It when you first read it, it sounds very much as if Christ is praying praising immorality. God God. The the the the where these English translations come in here now.
Was the steward is deceitful? Was he defrauding his master? Isn't that is not perfectly clear. For example, do you notice there's not a word there of real punishment for this guy? Did you notice that?
If this steward who had complete control of the rich man's affairs, his property, his money, who had it in his authority to make all the decisions, If he was downright stealing, if he was a crook, don't you think that the the master would have given him some kind of punishment? He doesn't even say for sure that he's going to be fired. So is I this is a difficult text, believe me. It often strikes me as this, and I can justify it, that what the what the steward or the the administrator did was this. He simply discounted his master's debts.
And wouldn't wouldn't it be better to get half or 75% or 80% or 50% of a bad debt than nothing at all? He was well within his authority to do this. He wasn't I mean, it doesn't it it is not not necessary necessarily true that he was defrauding his master. It's possible that he was really doing him a favor, but it was a favor which did two things. If it was a favor to his master and bringing in some cash, at the same time, he was making friends when he was going to be let go.
So he was he was thinking of himself too. Now that's a possible explanation. There are all kinds of explanations for this, believe me. Way out somehow. But the the you have to take anything you read, anything you read, even if it's in your daily morning pay paper, you have to take it in context.
And you cannot assume that our blessed lord, the son of god, is praising immorality. That you cannot do. And you don't have to do it. This text does not necessarily that at all. You have to go back to chapter fourteen, fifteen, sick, and, of course, the 16.
And we find there a long list of stories and parables according to Saint Luke that our lord is telling us what we have to do to be his followers, to be Christians. And we have such stories as the the lost son, the prodigal son. We have the the parable of the of the lost sheep. We have the parable of the big banquet where everybody was invited, but the invited guests didn't come. And our lord said, oh, no.
If you refuse my invitation, you are out. Out. When you come to a banquet, take the lowest place. Be humble. These are some of the stories and parables that precede this.
What our lord is telling us is you are living in the world. Be smart. The word here that they translate is prudence. The the best I can make out of it in the in the in the Greek is it means foresight, practical wisdom. Of course, that's the definition of prudence.
It means using means to appropriate ends, and appropriate means to up to an obligatory end. That's the whole idea of prudence. But it what our lord is really praising this steward or this administrator for is that he had practical wisdom. It's not necessary that that you have to think he was a crook. Maybe he was a little sly about this thing.
I don't know. But you don't have to necessarily think he was a crook. But even if he is a crook, our lord isn't praying his crook praising his crookedness. He's praising the man for his foresight. And there's nothing wrong about that.
Saint Thomas Aquinas has a good bit to say about this, that kind of a situation. Have to keep our thinking very straight. In other words, you can admire you can admire a well planned and executed robbery without at all praising and approving robbery. And so we must take this this reading today, this whatever you wanna call it, parable or story of the unjust. That's a that's a bad translation.
I mean, it may mean that, but it doesn't necessarily mean that at all. It can mean sly, deceitful, cunning, practical. It can mean all of those things. But you see, the one you select is going to put a put a stamp on the poor steward or the or the administrator, whoever he was. He's probably a slave.
But the the what I'm trying to say is the message is clear. We have to use the good things of this life. We can't escape that. We have to eat. We have to have a home.
We have to provide for our children. We have to provide for our for our future. We have to get an education if we're going to be anything in this society. And remember, the stats that the handless figure of Christ in that post second World War statue, I have no other hands than yours. You should have seen this farm when god had it alone.
Who who dug the ditches? Who put up the fence? Who painted the fence? Who manured? Who who cared for the soil?
Who cultivated the the fields? God didn't come down and do it. But as our lord says in Saint Luke chapter 12, and this is where we have to remember this. See, this is what makes our opposition difficult, and don't think it isn't difficult. Difficult.
Don't Don't minimize this problem. It is a very serious problem. I would say one of the most disturbing problems that Christians face. That they are in this world, they have to use this world, they have to even accumulate the good things of this world to some extent, and yet our lord says, you cannot be of this world. You cannot of it.
We have to you see, you we have to keep in mind what our lord said, but we don't keep it in mind. Oh, well, I let me rephrase that. We keep it in mind alright, but it does not come into our daily perception of our daily life. It is not operational in the way we face our daily problems, our daily needs, our daily concerns, and I am talking about good things, things that we are obligated to think about. It it's very easy to overlook what our blessed lord said very solemnly.
Look, you people. You are concerned about what you're going to eat and drink, what clothing you're going to put on, the care of your body. You are concerned about all of these things. I am not paraphrasing now. Well, I'm paraphrasing, but this is literally what our lord says.
And then he says, don't you be concerned about those things. Don't you be afraid. Don't you worry about what you are going to eat or how you're going to be clothed or the roof over your head. Don't be don't be afraid of that at all. This is what our lord said in as as solemnly as he could.
Be not afraid. Look at the birds of the air, the barrels as cheap as they are. Look at the lilies of the field. Look at the grass, which today is beautiful and the maria, throw it into an oven. And, otherwise, aren't you of more worth than they?
And your heavenly father looks after them. Well, let me tell you. Every time I even as I was saying that to you good people, I was thinking what I see down on the West River as often as I possibly can get down there. Gulls. You talk about the birds of the air being fed by god.
Of course, he he's overlooking them. But let me tell you, those gulls do a day's work in getting their food. They're at it all the time from morning until night. When you wake up in the morning and open your boat, the first thing you have, the gulls coming at you for a handout. They're doing their part.
They're working. I don't know about the grass at the field or the lilies, but I know something about gulls and osprey. You can't miss it. They're they're they're at they're working to get food. They're working to build a nest.
They're working to bring their young. They're working to to protect the little ones in those nests on all the the buoys. They're working all the time. They're not sitting in a hammock dreaming. It's not being handed to them on a silver platter as some of these advertisements for cat food show you.
Every cat likes to eat off of sterling silver. But this is the truth. But this this is our problem, that we must take our lord literally. Without me, you can do nothing, no thing. And to live is to have problems of all sorts, good problems that you will have to solve and that you will have to make your contribution.
But when you are in the midst of all this, when things seem to be surrounding you, when you seem to be taken over, that you become the slave and things become your master, remember our lord's words. Do not be worried about what you're to eat or drink or how you're to be clothed or things. Remember, your heavenly father has a care of that. Look how he treats look how he treats the forlorn lost sheep. Look how he treats that poor young guy who went away.
You know the whole story, the prodigal son. This all comes before today's reading. But we must take our we must take our Catholicism in its entirety, and we must live it that way. It has to come in into our daily lives, into our daily feeling. I never will forget.
You you used to hear this rather often when people were up against it, and I mean up again. I I lived through the first depression. I remember very well. I remember when they closed the banks, and so do you. Some of you do.
And but I heard many I remember it was during the Christmas holidays that a man had just retired, had all his savings and whatever it was in a in a certain bank in Baltimore, and his Christmas gift was that the bank closed. Closed. Remember, there was no welfare and those there was no social security or anything like that then. And I remember him distinct. It was right right after Christmas.
I was visiting his family when he said, the lord will provide. You don't hear that much today. A matter of fact, you hear it very seldom. If ever. If ever.
Now this is not to minimize problems. This is not to run away from them. This is not to kid ourselves and to be pollyannish. Not at all. This if Christ is god and god said this, take him it literally.
When he said in the same very passage, you can't add a hair to your head. You cannot add an inch to your stature. You cannot determine your life. Of course, you could commit suicide, but you cannot in any sense in the ways as our lord meant it and in the speaking in his own day. We have to realize that we are not our own.
God is running the show. It's god's world. And the one little word we use for that is god's providence phrase, god's providence. That god is looking after me. That god is running the show.
What's most difficult for us is to accept that. We wanna say what we want. We wanna work for what we want. We want to be where we want. We want the things that we think we need.
And remember, it's just possible that from time to time, our view of what of all this may be a little different from our blessed lords. Because, you see, we come back to this very simple idea. Why are you living? Why are you in existence? You've got to answer that question, and it has to be answered from your profoundest being that you came from god and that you're going back to god or else or else.
Remember the invited guests or else. We can miss that, and the whole of life then becomes a matter of trying to do the things, to have the things, to get the things, to work for the things which will help us to our eternal salvation. And to do that, we're in the world. We have to use the things of this world, but we have to use them as the means to our end. How do we how are we saved?
By turning our hands over to the handless Christ. In the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.