Holy Mary, Mother of the servants of God, Mother of our True Happiness, Mother of Light because you are the Mother of He who is the Way, the Truth and the Life , Pray for us sinners who have recourse to thee. Amen.

Luke 16, 1-13 Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time September 22, 2013

We have had discipleship as a constant theme of our readings these past few weeks. Today is no exception; Jesus tells us a parable about a dishonest steward that has an ending we would not expect. We might think that the steward was a dishonest man, but the situation was not so cut and dry. The steward was very prudent in his dealings and Jesus praises him for it. Let’s take a closer look.

In the ancient Greco- Roman world, the rich man was most likely an absentee landowner, who owned the land as a business. He was most likely a foreigner from another country who had conquered the land he now owned. The foreign landowners would then rent the land to the people who actually used to own the land charging them outrageous rent. And then to rub their faces in it even more, when they couldn’t pay such high rent, the so-called “landowners” would then make loans to them, charging them exorbitant interest on their loans, such as measures of oil or wheat. So the steward’s job was to make as much money for the landowner as possible, no matter what it took. So probably this steward in our Gospel was really dealing very fairly with the local people, as usury, interest, was forbidden in the Jewish Law. In other words, he was probably charging them just the original amount of the loan without the interest.

This news would have of course, made it to the ears of the unjust landowner and infuriated him. In order to secure his profits, the landowner would come and remove the steward in order to replace him with someone who would maximize the profits by oppressing the poor borrowers. The steward would have known this, and so he went around discounting the amount owed. In this way he was prudent and wise- both for trying to not exact usury, which was unjust interest, and also for trying to gain friends when he knew he was about to lose his job.

The people in today’s Gospel would have understood Jesus well, as they were in the same situation as the people of the parable because they were conquered people, conquered by the Roman’s who occupied their country and taken procession of their land, only to unjustly rent it back to them. They would have sympathized with the steward because he was treated in an unjust way; after all he was just looking out for himself and his family. They would have understood why even the landowner recognized the shrewdness of the steward.

Jesus then addresses this crowd. He knew the thoughts of their hearts. It would seem that many of them would have actually liked to have been the landowners themselves, for they had avarice in their hearts, that is a sinful desire and love for wealth, a disordered desire for worldly riches instead of the riches of heaven. Perhaps there were some that were even trying to justify their own unjust dealings with others. They had their hearts set on wealth as an end in itself; they were about the business of the world but not of God. From this we see that money is not the root of all evil, but the disordered desire for it and for the power that comes from it, is certainly the root of all evil, and so it fails to bring any true lasting happiness.

Jesus reminds the people that to be happy they must serve God alone and then neighbor with the gifts that come from God. What do they possess, and what do we possess that has not come from God. Everything we have is really a gift from God, including our very being, our very existence. Jesus is reminding us all that God is the giver of all the good gifts we have in the first place. So we must love the giver of the gifts more than the gifts he gives. Jesus tells us rather directly, “No servant can have two masters. He will hate one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other.” The more we love God, the more we see that all we have, all that we possess is from Him and such, we don’t want to put anything before our love for God and His holy Will.

God has given us all so many gifts and He waits patiently to see what we will do with them. Will we treat them as ends or will we use them as means. In a sense, He has left the world uncreated to a certain degree, in order that we would take upon ourselves, with his help, to great task of finishing His work of creation. He has given others more so that they would help those who have less. He has given one a great talent, so that they would help some one who is not so talented. To one he has given wealth so that they might share with someone who is poor. And most all he has given some the greatest of all treasures-Faith, Hope and Love, so that they would be instruments of God’s mercy to those whose faith, hope and love have been weakened, damaged or even destroyed by sin, whether by their own sin or the sin of others.

This is what our current Holy Father Francis is telling us. Contrary to what some might think or say, it’s the exact same message of Pope Benedict, Blessed John Paul II and the others. It’s not a radical shift; He is not changing any of the Church’s moral teachings; He can’t do that and he won’t. In fact as he himself said, “The teaching of the Church is clear and I am a son of the Church.” And so, He is not saying that the Church’s teaching are not important or that we need to quit preaching them; they in fact, are the only way to authentic love and happiness. But what He is saying is that we must first and foremost be dispensers of God’s mercy. We must first and foremost bring the Love of God to those who are suffering either physically or most importantly spiritually. God died for all men so that all men might have the hope of salvation.

Francis knows that we are living in a world where so many people, in fact where all of us are wounded by the sin around us; so many are crying out in the darkness for the light of God’s love and yes, God’s truth, even if they don’t realize it. So many are longing for love, true and authentic love based on the truth; so many are longing to be loved even in their weakness, dysfunction and sinfulness—so many are seeking true happiness. Francis says:

I see clearly that the thing the Church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the Church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about his level of blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds….and you have to start from the ground up.

But this is what the Church as always taught even if some have not always emphasized it; she is to be a "hostel for saints and hospital for sinners." In others words, using the example of the prodigal son and the merciful father from last weeks parable, before pointing out the moral errors that the son committed which got him into such trouble and led him to such unhappiness, the Father first ran to his son, threw his cloak around him, put rings on his fingers and covered him with kisses. The father didn’t say the sins didn’t matter because obviously they did; they were the very cause of the separation of son from the Father, the cause of so much misery; but first, the father showed the son Love so that he could then show the son Mercy.

We must preach the fullness of the Gospel’s truth, unadulterated and not water down; but, as Blessed John Paul taught us, as Benedict taught us and now as Francis is teaching us, we must do it with Love, better yet with Charity, that is with God’s love and His TRUTH alive in our hearts. We must first show God’s love and life alive in us. And to be able to do this we must live the Gospel truth, which is the same thing as saying we must accept and live the fulness of the teachings of the Church, even the tough ones, with the help of God’s grace, in order that we become living Gospels sharing God’s love and then light of His truth with others. In this we become ministers of God’s mercy to all…Let’s listen to his Holiness, Pope Francis, once more:

The church’s ministers must be merciful, take responsibility for the people and accompany them like the good Samaritan, who washes, cleans and raises up his neighbor. This is pure Gospel. God is greater than sin. The structural and organizational reforms are secondary—that is, they come afterward. The first reform must be the attitude. The ministers of the Gospel must be people who can warm the hearts of the people, who walk through the dark night with them, who know how to dialogue and to descend themselves into their people’s night, into the darkness, but without getting lost.

“…Without getting lost….,” that is without being too rigid or too lax. To, as the Church as always taught, "to love the sinner but to hate the sin." To hate the sin which is causing the sinner so much pain, suffering, darkness, despair, and loneliness, the sin which causes separation from God and from others. Yes we must condemn the horrible sins of homosexual acts, contraceptive methods and the other moral sins. And yes, we must condemn in the strongest way the sin of abortion, which Francis blasts as being “part of a throw away culture.” But we must first be willing to sit in the night, in the darkness with a woman who has had an abortion or who is contemplating one, because only darkness could lead her to such a terrible horrible lifeless decision. And to sit with her not condemning her but bringing her the light and love of Christ and yes, then truth of Christ. As one writer put it,

The Good Shepherd knew that, first of all He had to bind the wounds of the lost sheep and place them on His shoulders, and then they would listen. He entered towns healing the sick, casting out demons, opening the eyes of the blind. And then He would share with them the Gospel, including the moral consequences of not heeding it. In this way, Jesus became a refuge for sinners. So too, the Church must be recognized again as a home for the hurting.

We can not be about the business of the world, which is not just about making money, but which is also about condemning others—it is the world that condemns not Jesus or His Catholic Church. We must be about the business of spreading God’s love and God’s healing to everyone, no matter who they are; believer or unbeliever, friend or enemy, rich or poor, saint or sinner. We must be willing to meet people where they are at in order to lift them up not tear them down; But, but, to meet them where they are at, not to leave them there, but to give them the truth, the truth which leads them to happiness, and not just the happiness that this world offers, but to Beatitude; that is, to share already on earth, out of this world heavenly happiness, which is union with God who is Love, Truth and Light Itself.

Let us then at this Holy Mass which makes present the God who is Love in our midst, let us be about this business, the business of love, the business of God. By the grace of Love Himself who is offered to us in the Holy Eucharist, let us be about the business of helping in the salvation of souls which is healing them and restoring them to God by restoring them to His Holy Catholic Church and her teachings, which are teachings of love, which alone lead us to true happiness and the fullness of life. “For the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that One died for all; therefore, all have died. He indeed died for all, so that those who love might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised. (2 Cor 5:14-15). So let us all ask the Holy Spirit, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to help us to be faithful disciples about the business of God:

Holy Mary, Mother of the servants of God, Mother of our True Happiness, Mother of Light because you are the Mother of He who is the Way, the Truth and the Life , Pray for us sinners who have recourse to thee. Amen.