Wealth, Salvation, and God’s Justice – A Homily for Ordinary Time
Readings and Virtual Homily for September 21, 2025, Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time; Lazy Last Days of Summer
Readings for Mass this Sunday:
Amos 8:4-7
Psalm 113:1-2, 4-8
1 Timothy 2:1-8
Luke 16:1-13
Dear Friends and Family,
The Parable of the Dishonest Steward (this week's Gospel passage) is one which I simply don't get. And reading analyses of it by Bible scholars has not assisted me. It is easy to see how this Gospel passage is paired (by that committee in Rome) with this week's first reading. Both involve dishonest authorities. But Amos condemns the landowners who fix the scales to cheat their customers and who deny their workers a fair wage. Jesus praises the dishonest steward for being "wise" in worldly ways about money.
As I say, nothing I have read on this parable provides me with much enlightenment about it, so I am not going to try to construct a homily around it. Rather, as I sometimes do, I will just look at each of the readings in turn, and let the Holy Spirit connect the dots, if connected they might be.
The first reading is straightforward and unmistakable in its message. Wealthy landowners in the time of Amos were paying lip-service to God while giving all their hearts and minds to maximizing their profits (vss. 5-6). And they were doing so at the expense of almost everyone else -- their workers, their distributors, their customers, the families of these people. Their offenses against justice were great and Amos assures them that "never" will God "forget a thing that they have done" (vs. 7).
The psalm assures us that God is aware of the poor and the oppressed, those taken advantage of by the wealthy and the powerful. "He raises the needy from the dust, lifts the poor from the ash heap," the psalmist writes, adding that God then "Seats them with princes" (vss. 7-8). This latter assurance must be understood, I would imagine, as a promise of God's heavenly justice, as the poor were not in Amos' time, nor are they in ours, "seated with princes."
The reading from the First Letter to Timothy actually calls for prayer for those in authority: "I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority" (vss. 1-2). Paul goes on to assure us that God wills that everyone, including the rich and the powerful, should be saved (vs. 4).
The frequent emphasis throughout Scripture on the needy, the poor, the marginalized, coupled with frequent condemnations of those who are comfortable and do nothing to help, can obscure passages such as this one, which remind us that God wants the rich saved, too. And as we considered in last week's homily, with the example of St. Helena, who was the richest woman in the world, there are no inherent barriers between wealth and salvation.
Then there is the Parable of the Dishonest Steward. His boss having found out that the dude was "squandering his property," he fires him (vs. 2). The steward, too old to dig and too proud to beg (vs. 3), decides to make friends with his boss' debtors, so that he will have places to go, houses that will receive him, friends, in other words, who will make sure he does not starve. He has the king's debtors "downsize," so to speak, their written promissory notes, so that one who owed one hundred measures of oil now owes -- in the newly revised record -- only fifty, and so on (vss. 5-7).
Of this business, Jesus says that the master "commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently" (vs. 8). After observing that the children of the world are smarter with money than the children of light, Jesus says, "make friends with dishonest wealth so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings" (vss. 8-9). He goes on to say that no servant can serve two masters -- dishonest wealth on the one hand, and real wealth on the other (vs. 13).
We may certainly take this much away from the parable -- there is a very great difference between the wealth of this world and the wealth of the next; eternal wealth. The dishonest steward, distracted by the wealth of this world, and unreliable in his management of it, at least finally uses it to foster relationships -- to make friends and assure his "welcome" into their mansions.
He's still dishonest. And that is where I just have to leave off with it. An insightful analysis of this parable appears to be above my paygrade, speaking of wealth...
Well it is the middle of September and right on schedule, the temps are rising; it has really felt like summer, much of the past couple of weeks. I don't mind it -- I mean, after all, I grew up in the Sacramento Valley. Summer is supposed to be hot. And even at that, Hayward's idea of hot is Sacramento's idea of a mild and pleasant summer day -- high eighties, low nineties.
The heat has all the same suggested a slightly slower sabbatical pace for me, and I three times the past ten days found myself among the breezy hibiscus on the patio at Vic's on Main Street, Pleasanton, sipping a refreshingly cool mimosa while studying the restaurant's simply amazing menu. Ernesto and Laura, Vic's owners and active parishioners in Pleasanton, are friends of mine from way back. Most of the staff knows me as well; knows me and knows my signature drink. The mimosa is typically on the table before I have ordered it.
It goes without saying that I would not have been relaxing on the patio at Vic's three weekdays the past week and one-half, were I not on sabbatical. It has felt positively luxurious, having this degree of freedom and control over my schedule, since early August, when I would otherwise have been back on campus.
Parish priests have considerably more lee-way in scheduling themselves than does a high school chaplain, during the academic term, and one thing I definitely miss about parish priesthood is precisely that lee-way, that freedom, that ability to schedule my time by and large as I please. Though as I have said, my plans are to remain at O'Dowd another several years, something I will look forward to, once I am back to parish work full-time, is the freedom to schedule a brunch on the patio at Vic's when I desire to do so.
Midway through it now, I am enjoying and am grateful for the freedom the sabbatical is granting me.
Hope this finds you well and happy. God bless you.
El Padre