Dai­ly Reflec­tion
Sep­tem­ber 19, 2004

PRE-PRAYER­ING
We are invit­ed to do some deep con­sid­er­ing with the read­ings for this Sunday’s litur­gy. They are “hard say­ings” for those who cheat, act unjust­ly, and mis­use all of God’s gifts entrust­ed to them. They are encour­age­ments to those who expe­ri­ence all good things as com­ing from and lead­ing back to the One God.

We pray with the sense of wealth which God bless­es us. We pray with the joy of being just in our deal­ings. We can pray as “chil­dren of the light” who deal with the things of the world as hav­ing an impor­tance only as part of God’s rela­tion­ship with us. We are tempt­ed to tip the bal­ance, thumb the scales, see what deals we can swing, but as “chil­dren of the light” we feel also the call to per­son­al jus­tice.

REFLEC­TION
Our small com­mu­ni­ty of six has decid­ed to give to an out­reach of our local parish cloth­ing from our clos­ets. I just spent twen­ty min­utes try­ing to decide whether or not I could get along with just three Green Bay Pack­er sweat shirts rather than five. It is quite embar­rass­ing to be fig­ur­ing whether this is a fall or spring jack­et. I find I can talk myself into and out of every arti­cle of cloth­ing I have. I did not cheat to have these things, but I am feel­ing a bit unjust by keep­ing them locked up for a more rainy, cold, cool, damp or oth­er days which will be per­fect for this shirt or that hat. Liv­ing just­ly just isn’t not cheat­ing.

Amos, from whom we hear in today’s First Read­ing, nev­er want­ed to be a prophet in Israel. Instead God has called him to do the dirty work of con­fronting those who have done the dirt­i­er work of cheat­ing and pre­tend­ing to be reli­gious­ly obser­vant.

God has shared five “vision” or dreams with Amos. The first two were about destruc­tion of Israel, to which Amos begs that they not hap­pen. God relents. The rich con­tin­ue oppress­ing the poor and so we hear words from God which accom­pa­ny the fourth vision.

Amos sees a dish of ripe fruit. God tells him that Israel is ripe for the pluck­ing. Ripeness when left to itself devolves into rot­ten­ness. What we hear are indict­ments against those mer­chants who act unjust­ly towards their cus­tomers. This time God means what the words state. God will remem­ber every heavy thumb print on every scale and Amos has to deliv­er this mes­sage with­out try­ing to talk God out of it.

The Gospel is com­prised of a para­ble and some relat­ed say­ings which need some clar­i­fy­ing, though for his lis­ten­ers, they were quite clear.

The stew­ard has been cheat­ing his mas­ter and the mat­ter has come to light. He knows he is going to be fired. Very pru­dent­ly he makes deals with those who owe his mas­ter var­i­ous amounts of mon­ey. By clev­er­ly reduc­ing their debts, he increas­es his own chances that the debtors will be good to him when he is job­less. The mas­ter hears about this too and at least approves of his abil­i­ties to take care for his future. The “future” is what this para­ble is all about.

There is a dif­fer­ence between how peo­ple of this gen­er­a­tion deal with their futures than do the “chil­dren of light” deal with their futures. The future is seen in terms of years or in terms of eter­ni­ty. The “chil­dren of light” invest in a just rela­tion­ship with the “mas­ter” who has giv­en them both goods and stew­ard­ship regard­ing these gifts. Stew­ard­ship implies care, prop­er usage, shar­ing them and always a rev­er­ence for the gifts as belong­ing to the “mas­ter.” Jesus then says some­thing very strange at first hear­ing. His lis­ten­ers are to make friends with dis­hon­est wealth which will fail to last and when his lis­ten­ers expe­ri­ence that empti­ness they will be wel­comed into true wealth. “Very small mat­ters” when tend­ed to will result in being entrust­ed with greater ones. These “very small mat­ters” are the large expe­ri­ences of faith which the ways of the world would call insignif­i­cant. We are offered so many oppor­tu­ni­ties to act just­ly, love ten­der­ly and do those things which are of virtue, but not earth­shak­ing or spec­tac­u­lar in the play of the future. They will prob­a­bly not be remem­bered by his­to­ry, but God will remem­ber these too for eter­ni­ty.

Serv­ing two mas­ters will divide and con­quer the heart and soul. Jesus is ask­ing his hear­ers to decide whether he will be their “mas­ter” who has giv­en gifts and who will return, or some­thing mate­r­i­al which is a “big thing” now, but will leave when time runs out. Per­haps it is bet­ter said, whether it will be a “what” or a “who” will mas­ter us. “Whats” divide, need pro­tec­tion. The “Who” of God does the unit­ing and pro­vid­ing. As “chil­dren of the light” we take the small steps of faith and jus­tice and God gives the increase. The more just we are, the more oppor­tu­ni­ties and delights there are as God entrusts us with even more sen­si­tiv­i­ty and larg­er hearts, undi­vid­ed.

Now I have to return to giv­ing away my lit­tle pri­vate, divid­ing-my-heart jack­ets and sweaters. By writ­ing this, I have almost talked myself into doing it eas­i­ly. It does take some inti­ma­cy with Jesus and his ways. The dis­ci­ples had it and the more they had, the less they need­ed of sweat shirts. Poco a poco.

 

“Though our Lord Jesus Christ was rich, he became poor, so that by his pover­ty you might become rich.”