Father Rick Bolte's Homily

C: Twenty Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time                    2007-09-23

This summer I visited my niece, her husband, and four girls.  The girls are 10, 8, 4, and 2.  Since they were born, my nephew has had a separate savings account for each of them and teaches them about saving and budgeting as they grow.  He has now decided to teach them further about financing by introducing them to the stock market.  They are going to be taking part of their savings and investing it in stocks.  I’ve seen other fathers spend whatever free time they can with a child teaching them about baseball, soccer, and the like.  I’ve seen the stickers on cars that say, “Mom’s Taxi,” as mothers drive their children to practice, games, lessons, and more.  All these things we work hard on, passing them on to our children at great personal expense, because we believe they are important for our children.  When we truly believe in something, we can really give ourselves to it.

The owner in today’s Gospel parable compliments the dishonest steward not for his dishonesty but for his dedication to what is important to him.  In the midst of losing his job and his reputation, he found a way to make friends and save his honor.  Jesus invites us to reflect on where the kingdom fits in our life.  He says, “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”  Jesus seems to lament that we don’t put ourselves into the kingdom nearly as much as other things we think are important.

Two weeks ago, we heard Jesus say we could not be his followers is we didn’t hate the members of our families and renounce all our possessions.  That seems extreme but Jesus is making an important point.  He calls us to realize that to follow him, nothing else should be in the way.  Everything has value, not in itself, but according to how it helps with the growth of the kingdom.  Everything else combined is not more important than the kingdom of God.

Today Jesus tells us, “You cannot serve both God and mammon.”  Without our necessarily choosing to do so, we will love one and hate the other or be devoted to one and despise the other.  These are hard words for us to hear.  We like to think we can follow the Commandments, the rules, be a bit generous, and the rest of what we do or have is ours for whatever we want.  We like to think we can serve God and a host of other things we value.  Jesus says “No!”  When we do that we are treating our relationship with God as a heavenly insurance policy.  We are trying to figure out what do we have to pay or do to have eternal life, that’s the cost of our insurance policy.  Jesus tells us that to embrace a true relationship with God, we need to embrace the realization that we are being called to love with all we have and are.  Like a marriage, we are called to give ourselves to the relationship.  We can’t approach it with a minimum of participation or with other relationships that can take priority.

The presumption Jesus has is that we realize that all the things of this world are temporary; we won’t take it with us.  We’re invited to reflect on our use of our time, talent, and treasure from the perspective that we are merely stewards of these things for a while.  We can use them for the good of the kingdom and sharing the love and mercy of God, or we can use them selfishly which will leave us empty when we no longer have them.  Let us seek, with all we have, those things which are of God’s kingdom and last forever!