Sermon, 8th Sunday after Pentecost, July 14, 2013

8th Sunday after Pentecost – July 14, 2013

Epistle Romans 8: 12-17            Gospel Luke 16: 1-9

The main idea in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans is that we are unable to produce perfect justice and absolute good without the grace of God. Nowadays many people have a self-centered and pompous idea that the human mind is independent, but we Christians know that we can only be fully moral and honest in life by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know that the Gospel of Christ is the power of God, that it makes unholy people holy and it enriches those souls who search for perfect justice.

            The Jews were proud of the Law of Moses, and rightly so, because the Law gave them greater grace and understanding than the Gentiles had. However, many Jews made their whole virtue consist in the possession of the Law of Moses and thus rejected the Messiah when He came, even though He was the final purpose of the Law. St. Paul asks in Romans 9: 30-33 how it is possible that Israel, following the Law of justice, did not see the Messiah in Jesus but many Gentiles, not following the Law of justice, did reach Him. Paul answers his own question: Because they did not seek Justice by faith and they tripped on the stumbling-stone that Isaiah prophesied at Isaiah 8: 14 and 28: 16, “Behold, I lay in Sion a stumbling stone and a rock of scandal; and whosoever believeth in him shall not be confounded.”

         

          Today’s Gospel reading is a reminder of our judgment. Dom Guéranger wrote that we all have the same very basic vocation – to live, to die, and to be judged. The Unjust Steward in today’s parable was told to give an account of his stewardship. Whatever we have in life, our spouse, our children, parents, money, houses, cars, our personality traits, all the graces God gives us, it is all given for us to use. We will be asked at our judgment if we have used these things for good or for evil. When St. Augustine reflected on the accounting he would have to give of all the graces given to him said, “How unhappy am I, what will become of me, having received so many graces! I am more afraid on account of these graces than on account of the many sins I committed.” We will be asked: “Where are your good works? Where are your prayers which would have rejoiced my heart? Where are your Confessions and Communions which would have caused Me to dwell in your soul?  Where are your penitential works which would have wiped out the temporal punishment for past sins? Where are the Holy Masses that you should have attended which would have brought you closer to Me?” Let’s not appear before Jesus at our judgment with a backpack full of sins. Let’s’ fill them with adoration, prayers and good works and we won’t be so terrified of what is coming.

            There is another lesson in today’s Gospel reading, and that is to encourage us in the giving of alms. As St. John Chrysostom put it: “We are not placed in this life as lords of our own houses, but as guests . . .” We are brought into life whether we wanted to come or not and at a time we did not choose. “Therefore, whoever you may be, know that you are but an administrator of things” that belong to God and that we have only “the right of their brief and passing use.” When we do not administer our wealth in accord with the will of our Master, but abuse it for our own pleasure, we are unjust stewards. Riches possessed by a just man are simply a sum of money.   But riches possessed by an unjust person are a sinful burden of avarice – subject to the risk of loss or theft, a constant source of worry, corrupting their owner with enticements to sin. These  riches are full of poverty. Don’t call your wealth riches. If you do, you will love them: and if you love them, you will perish with them.

St. Gaudentius, bishop of Brescia, Italy, from about 387 to around 410, gives the opinion that the Unjust Steward in this parable stands for the devil. In Genesis, the devil is well depicted as a snake, who is “more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth.” (Genesis. 3:1) In the Latin it is: serpens prudentissimus erat, where prudence is not spoken of as a virtue but as craftiness and cunning. In the parable of the Unjust Steward, the steward cheats his Master in order to ingratiate himself with others who might hire him as a steward when he is let go. The Lord praises him – but not for his goodness. He praises him because he prepared his fraud with such cunning, craftiness and subtleness, like the snake in the Garden of Eden.  By the very phrase “unjust steward” our Lord condemns his wicked prudence. Christ praises him in order to prepare His followers to be prudent, but not venomous; to be wise, but not evil, to use our own cunning and prudence against the Unjust Steward, the devil.

The mammon of iniquity is usually thought of as ill-gotten gains, but there is another interpretation by St. Augustine, that mammon means all the riches of the world however they are obtained.  Consider blessed Job, the undefeated champion of God. Job’s courage was unshakable and he bested every assault of the devil as he came against him with the force of a tidal wave. The more each attempt of Satan appeared irresistible, the higher Job’s patience rose up, superior to every temptation. When Job finally lost everything and stood naked on the Earth, he was truly rich because then his heart was full towards God.  Life and wealth are passing things, but we are called to the fullness of eternal life with our Creator. Eternal life with God is the wealth we seek.

Who can allow us to enter into everlasting blessings except the Lord?  Yet, at the end of the parable Jesus tells us to make “friends of the mammon of iniquity; that when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting blessings.” Understand this parable then, that we are to make friends of the poor with our wealth, so that when we die the poor will pray for us and Christ will receive us into His Kingdom. Why make friends of the poor? Because Christ tells us in Matthew 25 that He is poor: “You gave me to eat, to drink, you clothed me, you visited me when I was sick and in prison – that as long as you did this to the least of my brethren, you did it to me.” That’s how Christ is poor. And to be just stewards, we must give to the poor, who are our fellow stewards in need.

The parable of the Unjust Steward doesn’t stand alone in the Scriptures as unproven, because in Luke 19, we see an example of it in Christ’s life. When Jesus was walking through Jericho, Zacheus, who was chief of the publicans, a tax collector and a wealthy man, climbed a tree to see the Lord. When Jesus spotted him, he said, “Zacheus, make haste and come down; for this day I must abide in thy house.” Standing before Him then, Zacheus said, “‘Behold, Lord, ‘the half of my goods I give to feed the poor.’”  We see Zacheus making friends of the poor by means of his mammon of iniquity.  And lest he should be held wicked on other grounds Zacheus added: “’And if I have wronged any man of anything, I restore him fourfold.’” And Jesus said to him, “This day is salvation come to this house.”  +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass