Luke 16:1-13
Obstacle or opportunity
by Rev. Stanley J. Krempa
Reprinted with permission of "The Arlington Catholic
Herald"
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Written to explain that
Christ came to save everyone.
Jesus
said to his disciples, "A rich man had a steward who was reported to him
for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, 'What is that I
hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you
can no longer be my steward.' The steward said to himself, 'What shall I
do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I
am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I shall
do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into
their homes.' He called in him master's debtors one by one. To the
first he said, 'How much do you owe my master?' He replied, 'One hundred
measures of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Here is your promissory note.
Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.' Then to another the steward
said, 'And you, how much do you owe?' He replied, 'One hundred kors of
wheat.' The steward said to him, 'Here is your promissory note; write one
for eighty.' And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting
prudently.
"For
the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation
than are the the children of light. I tell you, make friends fore
yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed
into eternal dwellings. The person who is trustworthy in very small
matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in
very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. If, therefore, you are
not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth?
If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what
is yours? No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one
and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve
both God and mammon."
In
his recent exhortation on family life, Pope Francis wrote, “The Bible is full of
families, births, love stories and family crises. This is true from its very
first page with the appearance of Adam and Eve’s family with all its burdens of
violence to its very last page, where we behold the wedding feast of the Bride
and the Lamb.” (“Amoris Laetitia,” No. 8)
The
Bible is also filled with references to money, its use and abuse, its power to
enslave us and its power to set us free. Money can be an obstacle or an
opportunity. Today’s Gospel reading ends with the phrase whose truth has been
proclaimed from a million pulpits over the centuries and into our own time
especially, “You cannot serve both God and mammon.”
Some
scholars say that “mammon” is simply an Aramaic word for money. Others say that
its meaning is much less neutral than that. For us, “mammon” has a very dark
connotation. No teenage boy asks his father for some mammon so he can take his
girlfriend on a date. The IRS doesn’t send us a letter saying that we owe some
back mammon to the government. We don’t go to a bank to borrow some mammon for a
new car.
“Mammon”
is used for money when it becomes the driver of our life. Mammon is money when
it has a life of its own. Mammon is money that dominates our lives. Mammon is
money that has become the holy grail of our life.
This
raises the question of how we use the money we have. It can become a trap where
our whole life is devoted to accumulating money and hoarding it. But money can
also liberate. If a person has had the intelligence to make a great deal of
money or the advantage to inherit it or the chance to win it in a lottery, he or
she can do enormous good with it. Every parish church, every cathedral, every
parochial school, every rectory has been built through someone’s generosity.
Every program run by a diocese, every chancery office, every service provided by
a diocese is funded by someone’s generosity.
Some
scholars say that “mammon” is simply an Aramaic word for money. Others say that
its meaning is much less neutral than that. For us, “mammon” has a very dark
connotation. No teenage boy asks his father for some mammon so he can take his
girlfriend on a date. The IRS doesn’t send us a letter saying that we owe some
back mammon to the government. We don’t go to a bank to borrow some mammon for a
new car.
“Mammon”
is used for money when it becomes the driver of our life. Mammon is money when
it has a life of its own. Mammon is money that dominates our lives. Mammon is
money that has become the holy grail of our life.
This
raises the question of how we use the money we have. It can become a trap where
our whole life is devoted to accumulating money and hoarding it. But money can
also liberate. If a person has had the intelligence to make a great deal of
money or the advantage to inherit it or the chance to win it in a lottery, he or
she can do enormous good with it. Every parish church, every cathedral, every
parochial school, every rectory has been built through someone’s generosity.
Every program run by a diocese, every chancery office, every service provided by
a diocese is funded by someone’s generosity.
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