Sermons
The Gospel text is rather puzzling (Luke 16:1-13). It is about the dishonest steward. He faces dismissal and marks down the debts owed to his master by various of his master’s debtors. He does this in order that once he is fired these men would be obligated to help him. When the master finds out about his actions, the master unexpectedly praises the steward for his dishonesty.
By telling this parable, we might be left with the idea that Jesus too is condoning and excusing the actions of this dishonest steward. But we know that this cannot be; Jesus would never approve of dishonesty or double-dealing. Actually, when we take a closer look at the text, we see that Jesus draws a conclusion from the story.
Jesus says: “The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd and smart. And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd and smarter in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light.” (v.8) By this we understand that Jesus is contrasting the actions of the children of this world (the “pagans”), with those of the children of light who are obviously the Christians. Jesus does not want us to be like the pagans but he wants us to be just as shrewd and smart as they are; but in our case he wants us to be shrewd and smart in relation to those things which will ensure that we reach heaven, in relation to those things that make us friends of Jesus.
As we have so often noted, Jesus wants us to acquire these virtues of love of God and love of neighbor because it is our practice of the virtues that will enable us to gain entry into his Kingdom, that will enable us to be near to God one day. So, what we need to do is to put our whole energy into acquiring these virtues that bring us closer to God, closer to Jesus. Just as the pagans put their whole energy into realizing their values: sometimes material success, sometimes fame or status, or just a very comfortable life.
Luke follows up this parable with a few sayings of Jesus - the topic of this chapter is the relationship between the Christian and the material world. The first of these sayings is this: “Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.” (v.9) Here it is clear: Jesus is speaking about the poor. He is telling us to use our money not to find worldly advantage but rather spiritual advantage. We know that one of the essential beliefs of the Gospel is that the poor have a privileged place in his Kingdom; so, therefore, using our money to help them will have the effect of enabling us to enter the Kingdom more easily.
Every Christian should be sensitive to the needs of the poor. Of course, it is very difficult to know who the real poor are. What Jesus is telling us is that we need to make a decisive choice in life. We need to choose between the world and the spirit. Yes, have material things! seek success in work! live a comfortable life! But be cautious of these things: understand well that they are not an end in themselves. Realize that the things of the spirit need to be given priority. Make more room for prayer; attend to the needs of the poor; do your best to life an honorable life; put more energy into acquiring the virtues than you put into increasing your income. This is how to live the Christian life, a life as a friend of Jesus.
As Jesus says:”You cannot be the slave of two masters.” So, choose your master. Make your choice and stick to it.
cf. homilies.net/E-19-09-22.aspx
In today’s Gospel (Lk 15,1-10), we are presented with an overwhelming picture of God – that is why this gospel text fits so well with the baptism of Emilia we just witnessed.
It is a picture of God that we could never have guessed at ourselves and,
in spite of Jesus’ words,
it is a picture that many of us still find difficult to accept in its fullness.
In the Gospel we are given a twofold picture of how God looks on human beings and on people.
The two stories hammer home the same theme:
God will go to any length to bring the human back to a loving relationship with himself.
There is the story of the sheep, perhaps a rebellious maverick, which has wandered far from the flock.
The shepherd does not rest till he has found this sheep and brought it back.
There is no punishment but rather an invitation to the neighbors to join
in celebrating the reunion.
So should Emilia ever be lost, let us hope that there is this good shepherd who looks for her and who brings her back – one of her family, one of us...
Then, there is the woman, presumably poor, who loses a coin she can ill afford to be without.
Again, the emphasis is on the joy shared with the neighbors
on finding what had been lost.
The message of the two stories is abundantly clear:
God loves everyone and wishes them to turn to him.
If they do, there is a huge welcome for them.
There are two elements in our relationship with God which need to be distinguished.
The first element is the love of God for us.
That love is absolutely unconditional.
No matter what kind of person I may be, God’s outreaching love for me is absolutely unchanging.
God does not love me more if I am a saint or love me less because I am a sinner, because I am baptized or because I am not baptized.
God is all love: and so his whole self goes out in love, to all of us, and today certainly to Emilia.
Baptism does not open the doors of heaven.
The doors of heaven are open for each- and everyone with or without baptism.
But baptism makes this promise of God’s love for us visible
Today, God wants to give a place of honor to Emilia.
Emilia will have to decide one day for or against this way with God
- God has already taken his decision in favor of Emilia.
The second element is community: as I already said, the poor woman loses a coin she can ill afford to be without.
“She can ill afford to be without”… - every coin counts.
By our baptism, we are part of this communion of Christians whose vocation is to help God accomplish HIS project with the world
The project of God with our world: a more human, more united and a less unjust world, a world closer to him.
Emilia is going to be part of this community of Christians who, following Jesus, want the world to be nearer to the project of God.
So the active love of Emilia for a better world will be a sign of the Kingdom of God – and: every coin, every person counts – “we cannot afford to be without Emilia in our community”.
We cannot move or change much as long as we are alone.
But: together with Emilia, together with you all, together with God’s help we are able to change the world.
Let us all become persons who make this friendship with God, with Jesus attractive for Emilia – that she receives God’s love unconditionally and that she feels as part of this group of friends of Jesus that needs her, this groups of friends of Jesus that ill afford to be without her.
Amen
One of the shortest books in the Christian Scriptures is the one with the biggest influence. Paul’s letter to Philemon isn’t long enough to have chapters, yet its message has challenged Christians for almost 2,000 years. The Apostle was faced with a unique problem when he dictated these few lines and mailed them to his old friend Philemon, a problem with which none of us today hopefully will ever have to deal: a runaway slave.
Onesimus, Philemon’s slave, had not only escaped from his master’s house after destroying some of his property, but eventually he ran to Paul, expecting the Apostle to protect him. Does Paul keep him or return him? The problem becomes even more complicated when Onesimus converts to Christianity and Paul baptizes him.
Obviously, at that time, our Christian faith had not yet evolved to the point where slavery, as such, would be unconditionally prohibited. And we have to admit it: that wouldn’t happen for about another 18 hundred years! That’s why it’s important to note the principles Paul employs to come to a conclusion. Paul couldn’t just check the latest papal documents or look up some decrees of a council. He didn’t even have a catechism to flip through to find the answer.
It’s clear that he basically agrees with the Wisdom author that our first moral principle is always to do “what Yahweh intends.” But as we hear in today’s reading from the book of wisdom, at times that’s hard to do. “Rarely do we guess the things on earth ...,“ the author reflects, “but when things are in heaven, who can search them out?” So we do not even understand what happens on earth, how should we know what happens in heaven? For our author, certainty in decisions can come only from Yahweh’s holy spirit. Without that force in our daily lives, we have no orientation. And the author of the book of wisdom says: “You send your holy spirit from on high – and thus the paths of those on earth are mad straight.” (Wisdom 9,17f).
Luke’s Jesus (Luke 14,25-33) presumes we must be completely committed to that spirit. Nothing – or no one – can be more important than that commitment, not even life itself. And it’s certainly not something that comes easy. It can take as much planning as building a tower or waging a war. We simply can’t be like Jesus without it. There’s no other way to daily carry our cross.
Perhaps the first principle Paul operates from is the belief of Jesus – and of modern moral theologians that whatever we do, we do freely. Things done from force or fear don’t count toward our eternal salvation. As difficult as it might be to achieve such freedom, the Apostle Paul expects both Philemon and Onesimus to have no force, no violence, or fear in whatever they do. That means the apostle first respectfully asks Philemon to free Onesimus and permit him to help Paul. But on the other hand, Paul also expects Onesimus to freely return to his former owner Philemon and permit himself to again be in the power of Philemon before he asks for his release.
In each case, Philemon could freely say, “No!“ just as Onesimus could freely say, “I’m not going back!” Since this letter is in our biblical canon, we presume both said yes. But there’s no way to definitively prove that. It’s an essential part of carrying our cross that we create situations in which people are free to do the unpredictable. With such a commitment to freedom it was only a matter of time, a matter of a long time before slavery would be condemned by the church. But Paul is also guided by his belief that, once baptized, we each become a new creation.
So according to his theology, Onesimus is just as much a free person as Philemon, and Philemon is just as much a slave as Onesimus. We are all one. Perhaps one of the reasons we are more comfortable in just following rules and regulations instead of making decisions based on Christian principles is that there’s much less personal getting your fingers dirty in following rules and regulations. You always have an excuse. Because someone else already made the decision for us – so we can wash our hands in innocence.
I think Christian decision making always has to do with the wish to follow the spirit of God – by discerning what God would like us to do, by discerning what Jesus would recommend us to do.
Cf. Roger Vermalen Karban http://fosilonline.com
Wolfgang Felber SJ