Homily Twenty-fifth Sunday Year C

 

Reading 1: What is the focus of this passage? It identifies an attitude of a heart not in relationship with God. All is done for money, no matter at what price to others. God is not the center of this person’s life. The person can’t wait for the Sabbath restrictions are ended, so he can make more money. How? Not by honest gain, but by cheating, stealing, being unjust with no respect for human dignity or love of another. The focus is self and gaining more wealth.

 

Will God forget or not notice the attitude of the heart or the actions that flow from it? So what is the attitude of our heart concerning God’s role in our life? Is it out of obligation that we worship? Is it out of necessity and self-need that we pray? Or is God at the center of our life by choice and desire and in fact? Are our actions and business practices motivated by God’s standards or human standards? Sunday, partially for God but the rest of the week is mine to do what I want?

 

 The people to whom Amos spoke did not repent, as far as we know. They continued to act the same way, in spite of God’s warning to them.

 

Gospel: Jesus gives a parable showing how the worldly act for the wrong reasons. This steward has been found to be dishonest, because he was cheating his master’s debtors by adding to their bill a surcharge for his benefit. If a person bought a hundred measures of olive oil, he overcharged so that he could get a kickback.

 

So when he said to rewrite the note of debt for fifty instead of a hundred, he seems to be showing concern for the debtor, when in truth he was charging him what the oil really. He was only eliminating his kickback. Though dishonest, he was acting again out of self-concern. He was hoping to ingratiate himself to the debtor. But in fact, he had ben cheating the person for his gain. Now he hoped that the debtor would employ him not that he is out of a job. The issue is he did not act this way out of repentance but out of promoting himself

 

Jesus applies this parable to his followers. Be honest and just in your dealings with others. He reminds us that we can’t serve two masters. Either Jesus is the Lord of one’s life or something or someone else is the Lord. To be a disciple of Jesus means to have Jesus as the Lord and center of our life.

 

Reading 2: Paul never tires of stating the central mystery of his preaching: There is one God.  Jesus is the one sent by the Father to be mediator, reconciler and redeemer through his death on the cross. He gave his life for ours, so that all could be saved. Though Jesus saved all by his choice, all will not be saved by their choices.

 

What should our response be?  We need to acknowledge and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We are called to live in relationship to him consciously in all we do and say. We need to pray for the salvation of others, which pleases God. But our prayer is to be free from anger and dissension. In other words, our prayer should flow from a heart at peace with God, ourselves and others.