Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign this is Sundays with Bishop Ken.
Thanks for sharing some quiet time with the Lord today. We welcome guest reader Brenda Piazza.
Brenda is a parishioner of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Menden, New York, where she joyfully serves in a variety of ministries.
Brenda also shares her gifts with us and each liturgical season, narrating our little book's reflections.
And now, here is today's Gospel and Homily.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: A reading from the Holy Gospel According to Luke Jesus said to his disciples, 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 the Gospel of the Lord the first thing we have to do is understand the economic system behind this parable.
The rich man was an absentee landlord.
The manager was the person who was on site and had total responsibility for the farm.
He set the prices, negotiated the transactions, lent money and supervised the laborers.
And especially in making loans, he set the interest rate, which was his own commission.
At that time, the interest rate could be as high as 100%.
Apparently, he had been dishonest and inept in his management.
That precedes what happens here.
What he does once he finds out he's going to be fired, is not dishonest.
He simply cuts out his own commission.
He realizes he's going to be out of a job and will need the help of others to survive.
So he spends his money wisely. He invests in his future by giving to the lenders what would have been his commission, and in doing so he wins their goodwill.
The owner recognizes this and commends him for it. For all his dishonesty in the past, he was now acting prudently.
Luke then attaches to this parable several sayings of Jesus to help interpret it.
These sayings were probably spoken at different times by Jesus.
They bring out a variety of meanings.
For one thing we learn we should use our money and our possessions with an eye to our future, and our future is death.
Death to our earthly life and the beginning of a long, long life.
We want to be able to say on our deathbed, I spent my money well.
I invested it in My future, which is quite different from looking back and saying, I accumulated a lot of money and possessions, all of which I leave behind when I die.
Jesus is clear on this when he says, for the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.
The word prudent is, I think, a weak translation of the Greek word used here.
The same word is used elsewhere in the Gospels and is translated with English words that catch its fuller meaning.
For example, in Matthew's Gospel, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks of the wise man who built his house on rock rather than sand.
It's the same word used here, and it is translated as wise.
Also, in Matthew's Gospel, when Jesus sends the 12 out on mission, he tells them to be shrewd as serpents.
Again, it's the same word. It connotes being clever, creative, astute, enterprising.
So we need to be creative in the way we use our money and possessions and do so with an eye to our future.
But as I said, the words of Jesus after the parable bring out a variety of applications.
Right now, on this Sunday afternoon, there are football games going on across the country.
The NFL has a full schedule. Tomorrow coaches will gather and for hours and hours go over the films of the games to analyze them.
They'll look at what worked and what didn't work.
They'll watch for mistakes and make plans to correct them.
They'll look for creative ways to do better. Next week and after the game next week they'll do the same thing.
And the week after that, and so on.
We might say, well, that's a game, and it's a lot different from being a Christian.
But remember what Jesus said.
The children of this world are more prudent, clever, astute, creative in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.
We need to ask ourselves if we are simply going through the motions or whether we're using all our creative energy to make the church work.
We worry about the decline in Mass attendance.
Well, what are we doing about it?
We can sit back and blame it on them.
But Jesus calls upon us to be wise as serpents.
He calls upon us to be enterprising, creative in dealing with such things.
Or we complain because our parishioners don't participate by carrying out a ministry in the parish.
Do we just wring our hands? Or do we try to analyze how we can make this happen?
Or we lament that so many people don't accept the Lord's invitation to take and drink.
They take the bread and skip the cup.
What do we do about that?
The list could go on and on.
The longer the list, the more we need to think about what Jesus said.
The children of this world are more prudent, clever, astute, creative and dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.
I call on all of us to take this gospel seriously.
The children of this world are more prudent, clever, astute, creative in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.
May those words never be said of us.
May we always open ourselves to the creative gift of the Spirit and know it is the Lord who sends us and he sends us as he sent the 12 to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us today.
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