TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
21 SEPTEMBER 2025
In his parables, Jesus gets the attention of
his listeners. Those who heard this
parable in person were ordinary people – peasants, tenant farmers, day
laborers, and slaves. They worked very
hard, trying their best to provide for their families from day to day. In their world, very few people were rich. People were rich because they inherited their
wealth. They did not work and tended to
ignore the plight of those who did. Jesus
got their attention, and they probably cheered for the ingenuity of the steward
who got back at his rich master.
Jesus gets our attention today. This parable is probably his most challenging
and difficult to understand. The master
commends the steward for acting prudently.
How should we understand this parable?
Is Jesus encouraging us to be dishonest with those whom we think do not
deserve our honest dealings? The key
lies in what Jesus describes as “dishonest wealth,” which is the wealth we need
to sustain ourselves and our families in this world.
The prophet Amos criticizes the people of his day for their misuse of
“dishonest wealth”. Too many of them are
greedy and spend their energies filling their homes with nice furniture and
adorning them with ivory. He criticizes
the farmers who go to the market to find ways of cheating the poor, robbing
them, and trampling on them instead of charging a fair price. Instead, Jesus says to make friends with
“dishonest wealth.” When it fails, as all “dishonest fair” will fail with
death, we will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
When Saint Paul writes, he knows that Timothy’s community handles
“dishonest wealth” very well. They work
together, live nearby one another, and come together after work to share a life
centered on the confession of Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a “ransom for
all”. He tells Timothy and his community
to offer supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgiving for everyone,
especially those in authority. He tells
us to do the same.
When we offer supplications, we
maintain a mindset of continual prayer. In
offering them, we are reminded to be faithful stewards ourselves, making sure
that we manage our “dishonest wealth” to support our families, without cheating
or taking advantage of anyone else. He
challenges us to realize what is honest wealth – the mercy, justice, and peace
of God’s eternal kingdom. Honest wealth
will continue when “dishonest wealth” comes to an end.
When we offer prayers, we make
specific requests to God for ourselves.
In offering these prayers, we ask God to make sure that we do not focus
on our own needs at the expense of others.
In offering prayers, we want to do God’s will, and not our own. We want to make sure that the decisions we
make today will please God in the years ahead.
When we offer petitions, we
make specific requests to God for someone else.
In light of what we learn about the needs of others in our prayers, we know
that we can share a generous portion of our “dishonest wealth” with those who
have much less. We avoid the sinful greed
of the people whom Amos criticizes.
Finally, when we offer thanksgiving,
we express our gratitude and acknowledge that everything we have is a gift from
God. In gratitude, we share a generous
portion of that gift with others in time, talent, and treasure.
When we center our lives on prayer, we avoid corruption and over-consumption. This kind of prayer helps end arguments and
anger. It helps us to treat leaders and
those with whom we disagree with respect.
It opens our eyes to see the needs of others and share generously with
them. We are God’s prudent stewards who
are called to use our “dishonest wealth” as a way of embracing a true wealth
that cannot be destroyed. So, let us
pray!
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