Homily for Sunday, September 18, 2016

W25C-OSM

We live in a magical, luminous, a wonderful world with love and mercy abounding.  No?  Well how about:  we have problems, the world has problems — we are the world.  Better?  No, worse. I’ll go with the first, but live with the second we live in a magical, luminous, wonder-filled world… with a lot of problems.  I was born and raised in California, Venice Beach to be exact, and I now live, as of this past Wednesday in the beautiful City by the Bay.  One of the perks of being a Paulist priest is that I get to live in places I could never afford to live.

Speaking of perks, we have the parable of the “Unjust Steward” in today’s Gospel.  It’s probably one of the most difficult parables to understand, let alone apply to our daily lives.  One of the key ingredients are the asking of questions.

In our first reading from the prophet Amos, Amos is railing against the rich and powerful who ask no questions, they just trample upon the poor and the needy.  Never asking how are you, may I help you they just roll over everyone in their path.  They have power, but they are not powerful.  They have influence but they are not influential in working out the common good of all society.  Jesus does not identity with them; they have their wealth and and power and that is all they have.

Jesus told the parables to explain the realm of God present to Him and the disciples and present to us today.  In the parables there is always a Christ figure and the Christ figure in this parable is the Unjust Steward.  In him we see death and resurrection, a dying and rising to new and fuller life.  The steward is fired, he has to die to the job he had.  What does he do?  He begins asking lots of questions both of himself and others.  [my favorite line in the gospels…]  Then he asks, “how can I fix this mess…  and he begins asking each debtor how much to you own, and how much do you own… and in his cleverness his boss gets at least partial payment where before he was getting nothing.  The owner praises the devious steward and in a real sense both the owner and the steward are raised to new life; as well as the debtors — all are raised to new life.  Both learned how to transform weakness into strength, real strength that benefited everyone.  

You see, Jesus identifies with the unjust steward not because Jesus is unjust but because that’s where Jesus always begins His work: with injustice, greed, pride, people with low self-esteem, people like us, people with problems and He want to raise all of us to new life.   he became the criminal, the outcast, the one all looked down upon so that from that weakness the power of God would shine through him on Easter morning raising Jesus and all of us to new and fuller life.

St. Paul says time and again “when I am week then I am strong” not his own strength but God’s strength shining through him and constantly raising Paul to new and fuller life.  It is true for each of us as well.  When we give up our own power and sense of control we make room for the real and healing power of Jesus Christ into our lives.  One of my basic themes is how do we see our lives reflected in the scriptures and how do we see the scriptures played out in our lives.

Tourists in San Francisco….  Getting a new iPhone or android….  Cooking a new dish for the very first time….  so many examples that show us our weaknesses…  It is in the asking of questions: where is such and such, how do I do such and such; how may I help you? — the contacts we make —- our conversations with others be they family or strangers or coworkers… this is when the realm of God comes alive in us and in others.  This is the way we share our faith as well…  and raise ourselves and others to new and fuller life.