Look Beyond

A Reflection on the Gospel for September 18th, 2022:
Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Luke
16. 10-13

Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that the manager was squandering his property. So the rich man summoned him and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.” Then the manager said to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.” So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?” He answered, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.” He said to him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.” Then he asked another, “And how much do you owe?” He replied, “A hundred containers of wheat.” He said to him, “Take your bill and make it eighty.” And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

“This is a hard teaching, Lord.” With this Gospel reading, I was right there with the disciples in John 6. My dismay has turned to gratitude for the discipline to dive deeper instead of just rushing through the things I find difficult or just don’t understand. Providentially, I believe this is exactly the lesson Jesus wanted me to learn here – that when I get to rock bottom (even relatively speaking), I need to make a decision and to act. 

I turned to various commentaries and ultimately Word on Fire for help with this reflection. In this homily, then-Father Robert Barron said, “Decisive action is the end result of awakening to crisis.” Looking beyond the moral elements of this story, there are spiritual truths here that Jesus wants us to see.

The steward in this story has been caught out in his dishonesty. He faces dismissal from his livelihood with no second options for survival. We misunderstand Jesus here if we think He’s praising this man’s immorality; in reality, He is impressed by the steward’s recognition that he is at the end of his ability and can think critically about his options for survival. Moreover, the steward acts decisively, and Jesus calls us to this decision point as well. The time is now to assess our understanding of who Jesus is, and to live our lives accordingly.

For many, myself included, it takes getting to “rock bottom” to realize that God’s way for our lives is the one that is right and true. At certain points in my life, I’ve had to acknowledge that no other path seemed right; even though God’s path was and is often the hardest one to walk, no other path was held up by the promise of the ultimate fulfillment of all my desires. The crises of the disastrous results of seeking to meet my own desires for all sorts of things through my own actions is what led me to that path. 

I pray that you do not need to reach rock bottom before recognizing the authority of God over all that is good and acknowledging the reality that He can be trusted at all times and in all situations.

Thank you, Lord, for this hard teaching – and for all You challenge us to confront in the name of Love. Amen.




Lindsay Elford

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