Saturday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 11, 2023

Luke 16:9-15

Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. 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 God and mammon.”  The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all these things and sneered at him. And he said to them, “You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God.”

The Gospel Reading for today’s Mass follows the Lord’s Parable of the Dishonest Steward, and is part of the lesson the Lord teaches with this parable.

“I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”  The Lord Jesus is telling his disciples to make friends with “dishonest” — the Greek word means “unrighteous” — “mammon”, an Aramaic word preserved in the Greek text.  He is telling them not to avoid wealth altogether but to use it for God’s purposes without becoming ensnared with it, for it will certainly “fail”, especially at the time of a person’s death.  At that point, having used the wealth of this world in accord with the will of God, the faithful soul will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.  The Lord here draws a distinction between the rich man who feasted sumptuously every night while Lazarus starved and, say, “certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary who is called Magdalen, out of whom seven devils were gone forth, and Joanna the wife of Chusa, Herod’s steward, and Susanna and many others who ministered unto him out of their resources” (Luke 8, 2-3).  That is, out of their wealth.  

“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.”  We can also understand this saying as a comment on the dishonest steward who was not trustworthy in great matters, as seen by his master.  But the Lord is also counseling on how to estimate a person’s honesty, especially one who makes himself out to be a member of the faithful.  Significant consequences will result from being known as dishonest in small things: “If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth?”  How can we expect to be entrusted to graces and spiritual gifts if we fail to live virtuous lives?  Perhaps a great many baptized members of the faithful would have the gifts of healing, of preaching, of speaking in tongues, if they overcame their addictions and habitual sins.  

“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 God and mammon.”  The Lord restates his teaching that “If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14, 26).  He includes the love of money and other kinds of wealth in this way so as to say, Nothing is allowed to come between you and me.

“The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all these things and sneered at him. And he said to them, ‘You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God.’ ”  That is, “an accursed thing” before God.  The Lord Jesus speaks to the Pharisees quite bluntly with the intention that they consider his words, put so plainly and without subtlety before them.  There is no chance for them to misinterpret his meaning.  He points out that they “justify” themselves in the sight of others — they put on the appearance of righteousness, particularly in their clothing and their ostentatious washings.  Humans may be fooled by this, but not God, who knows the heart: “(D-R): “You have known my sitting down, and my rising up.  You have understood my thoughts afar off: my path and my lying down you have searched out.  And you have foreseen all my ways” (Psalm 139, 2–4).  He reminds them that the things worldly people value are accursed in the sight of Almighty God: “I have seen a wicked man overbearing, and towering like a cedar of Lebanon. Again I passed by, and, lo, he was no more; though I sought him, he could not be found” (Psalm 37, 36).

So let us do well with what God gives to us, using it in his service, so that we may inherit everlasting wealth.