Saturday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 7, 2020

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.”

This reading is to be understood in the context of the Gospel reading from yesterday’s Mass.  In fact, the first verse of this reading acts as a second conclusion to the Parable of the Unjust Steward, providing the moral to it.  Thus: “The children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.  I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”  The moral Jesus presents appears confusing.  Throughout the Gospels, the Lord warns his followers to stay away from the affairs of the world.  Indeed, he counsels them to sell their possessions and to give to the poor as a condition for following him.  How does he say here, “Make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth”?  And how can “dishonest wealth” prepare one to enter heaven?

The Lord does not command his disciples to raise large sums of money for themselves and to become rich.  He tells them to “make friends” with wealth, which means to not treat it as an end in itself but to see it as something useful.  We “make friends” with it by using it for just ends, such as feeding the poor or supporting missionary efforts.  Unlike human friends, whom we see as ends in themselves, inanimate “friends” are those things which are useful to us.   With reference to the parable, we are to use the money and property we have or that comes to us in such a way that the Lord is pleased and he welcomes us into his dwelling place when we die.

“The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones.”  Jesus now proposes a proverb, in which the first statement of a line proves the truth of the second statement: “And the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.”  The proverb is separate from the parable but is related to it in subject matter — wealth.  The proverb reveals the truth about integrity and the lack of it and provides a way to judge whether a person possesses it or not.  The proverb provides the basis for the Lord’s subsequent question, “If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth?”  That is, if the Lord sees us as not using the “dishonest wealth” we have in a just way (i.e., feeding the poor and supporting missionary efforts) then how can he trust us with the “true wealth” of the gift of faith, and, one day, glory in heaven?  This helps us with the meaning of the next line, “If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours?”  That which belongs to “another” is the wealth that belongs to this world, while “what is yours” is our inheritance in heaven.

“No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.”  That is, the servant cannot obey two masters.  He will obey the rightful one, and ignore the orders of anyone else.  An attempt to obey both will result in being beaten by both when their mutually exclusive orders are not carried out.  “You cannot serve God and mammon.”  “Mammon” is derived from a Hebrew/Aramaic word for “wealth”, taken directly into the Greek.  It is curious that St. Luke used the Hebrew word when he could have easily used the common Greek word ploutos.  Both words were also recognized as names of gods of wealth, Mammon being a Syrian god.  “Mammon” also appears in the Greek text of St. Matthew.  Whatever the implication here, the meaning is the same: no one can obey both God and wealth.  Wealth is to be used to serve God.  To obey wealth — to dedicate ourselves to building up and preserving wealth — is to give to it what belongs to God.  This brings to mind the earnest words of St. Paul: “For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, live as enemies of the Cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things” (Philippians 3, 18-19).

“The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all these things and sneered at him.”  For the Pharisees, indeed, for the Jews, material success was a sign of God’s blessing and favor.  The lack of it meant a lack of God’s blessing and favor.  To reject the opportunity of making of as much money as possible was to reject a gift from God.  They misunderstand that money and property are goods to be used in service to God.  The believer in God who has material success should not say, as does the rich man in the parable: “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry” (Luke 12, 19), but remembers St. John the Baptist’s words: “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise” (Luke 3, 11).  Luke tells us that the Pharisees “sneered” at Jesus: they did not ask for clarification.  They simply mocked him.

“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.”  Those who live immoral lives justify their actions in many ways, such as saying that the end justifies the means, or that “a man has to do what a man has to do”, or with similar tautologies.  He may even quote Scripture (or misquote it) to show that what he is doing is actually sanctioned by divine writ.  The Lord Jesus does not here take on the self-serving claims of the Pharisees as it is a waste of time to deal with people who act in bad faith, but reminds them — warns them — of a truth that they ought to know well, that “God knows your hearts”.  And then he reminds them of something they have forgotten or never learned: “What is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God.”  Almighty God, speaking through the Prophet Isaiah had long ago revealed, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55, 8-9).  

In dealing with the things of the world we Christians must think of how God wants us to serve him with them, and not be swayed by the ostentatious displays of wealth we see around us, and which will be buried with those who flaunt them.