A TALENT FOR DOING GOOD

A SERMON FOR THE 8th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Today’s Gospel for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost always leaves us feeling a little uneasy, doesn’t it?  It’s the story of the unjust steward, who has been caught by his employer wasting the goods with which he had been entrusted, and because of this, has been fired.  But first his employer wants an accounting of his stewardship.  This gives the unjust steward a bit of time to come up with a plan. He knows he is going to be unemployed soon, but he can’t dig, and to beg he is ashamed.  He is going to need another job.  So what does he do?  He “adjusts” the debts which people owe to his master.  He fixes the numbers, lowers the payments, fiddles the books, makes it easier for them to pay off their debts.  He figures this way, they will owe him when he’s let go, and might employ him by way of reward.  It’s a pretty effective plan when you think about it, and yet it does make us a bit uneasy. And it should.  It’s illegal and immoral!  After all, these debtors owe what they owe, and by lowering their debts on paper, the steward is actually just stealing even more from his employer.

So the next words of the Gospel come as a bit of a surprise:  “And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely.”  What’s going on here?  Is God commending someone for stealing?  Is it okay to commit an immoral act for a good purpose?  The answer to these questions is a resounding “No!” However, that’s not what is happening here.  First of all, when the “lord” commends the unjust steward for having acted wisely, let’s remember that this “lord” is not “The Lord”, as in “God.”  It is the employer, the lord of the unjust steward. So his opinion that the steward acted wisely does not come with an awful lot of weight in and of itself.  Let’s take a look though at the next comment of our divine Saviour:  “For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” So here, you see, is the real picture: the children of this world, worldly people, sinful people, take a lot more care about themselves than we who are supposed to be followers of Christ.  Or to put it another way, they put a lot more effort into taking care of themselves and their bodily needs, than we do taking care of our souls. AND, what’s worse, so do we.  We too spend more time worrying about our natural needs and vanities, than we do cultivating virtue and avoiding sin.

Do you remember, there was a politician who was running for president in the Democratic primaries back in 2008, and he was famous for spending $1250 for a haircut?  He put such care into his wavy locks, and was forever brushing them back self-consciously, so very proud of his hair.  At the same time, while his wife was suffering from terminal cancer, he was busy having an extramarital affair.  The Gospel today is a stern rebuke to this type of behaviour.  Not only when it is this extreme, but in other cases, cases perhaps that we can recognize in ourselves.  Are we so busy, ladies, preening ourselves in the mirror on Sunday morning that we’re late for Mass?  Or men, do we spend so much time working out at the gym than we forget the family Rosary, or even our own few decades?  Time to examine the conscience again, isn’t it!  Time to see where our ownpriorities lie!  That is—if we will makethe time!  If we’re not too busy doing something “more important”…

So when Our Lord points out the “wisdom” of the unjust steward, he is not commending his dishonesty.  He is rather commending the wisdom and foresight of the steward in preparing for his future.  This is what we are exhorted by Our Lord to do also.  We must act as the unjust steward, but only in a certain sense. Not in the sense of being dishonest of course.  But in preparing for our future.  

We are all stewards.  A steward is someone who is entrusted with the care of something. And what have we been entrusted with? What has God given to each of us, all differently, all in our own individual way?  All our natural gifts and talents!  And like the unjust steward, we must use the things that our own Lord has given us in this world.  What is our equivalent of the oil and wheat given to the unjust steward in today’s Gospel?  Our own material possessions.  We must use them wisely and for our own salvation, and even more so those material things or talents which God has given us – a talent perhaps for writing good stories, or painting beautiful pictures, a talent for helping people in their difficulties, or arguing a legal case, or a talent for making money. Physical beauty perhaps, or a good memory, or strong muscles, or mechanical aptitude.  These are all gifts from God.  Whatever the particular talents God has given us, we must use them! Don’t waste them like the steward in the Gospel today wasted his master’s goods.  But figure out a way to use your gifts to prepare a good outcome for yourself.  Take the time, like the unjust steward, to figure out how these talents can help secure your future in heaven.  

Because these talents are our very own “mammon of iniquity”.  They can, oh so easily lead us into sin.  Again, look at today’s “unjust steward.”  He used his talent of providing for his own future by defrauding his master of what was owed to him.  He used his talent for self-preservation in order to commit sin.  We must be careful not to do the same.  How many girls abuse their physical beauty to make themselves immodest, leading others, as well as themselves, into sin?  Or physical strength perhaps?  The temptation to pride and vanity that athletic young men might experience, thinking the size of their biceps somehow make them better people than the less endowed.  The talents given us by God, these are our strength, certainly, but they are also our weakness, always there to drag us into the sin of pride, making us think we’re better than the rest.  They’re our very own personal mammon of iniquity!  

And yet today, Our Lord tells us to make ourselves friendswith the mammon of iniquity, that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.   This is our task today, given to us by our Lord himself.  To make friends with the mammon of iniquity, to use our talents for the purpose God gave them to us.   So let’s look very carefully in the mirror to assess honestly what talents we have. Then befriend those talents.  Whatever they might be— intelligence, physical beauty, leadership qualities—any of these talents, even though they were given to us by God, can lead us so very easily to hell.  Our talents are truly the mammon of iniquity – all those hidden talents we have, and which, instead of using for the purpose God gave them, we’ve been using for our own entertainment and self-gratification.  From now on though, let’s make friends with them, let’s become friends with the mammon of iniquity.  Let’s use them now for the good of others, for the promotion of God’skingdom.  And if we think at all about using our talents for ourselves, let it be for the salvation of our soul.  

So girls, do you consider yourself attractive? Fine, but use this gift of God properly, and throughyour outward appearance, attract men to the shining soul within you, so that they may be inspired to become better persons themselves.  Don’t compete with others, even in your own mind—those who are less “pretty” are no less pleasing to God, no less virtuous.  Are you intelligent?  Apply your abilities to learning and teaching the things of God.  And don’t look down on the more simple-minded, who may be closer to God than you.  Are you a good lawyer?  Use your legal skills to promote true justice, and mercy where there should be mercy, arguing against the oppression of the poor and the destitute.  Are you a good singer?  Join the church choir.  Are you good at making huge amounts of money?  Please see me after Mass and bring your checkbook.  Together there’s no end to the benefits we can bring to this sad world if we use our own individual talents wisely.  And if we all pool our talents, if everyone uses his or her talents for the common good, then we have the solution to turning this sad world into a better world.  God gives each of us as individuals to the means to save our own souls.  But when we put all these individuals together to become the Mystical Body of Christ, when we cooperate as the true Church of Christ to perform the mission entrusted to us, then we have not only our talents, but the grace of God within us, and with that, the means to save the whole world.