By Fr Antony Christy, SDB –
September 22, 2019: 25th Sunday in Ordinary time
Amos 8: 4-7; 1 Timothy 2:1-8; Luke 16: 1-13
We have needs, wants and desires… they are but human. One has to be attentive about the difference between these three- how many times we confuse among these! Our wants and desires fill our minds so much that we make of them much too big than what they out to be – we are happy only when we get some desires come true, we are fulfilled only when we get some things that we want… yes we turn these ordinary wants and desires into needs.
Just imagine today, the number of things that we have made necessities of life: are they really needs? or just wants and desires? Be what they may be, the fact is that, only when they are fulfilled we are happy and grateful; when they are not, we keep beseeching the Lord, sometimes requesting, sometimes begging, sometimes obstinately pressurising, sometimes fighting, sometimes complaining and what not!
Prosperity, from the time of the theology of the promised land, has always been looked at as a blessing from the Lord. Even today how many preachers take up this as a way of alluring people – whether to God or to themselves – we are not here to judge! The focus here is on that so-called prosperity… in simple terms, Wealth.
Wealth makes our life easy and our living pleasurable. By the very fact that it is a blessing, it is obvious that it is ‘given’ and it is to be given. Wealth is a means provided for one not only to live his or her life, but also extend his hand to the needy, the unfortunate, the underprivileged, the have-nots, so that their life becomes blessed through one’s instrumentality. Wealth, is a blessing, and more over a means, to be a blessing to the others! Prophet Amos minces no words in the first reading today. Swindling the other, manipulating the other and hurting the other for one’s own well-being, is not Christian attitude; and it is no well-being at all.
Well-being is not merely one’s individual pleasure and possession! Even if one possesses everything, if there is not harmony in his or her surroundings one cannot cherish those possessions. How many individuals who possess enormous riches but lack an internal serenity bear witness to this fact.
How many nations today which seem rich and affluent but lack peace and security attest to this fact. Authentic Well-being is harmony in every sense, within oneself, around oneself and with the entire universe! It is the ‘quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in everyway’, that St. Paul speaks of in the second reading. Selfishness and Greed can never lead us to this well-being. Concern and Compassion, a collective thinking of ‘all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth’ – only such an outgoing spirit can grant the world, a real Well-being.
The world and the life we live today is an opportunity given to us, reminds Jesus in the Gospel with his intriguing parable of the prudent steward! Intriguing it is, because it seems to advocate slyness and fraud. But that is not the point. The focus lies on another perspective, and it is: however limited and burdensome, the present life we live is all that we have, here and now, to make our journey toward our ‘eternal abode’ pleasant and meaningful. It is said, how we live our life here will define and determine how we will exist hereafter.
We have the gift and the Giver: of these, what matters to us is the crucial question. It cannot be that both gift and the giver are important – one cannot serve two masters, warns Jesus. Once we give the first place to the Giver, the Eternal giver, the Loving giver, the Wonderful giver, everything else falls in place. Wealth becomes a means, Well-being becomes harmonious living and the World becomes an opportunity for us to create a paradise here and now, as we live our life in peace and harmony with our brothers and sisters!
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He is currently pursuing his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him.