25th Sunday – Do we serve God or mammon or both God and mammon?
Three friends decided to go deer hunting together. One was a lawyer one a doctor, and the other a pastor.
As they were walking, along came a big buck. The three of them shot simultaneously. Immediately the buck dropped to the ground and all three rushed up to see how big it actually was.
Upon reaching it they found out that it was dead but had only one bullet hole. Thus a debate followed concerning whose buck it was.
A few minutes later a game officer came by and asked what the problem was. The doctor told him their reason for the debate. The officer told them, he would take a look and tell them who shot it.
Within a few seconds the game officer said with much confidence, “The pastor shot the buck!”
They all wondered how he knew that so quickly.
The officer said, “Easy. The bullet went in one ear and out the other
The pastor preaches every Sunday but the Word does not remain with them, enters through one ear and gets out through the other ear. The prophets always preached to the people of Israel but their preaching have not borne good fruits.
Do we understand what God says to us today? Or does it enter through one year and pass through the other ear? Let us understand the implication!
I am going to use Christ’s statement “You cannot serve both God and mammon,” as the theme for my homily. Mammon here is translated as riches or material wealth. We must be practical as we reflect on this topic. We need money, we need wealth, and we need resources. That is how the world economy is set. So I am not preaching about money. I would like to examine our attitude towards wealth as Christians. What is attitude our attitude towards wealth? I see three possibilities: attachment, indifference or detachment.
1. Attachment makes our wants look un-proportionally more urgent than other people’s basic needs. Attachment to wealth makes our want for profit and luxury seems more important than other people’s need for a living wage and human respect. The consequence of attachment to wealth is well described in the first reading from the book of Amos. Amos was a prophet when Israel was very prosperous under the reign of the king Jeroboam II (786-746 BC). They owed this prosperity to lack of any foreign threat to them, and to successive agricultural successes. Many of the leading Israelites were growing rich by exploiting the poor. Then Amos strong words address two serious sins greed and hypocrisy. The works of such people are described in these words:
“… they sell the just man for silver, and the
poor for a pair of sandals. They trample the
heads of the weak into the dust of the
earth and force the lowly out of the way.” (Amos 2:6-7)
The reading ends with God saying to those who oppress the poor, “Never will I forget a thing they have done” (Amos 8:7). To the same people God declares in another passage, book of Amos, God says, “I hate, I spurn your feasts. I take no pleasure in your solemnities; your cereal offerings I will not accept, nor consider your stall-fed peace offerings, away with your noisy songs! I will not listen to the melodies of your harps. But if you would offer me sacrifices, then let justice flow like a river and goodness, like an unfailing stream”. (Amos 5:21-24) In other words God rejects the sacrifice of a person who does wrong to others in his/her attachment to wealth and who is greedy and hypocrite. That is why Jesus says to us in the gospel reading, “You cannot both serve god and mammon.”
2. The second attitude toward wealth is indifference. For this group of people wealth is not a big attraction. They know that money only makes life easier and not necessarily happier. While this is good, they are not proactive when it comes to justice. Social issues such as unjust wages, exploitation of immigrant labor, global warming, the lack of insurance for children do not concern them. They perhaps will give some money for charity but not at the cost of sacrificing something they could live without. In other words, their charity comes from having extra, not from a genuine concern for others. The danger of such an attitude toward wealth is that it has an effect on their spiritual life. Growing in our spiritual life or growing in our relationship with God requires that we sacrifice time, energy, and resources to put into spiritual activities. Unwillingness to sacrifice will make our relation with God and others stagnant.
3. And then there is the third attitude - detachment. This group of people is detached from wealth and material things but what separates them from the rest is that they are proactive about what God commands them to do. They love God passionately, and their love for God translates into genuine concern for others, especially the poor. They strive for ways to make their own interactions just. Not only does their charity come from a sense of sacrifice but they also care about the victims of injustice. They contribute to correcting the situation of exploitation. Thus, there are Catholics today, who buy only Fair Trade coffee, or shop at stores that pay a just wage to their employees, and care about how they use energy because global warming is the direct cause of the floods that is hitting different places right now.
The gospel reading has an insight for us in this regard. Why does Jesus commend the dishonest steward? He was not commended because he was dishonest. He was commended because he was prudent. This man served mammon. As a mammon server he had his priorities clear. In managing worldly resources this man was prudent. Just as the “prudent steward” was proactive in serving mammon, so also the children of light have to be proactive in serving the cause of justice. When this happens, we are serving God and not mammon.
As we move forward to celebration this Eucharist, let us not forget that our attitude towards wealth and our relationship with God and other people are in accordance with God’s plan and social justice. Then this sacrifice will be acceptable to God. Amen
