25th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2025
Amos 8:4-7 1 Tim 2:1-8 Luke 16:1-13
It is true that money is a necessary part of everybody’s life. It has the potential to be a great instrument for all sorts of goodness but if it is not used properly it can destroy and undermine people and society.
In today’s Gospel it seems, at first, that Jesus is commending dishonesty. The steward is praised not for his dishonesty but for his foresight. Money can so easily lead to wheeling and dealing, to dishonesty and corruption but if we take the same approach to it as Jesus does it can also lead us into generosity and doing something really helpful and up-building for others.
Jesus had some wealthy friends too! There was Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea and then some of the elders who often invited Him to meals and banquets. Jesus often spoke of the serious obligation we have to help the poor and He was not afraid to warn, even his friends, of the dangers of riches – “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of an needle than for a rich man to enter heaven’!
On the list of the seven ‘capital sins’ covetousness is second only to pride. Covetousness is the compulsive desire to possess more. Compulsion does not know the meaning of enough and that is why Jesus said that money can make a slave of the possessor.
For believers and for the disciples of Jesus the way to remain grounded in our use of money or any material goods is to bear in mind that everything comes from God and really there is nothing that we can rightly claim as our own private property.
The early Christian communities held everything in common and expressed their generosity and sharing in their coming together to celebrate Eucharist. Our sharing in the Eucharist is a sign of our desire to share our greatest gift with each other.