Our Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB, presided at Holy Mass this morning. His homily is below:
Amos 8:4-7
I Timothy 2:1-8
Luke 16:1-13
The prophets in Israel were not people to be messed with. And Amos was one of those prophets you would rather not see walking in the streets of your city. It was not because prophets were walking around predicting the future that made people uncomfortable. It had more to do with the fact that they spoke out loud what was really going on in the present. The prophets told it like it was and they didn’t mince words. Amos must have frequented the market place and the shops. He could see beyond the pleasant smiles of the sales person. He heard the conversation in the back room. He listened to business people talking about when the Sabbath and the New Moon feast will be over so that they could get on with making another dollar. It might sound like a conversation leading up to a rationalization for keeping shops open on Sunday. It is not a mater of convenience; it is a matter of finding another way to make more money.
In 8th century BC Israel, Amos knew very well what was happening in the economic and social life of the country. And his word, or rather God’s word he spoke, is directed against it. The system set out to make the landowner wealthier but at the expense of the poor and those in need. More money was to be had, at someone else’s expense. From Amos’ point of view the system in Israel developed to the point where it was not longer a reflection of the covenant that God has made with his people. The economic system had shifted and become a sin against the commandments and covenant.
The Word today clearly makes us stick our nose into the reality of money, wealth and possessions. The Word is concerned about how money and wealth are made, or accumulated. And the Word is equally concerned about what to do with it. Money is not something that can be avoided. It is part of human life; the exchange of goods and services is part of everyday life. But there is a value to money and wealth more than the numbers on the bills, coins and stock certificates. The value comes from the position we give it in relation to the whole of life. If we live in a society that deems having and possessing as a high value, as a reason for living and working, then all our energy will be focused on finding better ways of getting, having, possessing and consuming. Money and wealth are something to be fought for. In the struggle to acquire, we slowly lose sight of the methods of how the things are gotten. If convenience and speed are objects worth pursuing, then we will invest much to make that happen. But probably we will lose sight of how it is we are able to have so much at our fingertips when we want it. Amos had a clear vision of things; he saw very well how some people in Israel were getting richer. And he saw quite clearly that it was the poor, the needy, the immigrant, the common laborer who were being taken advantage of.
What is disturbing about the prophet Amos, as is the case with all prophets, is that what he sees God sees. Better perhaps is that he follows where God is looking. As a true prophet, his response is really God’s response, God’s word to what he sees happening in the economic-social arrangement of the day. What is disturbing is that when God sees, then the prophet makes sure we see who and what God sees. God sees those who are affected by the business deals, namely, the poor. And in his seeing, God makes it clear on whose side he stands: the side of the needy, the lowly, the poor. The final words of the oracle today should pierce our heart and consciences: “Never will I forget a thing they have done.”
If our God remembers, then he remembers the victim of other people’s greed and selfishness, the exploited. He remembers if a land is raped to make someone else rich. We are called upon today to hear the Word of God through Amos so that we do not forget where our God stands. Not only does he stand with the poor, but he stands with them because they have become the victims of injustice, of an imbalance in human relationships, and imbalance between human beings and the earth, the common home of all that lives. God sees and understands what the poor see and experience. Those living by the covenant of God, namely you and I, are meant to find ourselves seeing with the eyes of God. And since we are in relationship with God, we are called upon to become part of restoration of the use of this world’s goods and wealth. Jesus and the Kingdom are precisely how God remembers the exploited.
Jesus tells a parable today that is strange by all accounts. A manager or steward who decides to reduce his master’s debts actually gets commended for his cleverness in spite of the fact that he was caught squandering the master’s property. The question inevitable arises is Jesus condoning playing around with someone else’s property? Thinking about that doesn’t get too far. Jesus is not above using shady characters or less than likeable people and situations to speak about God and his Kingdom. It is Jesus’ power as a story teller that he can use the most human situations, filled with ambiguity and even bad ethics, to make us sit up and take a look at how God works.
What comes across clearly is that the steward-manager finds himself in a crisis. His squandering of the property of someone else has caught up with him. He is being fired. He must now take the consequences. And the consequences, we hear him say, are not at all appealing. The crisis he finds himself in forces him to take action. Admittedly, it is a self-serving action, but he wakes up to the situation and responds. He is commended in the parable for being astute enough to act in way that involves relationships rather that possessing.
Crises often make us act. We often come to find resources that we did not know were there all along. Amos and Jesus are speaking out of a crisis. The crisis is not money or wealth per se. The crisis is that something has been forgotten. Wealth and money are subordinate to primary relationships. And primary relationships are founded not on possessing or gaining but on being responsible for what is gift in the first place. The network of human relationships is a treasure, a treasure initiated by God. The relationship with the earth itself is grounded on responsibility. It is ours to care for, not exploit at the expense of others.
If we are children of light, as Jesus says, then we should see a crisis when the covenant between God and humanity, humanity and the world is cracking and becoming loose. The way to restore the fracture, the broken relationships will be through the new covenant in Jesus, the one mediator, the one who can hold all things and people together. It is he who can teach us how to live with others in a way that enhances human dignity, that treats others as neighbors and not objects to be exploited or commodities to be bartered away. He can teach us that wealth is a blessing to be shared and not hoarded. He can teach us that who we are and what we have is a gift to be nurtured and loved. Our way of life is not one of taking but one of giving thanks and of blessing the one from whom all good things come.
Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB