Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we listened to the words of God in the Sacred Scriptures reminding us all on the matter of being truly faithful and dedicated to God in everything. We have to trust in the Lord and follow Him with all of our hearts, with all of our minds and with all of our strength. But it is often that throughout our lives, we are distracted and tempted by various temptations present in this world.

In our first reading today, as we heard from the Book of the prophet Amos, we heard the Lord rebuking His people through the prophet Amos because of their wicked attitudes, in cheating others and treating others badly, in how they acted without care for the well-being of their fellow brothers and sisters. All of them were wicked and unjust, greedy and seeking only to satisfy their own selfish desires.

And God was angry at those people because of their wicked intentions and desires. He was displeased at their attachments to worldly things such as wealth, power, fame and other things that kept them distracted and prevented them from truly being connected with God. This is reinforced by what we have heard in our Gospel passage today when the Lord used the parable of the dishonest steward to teach the people.

In that parable, the Lord spoke of a steward who was caught in doing fraudulent service and was reported to his master, who then decided to dismiss him for such a dishonest and disloyal act. The steward wanted to protect himself and provide for his needs, and that was why he did all that were mentioned in the parable, as he looked for two other servants of his master who owed certain debts to the master.

The dishonest steward manipulated the details of the debt, probably because he was the one in charge of the accounts and in fact his fraudulent service would probably have been exactly what was described in his action with the two servants. By rewriting the debts of the two servants, the dishonest steward in fact cheated his own master. Perhaps the fraudulent service he had been found out earlier was meant to enrich his own pockets, but the actions he took with the two servants were no better.

Why is that so? That is because it is still cheating and being dishonest in order to protect himself and provide for his desires. The dishonest steward himself put it clearly before us just before he acted, as he thought in his mind how he was ashamed to beg for money, now that he had lost his job. This thought showed us what his attitude was, and showed us how he had always been selfish and proud, refusing to admit that he was wrong and continued to do what was wrong even in trying to provide for himself.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is what can happen to us all as well if we allow the temptations present in our world to affect us and to overcome us. It is very easy for us to fall into those temptations unless we consciously try to resist those temptations. Indeed, it will not be easy for us to resist because there will be many moments when we will feel pressured or pulled to follow those temptations.

Often we may end up following those temptations and fall into their snares. As long as we embrace worldly ways and think in the manner that the world approves, we will not be able to truly love God with all of our hearts and with all of our focus and attention. That is what the Lord Jesus wanted to point out to the disciples and to the people, and also to all of us when He said that “No servant can serve two masters… and that you cannot give yourself to both God and money.”

The Lord did not mean that we must avoid money altogether, or that we should not make use of worldly means in our daily lives. We still need to make good use of what the Lord has blessed each and every one of us with and not to misuse those things. However, the key here is that of self-restraint and control, which many of us are lacking or are not cultivating, which leads to us being easily tempted and led astray.

We have to be wise and discerning stewards of God, for God has indeed entrusted us with many blessings, talents, gifts and all sorts of things He has given us with, and it is our free choice and by the free will God has given us that we choose what we want to make use of those gifts and blessings for. Are we going to make use of them for our own selfish gains and desires? Or are we going to make use of them responsibly and for the good of everyone?

If we allow ourselves to be overcome by greed and worldly temptations for wealth, for power, glory and fame, that is why we can end up like that of the dishonest steward in our Gospel passage today who compromised on just principles and also like the merchants and people rebuked by God through the prophet Amos in our first reading today as those who put their own selfish and greedy wants and desires over other things.

Instead, let us all make good use of what God has entrusted to us, and heed what the Apostle St. Paul wrote to St. Timothy in our second reading today, that indeed, the Lord Jesus Christ alone is the Mediator of the New Covenant between God and us. This means that the Lord alone is the true focus and true satisfaction and destination that we should be seeking for in our respective lives in this world.

All other worldly things and desires, all those tempting and seemingly pleasurable and wonderful things are in the end, just illusions and distractions I have discussed earlier, all that can prevent us from finding the path to eternal and true joy in the Lord. We need to overcome all these temptations and all the attachments to worldly satisfaction so that we can become God’s good and worthy servants and disciples.

Let us all reflect on this and see how we can make the necessary changes in our lives, in how we live our daily lives and in our even small little actions, in our words and deeds, that we can become ever more attuned to God’s will and grow in our loving relationship with Him. Let us all strive to be better Christians from now on. May the Lord continue to guide us all in our journey of life. Amen.