Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Yr C 2025

Peter H. Davids

Ordinary Time • Sermon • Submitted 4 months ago • Presented 4 months ago

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The problem with money and goods is that we think we own it. And others calculate our worth by the worth of what we “own.” And this means that people will do all sorts of evil to gain more money. Furthermore, “Money is power” is true within this age. But in truth when we use it this way it controls us. Paul tells us that only God has real power thus we pray for those with human power so that we might live in peace for they are all under God’s control through his mediator Jesus. Jesus’ parable shows the prudence in leveraging one’s stewardship of goods for security within a this-worldly horizon. How much more should one leverage one’s stewardship of all our goods since we know they belong to God and do so with prudence with an eye towards our real goods which are in the age to come? This is true whether we have little or much, and really all wealth is little in God’s eyes. So let us live “You cannot serve God and mammon,” whether in how we deal with goods or in whether we envy those who have a lot of this world’s stuff, praying for them rather than envying them.

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Transcript

Title

The Problem with Money and Goods

Outline

The big problem with money is we think we own it

We see this today when people’s net worth is calculated or lists of the richest people are published. We do the same for corporate people who are treated as real people

The problem in Amos is that if my value is in money then I will do anything to increase it including grumbling about religious obligations, cheating or extorting from the poor, and unjust commercial transactions. They even sold people for money, as we do today, most obviously in trafficking in persons.

You have perhaps heard the statement “Money is power,” that indicates that money is connected to power in the Nietzchian sense.

We think we own money and we treat it as the highest good, when in truth the goods and money control us.

Paul tells us only God has real power

Thus we pray to the one with real power that those in the human power structure, however evil they may be, will enable a “quiet and tranquil life” with “all devotion and dignity” for us since there is “one God” and “one mediator between God and the human race.” God has control over all in power whether their power be that of government or through money. We pray for them for we are joined to the God the source of all power and appeal to him rather than to force, even that of anger and argument.

Jesus’ parable and teaching show us our real relationship to money

The rich man’s steward knows he does not own the money he handles so when fired he uses his remaining control to leverage security for himself using the funds he stewards. He was prudent within a this-worldly horizon. Well, are we prudent with respect to what we control? And this prudence is the same whether with respect to little or much. All wealth is relatively small in relation to the inheritance of the coming age, so it should be handled appropriately. It is that which is ours, according to Jesus, while the goods of this world all belong to the Father.

The sum of it is, “No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” And the same is true of the other “stuff” of this age: power, pleasure and honor.

So let us live that way and concomitantly let us not envy those who have a lot of this world’s stuff but rather pray for mercy for them.

Amen

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