Memorial of Saint Charles Borromeo, bishop
If you want to get at the significance of this week's readings, it is necessary to spend some time really focusing on the gospel passage for today (Luke 16:1-8). It's a curious passage featuring a steward, a person responsible for managing the household and ensuring its prosperity. This steward is an annoyingly troublesome guy for several reasons: first is the one the master mentions in the first two verses. He's been squandering property and is therefore not really being a good steward of resources. He's just bad at his job. But second, take a look at the excuses the steward comes up with once he finds he's losing his job: not strong enough to dig, and too ashamed to beg. Or put perhaps more bluntly: not willing to do some hard labor, and not willing to accept that otherwise he will have to beg for food. And then the third reason he's troublesome: he's hoping that the people who owe his master money might be willing, out of the goodness of their hearts, to take him in, and so he's plotting ways to get in their good graces. He's not trying to negotiate their debts with them because he thinks the debts are unfair, or because he wants to be generous. His sole motivation is a selfish desire not to have to do hard labor or beg - to him, the worse possible options. There is nothing that seems, at the outset, to be honorable about this person.
All of these reasons is why it is then so perplexing that the master should actually praise this "dishonest" (his words) steward for being prudent. How does this absolute scoundrel deserve any praise at all?
We can easily liken this situation to the present day. The whole of the economic crisis - from dishonest trading on Wall Street, to requiring urine testing for welfare recipients because of worries about people misusing the system, to complaints that Occupy Wall Street protesters are just whiny hippies, to Ponzi schemes, to overextended mortgages, and so on (and on and on) - looks a lot like the dishonest steward's situation. Some are acting selfishly, just trying to protect themselves; others are trying to get ahead on others' dollars, or worse, their misfortunes; others are being dishonest; some are afraid of hard work; still others are afraid to beg.
It's a pretty honest portrayal of human nature - and the kicker is - I don't think there's one of us who isn't somehow, in some small way, implicated in the financial crisis. That's not to say we're all equally guilty - but it is to say that we're all a little bit scoundrelly.
But this is the point! This is why Luke's parable is good news for us! The master praises the dishonest steward for doing even just a little bit right. The master finds the bit of good in the steward. Like that master, Jesus searches us and knows us - all our failings, and our good parts. And he's saying we're called to be his disciples, despite it all. The point is not that we are perfect, for none of us are. The point is that Jesus calls us anyway, to be a light in this world of darkness and to be good in a world of evil, even if only in the small ways that most humans can manage.
This connects well with the first reading (Romans 15:14-21) where Paul says, "I am convinced about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness...." Paul's audience does not necessarily see itself as good. In fact, the Romans may feel overwhelmed about trying to do good in a world that is so full of evil, just as our own world is today. So Paul exhorts them: "You are full of goodness...." Elsewhere in scripture, Jesus says that only God is good: when Paul proclaims that we are full of goodness, he is saying, we are full of God. We are called to let God shine forth in us for this old, broken world.
Today, we remember Saint Charles Borromeo, who also lived in a dark time, during the Reformation, when the church was guilty of a number of abuses and when Protestants and Catholics both were killing each other. Charles Borromeo worked tirelessly to reform the Catholic Church from within, to make it again a place of holiness, even in a world of darkness and despair. May we, today, strive to be people who bring light and goodness to this world, even in small ways.
- Jana M. Bennett