Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
In its latest report, the US Census Bureau has announced that in 2009 one in seven Americans was living in poverty. The bureau defines poverty as any family of four living on less than $21,954 a year. Officials said that the number of people in poverty increased by nearly 4 million between 2008 and 2009. Today, 43.6 million people live in poverty in the United States. Among the working-age population, ages 18 to 65, poverty rose from 11.7% to 12.9%, the highest level since the 1960s. Meanwhile, the number of Americans without health insurance increased by 4.4m between 2008 - 2009. This number rose from 15.4% to 16.7% - or 50.7 million people - mostly because of the loss of employer-provided schemes during the recession. The report also suggests that the group that suffered most from increasing poverty levels was children.
Now, what does a sermon in the Church have anything to do with these issues? If we heard the first reading, we might say, “Everything.” Today’s first reading begins with a warning: “Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land!” (Amos 8:4) Amos was a prophet when Israel was very prosperous under the reign of the king Jeroboam II (786-746 BC). They owed this prosperity to lack of any foreign threat to them, and to successive agricultural successes. Many of the leading Israelites were growing rich by exploiting the poor. Amos, also called the prophet of social justice, condemned those policies and people that were oppressive to the poor. The reading ends with God saying to them, “Never will I forget a thing they have done” (Amos 8:7). To the same people God declares in another passage, “I hate, I spurn your feasts. I take no pleasure in your solemnities; Your cereal offerings I will not accept, nor consider your stall-fed peace offerings, Away with your noisy songs! I will not listen to the melodies of your harps. But if you would offer me sacrifices, then let justice flow like a river and goodness like an unfailing stream.” (Amos 5:21-24)
Most Catholics are unaware that just like the Catholic Church’s teaching on Scripture or the Eucharist, there is an entire body of teaching called “The Social Teaching of the Church.” This body of teaching began to develop in 1891, when Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Rerum Novarum or Of New Things. Leo XIII studied the prophetic literature very carefully and decided that the church too must take a stance on social issues that affect the poor. Since then a number of encyclicals have been issued that talk about the economic and social life – the latest of them being Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate or Charity in Truth.
Basing myself on today’s Scriptures and the Catholic Social teachings, I would like to offer three points for us to think about.
1. The Social teachings of the Catholic Church have 9 principles. These principles are based on Scripture and upon the encyclicals of the Popes over the centuries. These principles are: Community and the common good, Rights and responsibilities, Option for the poor, Participation, Dignity of Work and the rights of workers, Stewardship of creation, Solidarity, The Role of Government and Promotion of Peace. But the central principle on which all these principles rest is the sanctity and dignity of human person. The centrality of the dignity of the human person is even more necessary today as we face the recession and its effects on millions of people. Each day, the eyes of the politicians and economists are fixated on Wall Street and the numbers that its huge electronic screens display. Economists are busy devising policies that will prop these numbers up. Meanwhile, human persons continue to slip into poverty. Their dignity and well-being continues to be compromised. The scriptures and the Church are telling us – it is not about the numbers, it is about the people – their life, their dignity and their well-being. People are not made for numbers; numbers are made for people.
2. Today’s Gospel reading ends with the words, “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 both God and mammon." (Lk 16:13). We live in a world where people are convinced that you can serve both God and mammon – as long as you keep them both separate. Jesus’ world was not a secular world. People’s lives revolved around the Temple and every aspect of life subservient to God and God’s Law. Our increasingly secular culture, on the other hand, teaches us to keep God in the private recesses of our lives. It trains us to keep our money making free from religious influence. So people do engage in unconscionable profit making and still lift their hands in worship. People do exploit workers and still not feel guilty. People do support policies that increase joblessness and still feel justified. Yesterday, in Britain, Pope Benedict the called for economic policies to be underlined by ethical principles. The scriptures and the Catholic social teachings are telling us that both faith and society must be based on justice, peace and the dignity of every human person.
3. The answer to the issues I raise above is also prescribed in today’s gospel reading. The answer is PRUDENCE. Prudence is the ability to exercise sound judgment in practical affairs. If you notice, Jesus does not praise the steward’s ingenuity or dishonesty. He praises the steward because he had devised a way to ensure himself a future. Just as this steward had acted prudently in the ways of the world, Jesus is suggesting that his disciples should be able to act prudently in the eyes of God. We should be prudent enough to handle our resources the way God expects us to. We should be prudent enough to assign people their dignity. We should be prudent enough to consider people more important that money or numbers. We should be prudent enough not to sacrifice our values for the sake of material benefits. We should be prudent enough to pursue justice and peace more than we pursue profit. Otherwise, as Jesus says, “If you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth?”
As we bring ourselves before this altar, let us bring our entire selves before God. We bring our faith in Christ, our work, our relationship with others, our finances and our financial choices, our longing for justice and peace – and we ask God to make us prudent as we live our lives. May our choices today, ensure us a place at the eternal banquet in heaven, Amen.
- Fr. Satish Joseph