{"id":1709,"date":"2016-09-18T08:24:06","date_gmt":"2016-09-18T06:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/?p=1709"},"modified":"2016-09-18T08:24:40","modified_gmt":"2016-09-18T06:24:40","slug":"25th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-cycle-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/2016\/09\/18\/25th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-cycle-c\/","title":{"rendered":"25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C"},"content":{"rendered":"

At first glance the Gospel today can leave us perplexed.\u00a0It seems that the rich man about to fire his untrustworthy steward is congratulating him for the very thing for which he is being fired.\u00a0In another parable of Jesus we see a master forgiving the debt of his steward (Matthew 18:21-35), but there\u2019s no forgiveness going on here: the prudence that the rich man is acknowledging in his soon-to-be-former steward is the astuteness with which he saves his own skin\u00a0at the expense of his soon-to-be-former boss.<\/p>\n

In Jesus\u2019 time usury, an immoral marking up of the value of goods, was done by doctoring invoices. The bills in those days \u00a0never said, \u201c50 measures of oil, plus a 50 measure \u2018service fee\u2019\u201d; they just said, \u201cyou owe 100 measures of oil.\u201d By doctoring the billing in this way, the rich man, with the help of his steward, was making a tidy profit while hiding his usury.\u00a0When the steward sees he\u2019s on his way out, he closes the books at their real value, not at the marked-up value benefiting his master: he\u2019s turned the tables on his master in a way that wins him friends for his impending unemployment, and in a way in which his former master can\u2019t touch him.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0Jesus reminds us today that you can\u2019t buy friends.\u00a0Friendship based on what someone gains me is not true friendship. Maybe the steward will bounce around from \u201cfriend\u201d to \u201cfriend,\u201d but who is going to trust him knowing what he did to win their friendship? Dishonest wealth fails.\u00a0Friendship is based on trust. As Jesus reminds us in the Gospel today, trust is something that has to shine in all our actions, big and small.\u00a0 Trust means being at the service of the other with no strings attached. Trust means I can rely on someone when the chips are down. Real friends show themselves in times of adversity.<\/p>\n

Whenever we look upon a crucifix, we are reminded of a friend we\u2019ve always been able to rely on, even when many times we haven\u2019t returned the favor. The apostles, after so much quality time with Christ, abandoned him, but he didn\u2019t turn the tables on them: he shouldered the burden and paid our bill with his life so that we would have eternal life, no strings attached. He could have just closed the books and left us all out in the cold.<\/p>\n

When our friendship with Christ costs us, we might turn the mind\u2019s eye back to that cross and say some strings were attached.\u00a0Living a Christian life is not easy in this world, being considered a believer for many is being considered deluded and naive, but when we take flak for being Christian, it helps us see who our real friends are, and reminds us of something amazing: God himself wants to be our friend.\u00a0He wants to break down those barriers of distrust between us. He doesn\u2019t want to be some far off deity on a high mountain or among the stars, detached from the events of his children. He became man to show us his eternal friendship toward us and to restore it after we rejected it through sin.<\/p>\n

So as we look upon that crucifix, remember that in good or in bad, sickness or health, Christ will give you us the strength to trust and support each other. Let’s live that trust with all our\u00a0strength, in little things and in big ones. Let’s always rely on Christ, and always help each other to live a true friendship with Him.<\/p>\n

Readings:\u00a0Amos 8:4\u20137;\u00a0Psalm 113:1\u20132, 4\u20138;\u00a01 Timothy 2:1\u20138;\u00a0Luke 16:1\u201313.<\/em> See also 31st Week in Ordinary Time, Friday<\/a>\u00a0and Saturday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At first glance the Gospel today can leave us perplexed.\u00a0It seems that the rich man about to fire his untrustworthy steward is congratulating him for the very thing for which he is being fired.\u00a0In another parable of Jesus we see a master forgiving the debt of his steward (Matthew 18:21-35), but there\u2019s no forgiveness going … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p65qtw-rz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1709"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1712,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions\/1712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}