Skip to main content

You cannot give yourself both to God and to Money



Gospel text (Luke 16,1-13): Jesus told his disciples, «There was a rich man whose steward was reported to him for fraudulent service. He summoned the steward and asked him: ‘What is this I hear about you? I want you to render an account of your service for it is about to be terminated’. The steward thought to himself: ‘What am I to do now? My master will surely dismiss me. I am not strong enough to do hard work, and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I will do: I must make sure that when I am dismissed, there will be some people to welcome me into their house’.
»So he called his master's debtors one by one. He asked the first who came: ‘How much do you owe my master?’. The reply was: ‘A hundred jars of oil’. The steward said: ‘Here is your bill. Sit down quickly and write there fifty’. To the second he put the same question: ‘How much do you owe?’. The answer was: ‘A thousand measures of wheat’. Then he said: ‘Take your bill and write eight hundred’.
»The master commended the dishonest steward for his astuteness. For the people of this world are more astute in dealing with their own kind than are the people of light. And so I tell you: use filthy money to make friends for yourselves, so that when it fails, these people may welcome you into the eternal homes. Whoever can be trusted in little things can also be trusted in great ones; whoever is dishonest in slight matters will also be dishonest in greater ones. So if you have not been trust-worthy in handling filthy money, who could entrust you with true wealth? And if you have not been trustworthy with things which are not really yours, who will give you the wealth which is your own? No servant can serve two masters. Either he does not like the one and is fond of the other, or he regards one highly and the other with contempt. You cannot give yourself both to God and to Money».

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples

Gospel text ( L uke 11,1-4): One day Jesus was praying in a certain place and when He had finished, one of his disciples said to him, «Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples». And Jesus said to them, «When you pray, say this: Father, hallowed be your name, may your kingdom come, give us each day the kind of bread we need, and forgive us our sins, for we also for-give all who do us wrong, and do not bring us to the test»

Money

Is money the ultimate goal, the end of all means? Nowadays, it seems, everything is not just measured in terms of money, but everything needs to be, has to be, in terms of money. Money is set as the goal, over anything. Money is meant to be just a media for exchange of goods and services, not a goal on itself, yet our society has corrupted onto making of money a statement beyond life, family, marriage and most definitively above love and truth. Such a philosophy has degraded our souls to the point of denying everything that is in conflict with the value of money. Even when charity is concerned, it seems mercy can only be measured in monetary terms, as if charity could be measured by anyone except God alone. If there is crusade or cause to be enrolled, the only acceptable way has been institutionalized as the amount of money it can be contributed, regardless of the individual efforts that could be applied or spent.

A matter of life or death

Maybe I am the only one in Ontario, ‘experiencing’ a confrontation with the 407ETR corporation, or maybe not. So far it seems the fact is that I am not, that many out there are subjected to billing from the corporation. No, I am not saying unfair, discriminatory or any of the kind, but I am going to say, unsupported and unsubstantiated. The issue of the matter is that the corporation, for some presumably important reason, is blessed by the province of Ontario to have the ability to stop the licensing of any individual who fail to pay the corporation anything they ask for even if they apparently, are not able to support with facts what they claim.