September 17/18, 2022 - The 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

The 25 ^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Paul T. Keil , 17-18 Sep, 2022

Peace be with you and greetings on this, our celebration of the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Well,,, after what I just read, I must ask, come on Lord? Is this Gospel reading for real? Jesus tells us about a steward who cheated his master, gets caught, and then cheats his master a second time, and then ultimately his master complements him for his ingenuity. Really?

Now, I’m not sure how many of you have ever heard of a Biblical Scholar at Vanderbilt University, named Professor Amy-Jill Levine. She’s written several books on the Bible one of which, entitled “Short Stories by Jesus” I used a few years back for our own Adult Bible Study here at Good Shepherd. You might guess by the title, “Short Stories by Jesus”, the book is specifically about Jesus’ parables. Another interesting fact about Dr Levine is, even though she is herself Jewish, she is the Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt. And if you read her bio, you’ll see she is very complementary of the Catholic Church because she feels Catholic Biblical Scholars generally know how to read and interpret the Bible in the appropriate context. She is not nearly as complimentary about some other Christian denominations and their Bible interpretations, however.

When reading New Testament Parables Professor Levine recommends a few common ground-rules. First, she says we must try to hear Jesus’ parables with the heart and mind of a 1 ^st Century Jew. My friends, that’s not necessarily easy to do without a little contextual study. Second, she says if the parable doesn’t challenge, shock, or surprise us, we’re probably misinterpreting it. Well, no problem with the one we just heard today, right? And finally, she says, don’t ever assume the master, the landowner, the head of household, the father, or other central figure in the story represents, or speaks for God. She specifically singles out the father figure in the Prodigal Son Parable and says Christian preachers, homilists, and catechists continually get it wrong.

Regardless, if Professor Levine is right in today’s parable, the master who commended the dishonest steward for acting prudently, is just another flawed, worldly character whose priorities appear to be wealth, power, and dishonesty. Consequently, the parable itself actually ends with the master’s complement of the dishonest steward and Jesus’ teaching about the parable begins when he says, “For the Children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” And of course, Jesus’ teaching culminates with a couple of verses that should challenge all of us, “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.”

Interestingly, based on this one and other of Jesus Parables, there is a meditation called the “Meditation of the Two Standards” used during the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. In the meditation Ignatius leads us to realize there are two forces – two masters – always competing for our minds and hearts. Those two masters are Jesus Christ and Satan. Both are vying for our minds, hearts, fidelity, and ultimately, our souls. While Satan presents the allure of honor, power, pleasure, and wealth as the aim and fulfillment of our lives, Jesus presents the way of spiritual fulfillment, humility, and the realization everything is a gift. All the goods that we are given, whether material or spiritual, become reasons for gratitude rather than greed. Once Jesus is our master, he frees us, and wealth and the goods of the world lose their domineering force, and we can use them as means of generosity and the building up of the Kingdom of God.

So, as I thought about the Ignatian Meditation of the Two Standards it reminded me of the Native American parable of the two wolves. I’m sure some have heard it before, but I think it’s so vivid, colorful, and descriptive it really makes a point and I’d like to present it now. See what you think. An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life and speaks. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” The old man continued, “The other wolf is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside of you – and inside every other person, too.” The young boy asked, “Grandfather, which wolf inside of me will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

My sisters and brothers, before each one of us there is a choice to be made. In the Native American parable, the choice is which wolf do we feed? In today’s Gospel Jesus is clearly asking, which master will we serve? He is very clear when he says, “No servant can serve two masters. He will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” In the Ignatian Meditation of the Two Standards the two masters are even more definitive, Jesus Christ or Satan. It is this fundamental decision that stands before each Christian disciple. Ultimately, the master whom we decide to serve will determine the way in which we see the world, carry out our actions, and live our lives. What Jesus is teaching in this weekend’s Gospel, cannot be overstated. Which wolf will you feed. Which master will you serve.

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Paul T. Keil, 18-19 July 2026 16 th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Season A Peace be with you and welcome to our celebration of the Mass for the 16 th Sunday in Ordinary Time. OK, some of you may remember I’ve said before, in Matthew’s Gospel, Chapters 5, 6, and 7 comprise the whole Sermon on the Mount, but did you know Chapter 13, where we are today, is often called the Sermon of the Parables. In this single chapter Matthew strings together seven separate parables from Jesus. Today we just heard numbers two, three, and four. Last weekend we heard the first one with the Parable of the Sower and what happens to the seeds scattered in different places. Next weekend you’ll hear the final three parables from Chapter 13 so, be sure to come back. So, what is Jesus saying in these readings. Last week we heard the parable about seeds as an allegory for Jesus’s words falling on a path and being eaten by birds, falling on rocky ground and withering with no roots, falling into thorns and being choked by life’s anxieties, and falling on fertile soil to bear fruit. Today we have Jesus giving us another parable about planting seeds and again, just like last week, Jesus’ disciples ask him to explain the parable. And since He stops to explain both parables about planting, he just might be trying to emphasize something important here for his disciples, and for us. One thing is clear in these parables however, God’s Kingdom will always coexist in this physical world with forces opposing it, like the wheat and the weeds growing together. Now many religious people struggle with this condition. Some see it as predestination. A weed in the wheat field or a seed in the rocks must represent people predestined to go to hell. That’s what it literally says, right? Still others ask in frustration; this is God we’re talking about, why does God’s Kingdom have to struggle with opposing forces at all? Why doesn’t God just get rid of the evil? Well, our old friend, St Thomas Aquinas wrote quite a bit about good and evil coexisting in our fallen world. He said sometimes the two are so tightly interwoven that you couldn’t have certain types of good without certain types of evil. For example, he said simply, “there would be no virtue of the martyr without the cruelty of the tyrant.” Friends, God delights in our freedom, our intelligence, and our cooperation when we freely make the decision to accept God’s love. Without free will we cannot choose to love. Jesus’ explanation of the wheat and weed parable certainly helps when he says; “The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels” and in the next verse he says; “The Son of Man will send his angels.” There is a very important take-away here every single Christian should remember. Eternal judgment belongs to God alone, not to anyone else – period. This is a consistent message Jesus gives us in all four Gospels but unfortunately, there are those who sometimes forget this simple divine fact about humanity’s relationship with the unlimited creator of the universe. We may perceive an individual as being bad or even intrinsically evil but judgment for their immortal souls belongs exclusively to God. I always like an old adage that goes like this, “if I ever get to heaven, I may be surprised by who I see there, and they may be even more surprised to see me.” I’ll admit, over the years for a long time, as I’ve meditated on this parable about weeds and wheat or last week’s parable about seeds, especially the ones falling into thorns choked by worldly anxiety, there was something always bothering me. You see, if we’re not careful both parables can make life, heaven, and hell sound kind of random or worse yet, they can make God’s love sound like it is exclusively reserved for preselected people. I know now however, there is nothing further from the truth. If you’ve lived life for a while and think back to times when you were say maybe,,, struggling in school, or first dating, or trying to make ends meet while raising a family, or competing for promotions at work, or trying to buy that first house, you realize there may have been times when your life wasn’t very spiritually fruitful. In fact, I now realize there were times in my own past when thoughts of God, salvation, or prayer were nowhere in my daily routine. I even wonder; was there a period in my life when I was one of those weeds or a seed in the thorns? Thankfully, with reflection on the whole of Scripture, guidance from the Church, and maybe some help from the Holy Spirit I realize now these parables are not “either / or” propositions. God doesn’t intentionally create some people as weeds and some people as wheat nor does God throw souls into the wind to randomly fall in the thorns, or on stony ground, or in fertile soil. If you’re not careful, you can come to those conclusions, however. You can read the Bible too narrowly and pick out verses here and there that help support your personal image of what you want God to be. Those tend to be the same people who like to do God’s judgment work for him. Here’s the thing; some of us here today may have actually spent some time as those ugly weeds but at some point, with God’s help, we decided to change and now we’re wheat growing in that good old fertile soil. My sisters and brothers, sin must never be viewed as a permanent state. Like we heard from the Book of Wisdom today, “you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins.” This is the greatest gift of our Christian faith; God loves us all so much, even great sinners, God is always ready to forgive. So, here’s a challenge and homework for us all today. Most of us know people out there from all age groups, but especially some of our youth, who may be temporarily living life like the weeds in our parable today or maybe tangled in those thorns of life’s tribulations. First and foremost, we must be confident, sin is not a permanent state of life, second, we don’t judge, third, pray for them no matter how nasty they may seem. And finally, if we’re really, really brave, we offer them a hand to pull them up and out of the weeds, rocks, or thorns into God’s fertile soil.