YEAR C: HOMILY FOR THE 25TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
HOMILY THEME: THE SHREWD STEWARD
BY: Fr. Benny Tuazon
HOMILY: (Lk. 16:2-13) Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
In today’s Gospel, we have Jesus telling His disciples the Parable of the Shrewd Steward. From the looks of it, the actions of the steward were immoral. When found irresponsible and squandering the property of the owner whose business he was managing, he resorted to winning the hearts of their clients by discounting their debts. His plan was to create indebtedness (utang na loob) to him so that later he could be repaid. Jesus lauded not the immorality but the intensity and desire to gain indebtedness. The bad steward knew how to assure his future since he will be fired soon. Jesus wanted His disciples and us to be as shrewd in assuring our place in heaven. We must make use of everything we have and do everything we can to be part of the Kingdom when the time comes. “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” It means that the children of darkness are soaked to the bones for worldy things than the children of light are soaked with God.
We can see this shrewdness in Filipinos both here and abroad. Filipinos are known for their ingenuity to a fault and for the sake of gaining undue advantage over others. The prevalence of different scams like text scams, laglag barya, akyat-bahay, dugu-dugo, imitations (fake products), snatching, hold-ups, frauds, etc., are manifestations of the richness of our ability to acquire things which will financially benefit us. Add to these the more sophisticated election frauds to obtain power and deceiving packagings for fame. Now, with money, a lot can be done to become sexy and beautiful for the ladies and handsome and hunk for the men. Practically, every part of the human body maybe altered to become better. There is a saying which says, “Today, if you are rich and still looks ugly, the blame is on you!”
“Get Holy or Die trying,” says a print on a t-shirt. If the people of darkness are willing to die for their evil ways, Christians must do the same if not more. If the steward channeled his shrewdness when he was still the manager, he would have assured himself of a lifetime job. Unfortunately, he bungled his opportunity. Yet, he had the talent necessary to succeed. And we all have that capacity to be saved. We just have to gather everything we have and muster all our desires and strength to use them to be worthy of the Kingdom.
As for those who had used their talents to do evil and took advantage of others, the words of the prophet Amos in the first reading should caution us: “Never will I forget a thing they have done!” There is a day of reckoning. God will not miss an iota of evil that had been done. Divine justice will be rendered.
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