This is good and pleasing to God our savior,
who wills everyone to be saved
and to come to knowledge of the truth.

I was joking with Father Andrzej this past Sunday. He asked me to prepare the homily for this Sunday. I told him that I hoped that the readings and Gospel wouldn’t be all too difficult, too much of a downer, too incomprehensible.

I was hoping for a joyous set of readings and Gospel. This occasion, PolishFest, is obviously a joyous occasion for our parish. Those among you, who are here for PolishFest, are our guests. We celebrate the fact that you are here. We want you to feel welcome. We want to sing out our joy, and focus on the manner in which God builds up our community through this experience.

God obviously had other plans. I ended up with one of the most difficult set of readings, and indeed, the most difficult Gospel in the cycle of Gospels.

In our first reading Amos observes the cheating and the coldness of heart evident among the chosen people. They sat around, observing the formalities of the Sabbath, and every moment of the day they thought: When will this day finally be over so I can get back to business?

They fixed the scales; they bought the poor by fixing the terms of the sale, so they stayed indebted. Listen to the list:

“We will diminish the ephah,
add to the shekel,
and fix our scales for cheating!
We will buy the lowly for silver,
and the poor for a pair of sandals;
even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!—

The cynical among us might ask: What has changed since then?

The sad fact is, not much. Maybe the people of the world are a little more sophisticated. They use terms like sub-prime, derivatives, short and put sales, rent-to-own, lease-to-buy. As a matter of fact, they won’t even wait till the Sabbath is over —“ go now, easy terms available.

Then comes the Gospel taken from Luke 16.

This passage is one of the most difficult in the Gospels.

Now being one of the most difficult does not present a problem, because with the power of the Holy Spirit and a touch of my Polish stubbornness I was determined to attack it.

From what we read Jesus would seem to be praising the crooked steward. Jesus seems to commend stealing.

And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.
—For the children of this world
are more prudent in dealing with their own generation
than are the children of light.
I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth,
so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

Now that can’t possibly be right. What is Jesus trying to tell us? Did St. Luke miss something? Did he forget to record a few lines?

I had to figure this out.

Now I’ve read so many exegetical comments on this Gospel, trying to make sense of it, that I felt like my head would explode.

No clear answer.

I read it over and over, and in context with the other readings. I prayed.

The light finally came on.

My friends,

What it comes down to is that the master and the steward were on the same wavelength. The master recognized that the steward had cooked the books to save his own skin and said: ‘Cool, you cooked the books, you and I are on the same wavelength.’

The folks that Amos accused were on the same wavelength as well.

We will diminish the ephah…
We will buy the lowly for silver,
and the poor for a pair of sandals;
…even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!—

We will do it. We’re the people of the world. We revel in the world and the victories of the world. We are perfectly comfortable with the ways of the world and we recognize our fellow travelers.

Jesus is using these people of the world as an example for us —“ the people of the Kingdom.

Now you may be in church for the first time in a long time. You might be here for the cultural aspect of our worship, or for the music. You may be sitting here waiting for those delicious pierogi. You may be here every week.

Regardless, all of us are the people of the Kingdom of God. We are citizens by right —“ by our baptism into the body of Christ. As a citizen we have separated ourselves from the world.

My fellow citizens of the kingdom, Jesus is looking to us and is telling us that we need to be on the same wavelength.

It is about how we live.

Our ancestors, whose ways we celebrate and honor this weekend; those stubborn immigrants lived right lives attached to the Kingdom of God. They lived right lives in union with the Catholic faith. They held that faith precious and did not separate it from their way of living.

They weren’t interested in dishonest lives or cooking the books. They didn’t differentiate between the Sabbath day and the next, being clean, honest, and practically perfect on Sunday while going petal to the metal the rest of the week.

For them, each day was a day on the journey toward God and His heavenly Kingdom.

They built communities that celebrated who they were: God, family, community. Church was not a Sunday pass time or a disconnect —“ it was, and still is, the real deal.

Brothers and sisters,

I was on my way over to the Armenian Center over in Greenville this past Wednesday. Our Ecumenical group is invited there every September for an excellent luncheon and some fellowship. Fr. Stepanos and Fr. Bedros are wonderful hosts, and the Armenian food is simply wonderful.

Traveling down Route 32 I came across a sign. It said Family worship every Sunday.

This sign is deep in irony. What, exactly, are these folks being invited to worship?

It could just have easily said self worship, money worship, or pierogi worship.

As Christians we belong to the Kingdom —“ yes and I mean each and every one of us. What we must ask ourselves is whether we will be shrewd in our faith, putting God, the right and due worship of God, the building up of His kingdom, and living in accordance with all He teaches through the Gospel and His Holy Church before all else.

Jesus is challenging every Christian to ask this: “How much energy, creativity, ingenuity am I giving to the task living in union with His kingdom?” Are we as shrewd as this manager? Are we as motivated? As resourceful? As bold?

This is good and pleasing to God our savior,
who wills everyone to be saved
and to come to knowledge of the truth.

Be shrewd, motivated, resourceful, and bold in coming to God and in bringing your brothers and sisters to the kingdom. You are welcome to join us in doing so.

Amen.