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.

Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.

How does it feel to be wrong all the time? How do you find your way out?

Now, I’m sure that you don’t think you’re wrong all the time. I certainly don’t, but the real problem is that we are far too sure of our self determined righteousness.

The Jewish people were sure of their righteousness. After all, Moses went up the mountain to meet with the Lord, and had been gone for many days. Would anybody have blamed them for relying on themselves?

Where was the leader? Wasn’t he self proclaimed? What right did he have in making us wait?

We know, from the readings, that God certainly expected more from them. But how were they to know?

The fact is that God does expect more from us. He expects us to know —“ because it is so simple, any child can grasp it. God says, here is My word, My example, My Son, and My Church. The rules to live by.

God expects us to live by His teaching and expects excellence in our conduct. Our conduct toward our brothers and sisters, and toward creation.

St. Paul, writing to Timothy notes:

I am grateful to him who has strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord,
because he considered me trustworthy

The fact is, God does consider us trustworthy. In baptism we come into relationship with God, we are buried with Christ, literally buried in the water of baptism. We are made part of Christ’s body by our partaking of His body and blood —“ something that unites all of us —“ even the people we don’t like so much. We have the promise of eternal life, the pearl of great price, for which we should be willing to sacrifice all.

God gives us the strength we need, and like Paul we need to be circumspect about our righteousness.

Now remember that Paul, who was a Jewish Pharisee, considered himself righteous. He believed in his righteousness —“ a righteousness obtained through the observance of the Law.

Later, in writing to the Philippians he would say:

Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith

Today, Paul declares himself the greatest sinner of all —“ and proclaims the fact that he has been mercifully treated so as to be an example of fortitude to all Christians.

But for that reason I was mercifully treated,
so that in me, as the foremost,
Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example
for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life.

That, my friends, is the key.

Righteousness cannot come from one’s own actions, nor from the simple observance of laws, rules, and regulations. The other son, in the story of the Prodigal son, made that mistake.

Rather, righteousness can only come from faith in Christ Jesus, and from God’s surpassing generosity towards us.

Brothers and sisters,

We are to acknowledge and act upon that gift by acting in the manner God expects from us. We are to bring our life into accord with the gift we have been given. We are to live lives that are in tribute and testimony to the gift we receive —“ the precious gift of faith.

Yet, for all the glory of the gift, for all the power of faith, for the example of the myriad saints and martyrs, for Jesus’ real and human example, we fall and fail.

When we sin we must rely on the confidence God has given us through His self-revelation. He let us know that He is the shepherd who seeks out the lost sheep. He is the woman that lights a lamp and sweeps the house in search of the lost coin, He is the Prodigal Father who will open His arms to His repentant son, and even love the surly, stubborn son.

His arms are open to us when we return in sorrow and in repentance; when we decide to make amends.

‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
I no longer deserve to be called your son.’

Not only will His arms be open to us, but He Himself, and His entire household, that is, the Holy Church, will celebrate.

‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him;
put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Take the fattened calf and slaughter it.
Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found.’
Then the celebration began.

We are not wrong all the time, but when we are, when we sin, it is because our self righteousness gets in the way of the true righteousness that comes to us by faith in Jesus Christ.

The way out is by repentance, living a life in accord with the gifts we have received, and ultimately reliance on God’s great mercy.

Praise be God for the gift of faith, through which we are made righteous. Praise be God, for His everlasting font of mercy.

Amen.