OUR COMMON HERITAGE IN GOD

SUNDAY, TWENTY FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Amos 8:4-7; Ps 113:1-2,4-8; 1 Tim 2:1-8; Lk 16:1-13

Our Commonwealth in God

The closeness of God to us is beyond our human comprehension. Most of us live mindlessly of God and his keen interest in us and our welfare. The cause of this ignorance is our preoccupation with self, which prevents us from attending to our surrounding reality in its totality. Putting self first prevents us from objectively receiving the gifts of God within our surrounding reality. People, things, and events of each day are part of what God gives us daily; they are all part of his blessings for the day. We run into a deficit because we ignore or overlook these gifts in their totality. Because we overlook the gifts, we also overlook the giver of the gifts. We do not understand the gifts because we are ignorant of the giver of the gifts. Gifts help us appreciate the giver, especially when we appreciate the gifts. We are used to thanksgiving only when things come out favourably to us, as if those are the only moments God blesses us. To appreciate the gifts, we need to understand the purpose for which they are given, or their usefulness in our lives, and how they contribute to the progress of our life’s journey. These form the social justice of the prophet Amos. God settled his people in the Promised Land of Canaan, and they became prosperous, trading with their neighbours. They forgot God when they became rich and wealthy.

Amos prophesied during the influx of wealth and riches into Israel. The people of God changed from an agrarian occupation to trading. The migration of people favoured them; for many traders in textiles and other wares passed into Israel and across the country. The influx of wealth turned the people’s attention away from God to wealth and riches. Their desire was to acquire more to build fanciful houses and wear fanciful clothes. Their loss of focus on God and his statutes also caused the denigration of the poor and the needy. They forgot God and what they had in common as a people of God. God sent Amos as a prophet to remind them of their relationship with Yahweh, their God. The people were running into debt before God and before their neighbours because of their focus on wealth and riches, neglecting God's demands of love and justice. According to the prophet Amos, "Listen to this, you who trample on the needy and try to suppress the poor of the country, you who say 'When will the new moon be over so that we can sell our corn, and Sabbath, so that we can market our wheat?'" Too much focus and interest on creatures and material gains caused the people to act unjustly, taking what belongs to God and their neighbours. God promised never to forget any injustice we have done to him or to our neighbours. "The Lord swears it by the pride of Jacob, 'Never will I forget a single thing you have done.'"

Our common reality constitutes our common good. We appreciate the common good present in our shared reality, the more we know God as the giver of life and all good things. He cares for all that he made and sustains all in life and being by his divine word. He brings us to share in the safekeeping of our common heritage by enlightening us with his word. Thus, he who truly pays attention to the word of God understands creation and the purpose of God therein. It is because of the importance of the common good for the wellbeing of all that Saint Paul admonished us to pray for all people, especially for those in authority, who have the care of our common good or wealth. “My advice is that, first of all, there should be prayers offered for everyone—petitions, intercessions, and thanksgiving—especially for kings and others in authority, so that we may be able to live religious and reverent lives in peace and quiet. To do this is right, and will please God our saviour: he wants everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth.” The right ordering of our common good makes for the flourishing of religious and reverent lives in full knowledge of the truth. To vandalise the common good/wealth is to steal from our neighbours and from God. God says he will not forget any single thing stolen from the common good.

Our Lord Jesus Christ used the parable of the dishonest steward to teach this truth to the people. The steward was denounced for his dishonesty and therefore required to give an account to his master. God will require us to give an account of our dealings in the common good, and he will demand that we repay what we have stolen from him or from our neighbours. The purpose of the parable is to urge us to return what we have unjustly taken from our neighbours and God, so that we would be worthy of the eternal and divine commonwealth. “And so I tell you this: use money, as tainted as it is, to win you friends, and thus make sure that when it fails you, they will welcome you into the tents of eternity.” The Lord himself teaches us to understand the present commonwealth as preparatory for the everlasting one with God. God is not ours now because we have to earn his communion through faith, hope, and charity. If we love and share what we have now, which is transitory, with our brothers and sisters, God, who dwells in everyone and in all things, will admit us into the everlasting communion. Hence, we not only pray for people, but we share our lives and possessions with them, following the example of the Father, who gave us his Son to pay our debt. “For there is only one God, and there is only one mediator between God and mankind, himself a man, Christ Jesus, who sacrificed himself as a ransom for them all.”

Let us pray: O God, who founded all the commands of your sacred Law upon love of you and of our neighbour, grant that, by keeping your precepts, we may merit to attain eternal life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.