Luke 16:10-13; 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I often struggle with this parable especially because of the line, “make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth.” It sounds like we’re being encouraged to make ill-gotten wealth our “friends,” doesn’t it? These days, we have a perfect example of that in the contractors and so-called public servants, friends wth one another, and even chummier with money that isn’t theirs. But if we’re to make friends with dishonest wealth, then, the secondsentence should throw us off. “So that when it fails (‘it,’ meaning, dishonest wealth?), you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” Why make friends with dishonest wealth if its failure gains us entrance into “eternal dwellings”? But knowing Jesus, though, it’s completely out of character for him to encourage corruption. So, how do we make sense of: “make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth”?

Maybe this way: when you happen to have wealth or property acquired dishonestly, whether by you or by someone else who gave it to you, be smart like the steward in the parable. Turn it around and use it for the good, for good purposes. Ill-gotten wealth is poisoned with immorality. So, use it, spend it, or give it away to people who really need a bad lift in life. That’s the correct way of “laundering, washing” money marked with malice. As a result, you make new friends especially with the poor. Let me hasten to say, though, that no, it’s not okay to own or receive ill-gotten wealth. Having, getting, or receiving fraudulent money makes us complicit in corruption. It is not Christian. It is immoral. It is sinful. But just to frame this issue within Jesus’ parable, if someone corrupt like the steward wishes to turn his life around, then, it will serve that man well to use the money for the good, for moral purposes, and thereby, “make friends with it.” Meaning, make friends especially with the poor, the suffering, the cheated by spending dishonest wealth for their benefit, for their uplift.

You see, sisters and brothers, Jesus’ Israel was just crawling with corruption: from up in the Temple where priests stole people’s offerings, down to the marketplace where tax collectors pocketed the difference in overcharging; from up the cities where landlords short-changed their laborers, down to the small villages where tenants pilfered from the harvest. Rich people doubled up as money-lenders. The poor, saddled with tax overlapping with debt, became money borrowers. (Some things never change, do they, sisters and brothers?) So, today’s parable is Jesus’ editorial on the rich who made dirty money at the expense of the poor. “Give the money back to them,” he seems to say, “ make them your friends and you will enter eternal dwellings.”

You know sisters and brothers, I really wonder how dishonest stewards feel about their money these days. Do they feel like the steward in the parable: frantic to turn their lives around and finally do the right thing? When they go to their garage and see all the cars bought with people’s money, or when yaya serves their Japanese rice and steaming steak all smuggled in, impoverishing farmers and growers, or when they look up at their vaulted ceiling as they lie down for the night, under a chandelier hung there by some nameless, faceless, and still penniless carpenter–I wonder if they’ve ever asked, “Is all this worth the mess we’re in right now? All this money we swiped off the backs of honest and hard-working Filipinos, is our thieving worth all this shaming? Does being filthy rich still feel good now that the universe knows I’m just a filthy scammer of the poor?” Ano kaya kung isoli na lang nila ang lahat-lahat ng pera, o kaya, ubusin ‘yon para sa mga dukha; anything, just to exorcise their lives of this demonic windfall that’s turned everything into a living hell? How about they just go back to, as St Paul says today, “lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity”? Or will they just wait this out until Filipinos get sick and tired of the non-action, and it all cools down. Plus, there will always be dishonest stewards who can make all this fade away if the price is right. Tulad ng dati. Tulad ng marami nang dati.

You know, sisters and brothers, if we really get down to the deepest reality of being creatures of God, and I mean all of us, the honest and the dishonest, if we all really get down to the barest facticity of being creatures of God, we will realize that:  (1) we are not gods, no matter how much money and power we have. So nothing, no thing we acquire, own, or steal is eternal. And (2) nothing we have, kung tutuusin, no matter how honestly we got it, is really ours. What we have are all bestowed. All are entrusted. Lahat tayo hamak na katiwala lang ng Diyos, stewards, pinagkatiwalaan lang ng halaga, ng mahalaga, na hindi sa atin. So, if God has taken care of us this much, this far, this long, why do we want more and more and so much more that we’d connive wth demons to get at that more? Why? It’s a head-scratcher.

Finally, a shout-out to the honest stewards of the nation. They still do exist, thank God. The few have come out, naming names, filing cases. I actually pray for them these days, for what it’s worth. So, shout-out to you who do not beg for protection by angling to be state witnesses, you who simply tell the unvarnished truth, even if it fires up your bashers because they’re afraid of you, divine blessings on your fearless souls, you undaunted and sacred few, standing vulnerable with hearts laid bare. God protect and bless you. God protect our country and bless us, in spite of ourselves. Amen.

*image from pep.ph