Richard Bollman, SJ

HOMILY: 25^th Sunday C. "Serving Mammon, Serving God"

Amos 8:4-7, Luke 16:1-13

Amos is a young voice in the Bible, and outsider,

a shepherd called by God to really look at the world around him.

He saw that neither the poor nor the rich were happy:

the rich were caught up in the duplicity and the anxiety of doing business;

the poor got no benefit from alms or just wages.

This same world of stress and double dealing

turns up in the story Jesus tells this morning.

Here’s a manager, fired by his CEO,

losing his job on the estate for some kind of dishonesty.

So he helps himself get along by making new friends.

He goes back to the people to whom he has sold his master’s farm produce

and reduces their payment.

What he’s doing here is not dishonest at all;

he’s just offering deep discounts, cutting his own commission.

But, he’s in a new world now, where his reputation is ruined,

and friends are bought by favors.

He’s involved now in the service of Mammon.

I think I know a little about what it is to serve Mammon too.

It comes upon me, times of almost obsessive workaholism,

and it isn’t so much that there are extra hours or appointments,

it’s the spirit in which things get done,

down and determined, out to succeed, to put down complaints.

Okay, what would the prophet Amos think of me . . . .

Well he’s okay, he’s not out to turn a profit

he’s not cheating people in the marketplace?

But working hard just for the sake of success can be hollow,

can arise from a quiet anxiety, not connected with happiness or well being.

It doesn’t bring blessing to people.

I know you have felt these things: few people talk of their current lives

without complaining of being over worked, over scheduled!

Isn’t that the case: the ten commandments of the God Mammon

are contained in your calendar. Do this, do that, and never say no.

Mammon easily rules in a fallen world

where it really does take takes two jobs to make ends meet,

and you might be glad that your children at least have soccer games

because at least you’re with them when you drive and watch the game.

Being at ease around the house, that’s a thing of the past.

Meals together, even the joy of a TV show you all like,

hard to find this.

Mammon is a cruel kind of god,

who shows no mercy for our limitations,

right up to the mild heart attack.

Mammon rules us through our cultural norms to get ahead,

at least to survive, and often enough separates us off

from the people with whom we compete.

Mammon is not happy when neighbors sit on the veranda

and just talk to one another, or water their lawns together.

We end up separated even from our own hearts, what we really want,

from our own creativity, from what we used to call leisure.

And the other god, the True God

is rather shoved into the background,

given a little time on Sunday, while Mammon rules the other 6 days.

But what would it be to serve the True God.

No longer to imagine that God is a Sunday God.

What does that feel like? This serving of the One God day by day.

I think it is a difference in attitude, in feeling, in disposition:

you might end up doing the same things,

but from a different place in yourself.

You move through your day, your relationships, even your calendar

with the reverence for a sacred path,

not a relentless scramble to cover ground.

What would it be like to live and work and play

and even to suffer the effort of life, even the failures,

not with stress, but with thanksgiving:

a conversation at breakfast with your teen daughter, not the best,

but hey you both spoke, and you feel a little stirring of thanks.

You pick up your neighbor from chemotherapy

with thanks in your heart. Not thanks in your mind,

but in your heart and body from the way you go about it:

with thanks, with surrender, giving over the results of everything to God.

God at work here in all things.

The true God, not seeking to please Mammon.

Thanks and surrender, and a little hope, and love even.

I’ve found it myself, looking at the calendar beginning a day or week,

sensing first the stresses and irritations, then letting them go.

Why should a meeting be exhausting or threatening . . . .

it’s time with people, and there’s gift in such a thing, moment by moment,

leading to gratitude, letting God manage the results, letting love have room.

Here’s a story about this matter, summing up a lot of today’s scripture.

From the Jewish Hassidic tradition. . . . . .

Two disciples, it is said, went to visit their rabbi,

full of reverence for his wisdom, eager to inquire about it.

They posed the question: "Rabbi, tell us the source of your wisdom!"

"It is simple," he said. "When I sit, I sit;

when I stand, I stand; when I walk, I walk."

And the disciples, amazed with him and with each other, replied

"Master, this is nothing new. We already do this!"

But the rabbi cautioned them, shook his head slightly, and said

"No, not really. Not at this point.

For when you sit, you are already standing.

When you stand, you are already walking.

When you walk, you have already arrived!"

So there it is: such a proposal set before us who would truly learn.

Oh the life it would be: when you sit, it is all thanks, surrender,

it is hope even, and love. When you stand. When you walk.

With gratitude, with surrender, and hope for God at work in everything.

and with love for what you do and touch and feel.

This is true wealth. This is what we long for. And it’s right at our fingertips.