Posted by The WORD in other words (2021) by Brother Romy Abulad SVD – Christ the King Seminary Quezon City
Friday 31st Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s gospel story is hard to make sense of. How could the master ever commend such a “dishonest steward”? The latter cheated the master, and for such a theft it seems the master was even pleased with him. How is that possible?
What have good men to learn from evil men? Perhaps the philosopher Hegel has something to teach us when he remarks that the evil is not as bad as the devil. Hegel gives full recognition to what he calls the power of the negative, without which the human spirit will not be challenged to exercise its “cunning of reason.”
It cannot be that we let the forces of darkness outsmart those who are on the side of the light, but that’s exactly what seems to be what’s wrong with the way things normally are in ordinary life. As we often hear it said, those who are rich seem to get even richer, while the poor continue to sink even more deeply into poverty.
“Religion is the sigh of the poor,” says Marx, “it is the opium of the people.” Time to reverse the tide, time for a paradigm shift. Religion should inspire us to aim for excellence through hard work and honest undertaking.
Enough with cheap discipleship. Jesus has shown us the way, strewn with hardship and relentless labor; we cannot expect for less.
