A homily for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Got a message through Facebook. When I opened it, it said “your page is in violation of Facebook’s standards and will be deleted unless you click here”. So I clicked here and it took me to a site and log in to your Facebook page. And I realized, oh, it’s a phishing expedition. It’s a scam. But boy was it well crafted.
Beautiful logo, Facebook logo, everything. And I admired it. Even though it was nefarious. I admired it because it was so well crafted. And this is what I think is going on in today’s gospel. In this parable of the man, you’re about to be fired. So he takes, invoices to the creditors and changes the number so people are indebted to him and will take him into their houses.
And Jesus says, you got to admire the crafty manager. You got to admire him. But don’t be like him because his life is just way too narrow. There’s an Italian saying A pickpocket only sees pockets, and that’s true. But life is more than pocket. You can put together a great crafty way of finding pockets. That could be admirable, but the invitation for life is not just more pockets, more money, more something narrow.
Jesus is inviting us to life and fullness of life and love and deep relationship and a relationship with God and redemption. This is the invitation, not pockets. And that’s what I think Teresa of Avila say when she says
“There are more tears shed over answered prayers than unanswered prayers”, because oftentimes our prayers are like, I want bigger pockets, more pockets. I want more money. I want more attention. I want more tiny stuff that I think will make me happy. And it doesn’t. And Jesus wants us to be praying for life and relationships and love and big hearts, and not to settle on pockets.
So when our prayer is pocket, yeah, we’re going to cry over it when we realize how narrow that is. Today’s gospel is don’t settle on narrow. Don’t settle on small. Don’t settle on beauty. Don’t settle on pockets. Because you’ve been invited to the immensity.
Move there.
