WHO WILL BE OUR JUDGE
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
September 22, 2019
It is they
who appear to be last and least in this world who are going to save the rest of
us from ourselves. That’s the gospel, as it has always and ever been, but we
still work very, very hard to understand it—and to believe it. In the end, it
will be the poor who judge the wealthy, the children who judge the
intellectuals, the suffering who judge the self-satisfied, and the repentant
sinners who judge the pious religious practitioners and the clergy. There is
nothing more basic to Jesus’ preaching than that, and we’re still so slow to
accept it. The gospel is far more radical and intrusive of our normal ways of
prioritizing things than we have yet to imagine.
The gospel
tells us of a world where money, power, militarism, exploitation, prestige,
charm, and physical domination don’t matter at all, apart from a heart that is
rooted in God. Who among us can readily
believe that? Where else are we taught that, or immediately rewarded for that?
In the
prophetic books of the Hebrew bible we hear God’s command to pay absolute
attention to the poor and the outcast. We hear it again from the Book of Amos
today. But that’s not so that we can rack up bonus points for ourselves in the
catalogue of virtue. It’s so that we can be laid bare before their witness—so
that we can be taught by them about just who and what we are. Do we believe
that? Do we want to? Do we fully appreciate the utter re-ordering of life
priorities to which we are summoned by God? Do we understand how wrong we are
tempted to get it?
We live in a
culture that beckons us with great force into noticing and buying and believing
the latest shiny, sexy, self-indulgent thing; and we Christians are the ones
who have to know that, to recognize that, and when necessary, to resist that.
Are we ready to turn the world upside down, beginning with our own lives?
Amos—and all
the prophets—teach us that the poor and weak and vulnerable are not merely the
subjects of our charity and the reminders of our responsibility. They are the sages—the wisdom teachers—who
call us back to who we all are before God. They are in our city and at our
borders right now. Do we believe that?
And then
there is this gospel today—this very weird—sounding and disturbing gospel. The
one that appears to reward and praise the dishonest steward of the master’s
money by his cheating still more with his debtors. This man is no hero. His way
of life is not virtuous or good. Why would Jesus commend him in this
parable? Well Jesus tells us why—twice
in fact. It’s because he’s prudent. In other words, even in is shifty business
dealings he’s figured something out—something that is true and can save him
from ruin once he loses his job. It’s the fact that his merely earthly
master—the one who is identified here merely as “a rich man”—won’t be the
source of his lasting security. This steward has discovered, correctly, that he
has pinned his hopes for the future on the wrong thing and the wrong person.
When his rich boss dismisses him, he is not going to care what happens to him.
He’ll be helpless, and the one whom he’s become accustomed to calling “master”
won’t be doing a thing to help him.
But the
debtors will. The ones whom he helped will remember him, and welcome him in to
their homes. Even if his own motives have not been pure, the poor people will
still be grateful to him for having eased their burden. It all comes back to
who and what the final say in our reckoning before God. It is they who appear
to be last and least in this world who are going to save the rest of us from
ourselves.
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