A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 5, n. 43)
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C – September 23, 2007
“You Cannot Serve Both God and Mammon”
BIBLE READINGS
Am 8:4-7 // I Tm 2:1-8 // Lk 16:1-13
N.B. Series 5 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year C from the perspective of the First Reading. For another set of reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year C, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US and open Series 2.
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
The article “Struggle for the Soul of Pakistan” in the September 2007 edition of the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine (cf. p. 32-59) tells of injustice inflicted upon the poor, which is a trans-cultural and universal reality. The article’s author Don Belt narrates:
Highways in Pakistan are a kind of national theater, in which throngs of people, nearly all men, hunker down on the roadside like spectators at a cock-fight, keenly observing all that passes with an air of amused expectation. Stop along the roadway for a cup of tea, and you hear things. You hear people talk about chronic injustice. They tell stories of people losing their land, their lives, their honor, with no recourse. It is easy to think they exaggerate. And then you meet someone else who changes your mind. A girl called Najma, who is 16, speaks in a cautious monotone, and it is difficult to know, after what happened, whether she will ever speak naturally again. She still wears the delicate ring in her nose that signifies virginity. On this day she also wears a pink head scarf wrapped around her face, pretty and round with high cheekbones and wide-set eyes, though now dull and without expression, like a captive… She sits next to her mother on the bed where the incident occurred and tries to talk without crying. Two weeks ago, at one in the morning, five men, maybe six, burst through the door of the family’s mud-brick home, which sits on a tiny plot of land in the village of Nizampur in southern Punjab. They identified themselves as police and said they were searching for weapons. One held a pistol to her mother’s chest while another pinned her nine-year old brother, Rizwan, to the floor. And then two men held Najma down on the bed while a third raped her. The leader masked his face with a scarf, her mother says, but she recognized the raspy voice of their neighbor, a police constable, who lives 200 yards away and wants the plot of wheat that Najma’s family moved here to farm 40 years ago. According to the complaint Najma’s father filed with the police, the attack resulted from his refusal to vacate the land. After the rape, the men spent a few minutes ransacking the house. As they left, they delivered a warning: Leave this place, or we’ll be back for your other daughter.
The violence and injustice experienced by young Najma and her family evokes the sickening crimes committed against the poor that the eighth-century prophet Amos indicts in this Sunday’s Old Testament reading (Am 8:4-7). From the small Judean village in Tekoa, among the hills of Jerusalem on the edge of the desert, Amos - a courageous shepherd and dresser of sycamore trees – prophesied against the northern kingdom of Israel. He powerfully denounced the social injustice in the land and riled against the raw exploitation of the poor. In today’s scripture passage, Amos exposes the appalling connection between contempt for religious festivals and the exploitation of the poor. The prophet assailed the inordinate attachment to money and material goods by the rich and powerful, for it closed their hearts to the needy and goaded them to commit brutal crimes against the poor, impoverishing them even more abjectly. Such greed and selfishness turned them away from the Lord and made them worship the material possessions as their own gods.
Harold Buetow remarks: “Money is such a tyrant that the prophets frequently used it as one of the main barometers of religious concern. Today’s reading from Amos (who is sometimes called God’s angry prophet) is an example. The earliest writing prophet, Amos wrote from near Bethlehem about 750 years before Christ. At a time of an ever-widening chasm between the wealthy few and the destitute masses, he had the courage to protest openly against the materialistic, rich and sophisticated leaders who were so greedy as to exploit the poor. Amos is a prophet of our time. Many of the Israelites were so greedy that their worship of God was an empty ritual … They could not wait for the end of the holy days so that they could get back to work for business profits (v. 5). Not only that: they would make greater profit by cheating customers. They would short-weight the bushel by adding stones to tip the scales. They would sell debtors into slavery for failing to pay for even a pair of sandals (v. 6). They would mix the refuse of the wheat with the good grain they sold. Amos spoke of social injustice as being a blasphemy against God.”
Indeed, Amos is a prophet for all time, especially for our modern society that is convulsed with subtle but more sordid forms of social injustice. Our poor do not always have the chance as others of experiencing true justice. Moreover, the rich and powerful of today would exploit them with a vise grip through legal cloak, control of courts, intimidation and coercion. Against the backdrop of a social situation reeking with injustice, the prophecy of Amos offers Yahweh’s strong promise of retribution. Yahweh’s declaration is both a condemnation for the greedy rich and a consolation for the vulnerable poor: “Never will I forget a thing they have done” (Am 8:7).
The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 6, assert: “God is the Pride, the Honor of the people, the Defender of the voiceless, the weak and the poor. He takes their part. He will not forget the evils done by the powerful and rich. He will have the last word, the supreme Judge who gives justice … But more than a threat, it is a call to conversion that the prophet cries for. The worst thing that could happen would be for God to be silent, for there no longer to arise, in the people and the Church, prophets to denounce evildoing and injustice.”
The following supplication of Bishop H. Camara, a modern day believer, underlines a resolve to uphold the Christian prophetic stance on behalf of the world’s poor, while trusting in the help and grace of God.
Allow me, Lord, a special intention for my people, the world of the silenced. There are thousands upon thousands of human creatures – in poor countries and in the poor areas of rich countries – without the right to lift their voices, to shout and protest, however just the rights they seek to defend may be: those without homes, food, clothing, health, a minimum of education; those without work, future, or hope. They will fall into fatalism; they are discouraged; they lose their voice; they fall silent.
If we believe in you, and in various religions, help our rich and privileged brethren – opening their eyes, rousing their conscience – injustices could not increase, the distance between the poor and rich would not be glaring, not only between individuals and groups of individuals, but between countries, and even between continents. Do, Lord, what we did not and still do not know how to do.
This Sunday’s Gospel reading (Lk 16:1-13) reinforces Amos’ call to detach ourselves from worldly goods, to liberate ourselves from its enslavement and to fight against the perverted inclination of acquiring “more” at the expense of the poor. Using the Parable of the Unjust Steward (v. 1-7), Jesus exhorts us to be astute and enterprising in our pursuit of the Kingdom of God. With various sayings, the Divine Master teaches us to deal with material goods wisely, responsibly and with a spirit of detachment, in order to use them more efficaciously in gaining the heavenly riches and eternal joy. Jesus then gives a final warning: “You cannot serve both God and mammon” ( Lk 16:13).
The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 6, explain: “What the saying proclaims is undeniable when it is a question, as it is here, of the service of God and of Money. To serve, with respect to God, has a strong significance; it implies an engagement of the whole person, an absolute preference, an undivided love … Serving amounts to adoring, worshipping. Applied to money, the term means the same thing; for Jesus speaks of money as an idol. The Gospel here calls it mammon, a name that personifies it as a power that rules the world. We see all too often that money can be an idol to which everything is sacrificed, a veritable Moloch. The poor and misguided destroy themselves seeking its favors; they often let themselves be bought, renouncing every human dignity for a pittance. As for the rich, the point hardly needs to be said. But it is the whole world, even today, that finds itself tempted by the cult of Mammon … Yes, this saying of Jesus is of undoubted interest for us today: You cannot serve both God and the god Money! … It teaches that there is only one prudent way of making use of it: sharing it with the poor, for no one is truly the master of what he or she owns. Hoarding money is inadmissible and leads to the loss of the only true good whose possession is promised us: the eternal inheritance. In short, one must choose: God or the god Money. It is impossible to serve both at once. No compromise may be made between them. One is faced with the unavoidable choice.”
Let us therefore keep in mind the following exhortation of Saint Augustine: “The riches of iniquity are the riches of this world, from wherever they come. Whatever their origin, they are mammon, that is to say, the riches of iniquity. What does this mean, the riches of iniquity? It is money that iniquity dresses up with the name of riches. If you seek true riches, they lie elsewhere. Such are the riches that Job possessed in abundance, when, stripped of everything, his heart was full of God … Thus, true riches are those of which we cannot be despoiled once we have them.”
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
Why did Amos need to go and prophesy to the northern kingdom of Israel? What was the content of his prophecy? Why did he inveigh against the rich and powerful? What were the social injustices of his time? What is the significance of his prophecy to the social situation of today?
2 Why did Jesus speak to his disciples about the Parable of the Unjust Steward? What is the lesson of this parable about our quest for God’s Kingdom? Are we resourceful, creative, enterprising, and decisive in matters dealing with the pursuit of the Kingdom of God?
3 Are we wise in dealing with earthly goods? Do we allow them to enslave us? Are we truly free in relation to them? Do we utilize them responsibly and enterprisingly to promote the Kingdom of God? How do we respond to the challenge of Jesus: “You cannot serve both God and mammon” (Lk 16:13)?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
(Adapted from a prayer by St. Augustine)
Leader: O Lord, my God, Lord our God,
in order to draw us to yourself,
make us try to find our happiness in you.
We desire not to seek it in gold or silver or fine houses;
we do not desire these earthly goods,
goods so vain and short-lived,
which belong to this fragile life.
May our mouths never speak words of vanity.
Make us put our happiness in you,
for we cannot lose you.
Once we possess you,
we cannot lose you, nor ourselves.
Assembly: We love you.
We choose you our sole and absolute treasure,
now and forever.
Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“You cannot serve both God and mammon” (Lk 16:13)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
ACTION PLAN: Meditate on various situations in our present society and community that need to be redressed and healed. Contribute your material and spiritual resources to making this world a better place to live and to help God’s Kingdom of justice and peace come upon all. Make a difference today in the life of the needy and vulnerable poor.
ACTION PLAN: To enable us to be fully committed to serve God alone and not the god Money, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR (Vol. 3, n. 43): A Weekly Pastoral Tool.
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US