What Shall I Do?

November 7, 2008

Friday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself. Philippians 3:20-21

And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light”. Luke 16:8

Piety

Father and maker of all, hear our pleas to protect us from making our lives subjected to our possessions and property. When we ask, “What shall I do?” in despair like the dishonest steward, send the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to fill our minds and hearts with the living example of St. Paul who turned from persecuting others to denying his own needs for Christ.

Study

What shall I do? Whose example shall I follow?

Each one of us has found ourselves in some crazy predicament. Our jobs or our livelihood depend upon making the right decision. Today, the readings present us with two opposing models with which to consider.

The first model is Paul and his followers who have lived a Christ-centered life. They embrace the hard path. The pick up and carry their cross. The notes to the New American Bible translation explain they were envisaging both the suffering and resurrection of Jesus to provide a model that is the opposite of opponents who reject Christ's cross.

Upon a first, cursory reading, this part of Paul’s letter to the Philippians might have the sound of high arrogance worthy of Eric Von Zipper. “Imitate me,” says Paul. “You are my idol and I am my ideal,” boasted Von Zipper in the famous Beach Party movies of the 1960s. However, the “Christ-ed” life Paul has been leading is one of complete dedication to Jesus since getting knocked off his horse and blinded. Through his blindness, Paul’s eyes were opened.

Paul’s actual example was one of values lived out in order to inspire others to imitate his example. Throughout the New Testament, he encouraged the people of Thessalonica, Philippi, Macedonia and Corinth to follow his example and to reject the way of life of those who deny the cross. In all humility he urges: “I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, so that you may learn from us not to go beyond what is written, so that none of you will be inflated with pride in favor of one person over against another.” 1 Corinthians 4:6

The picture of those who do not imitate Paul’s example is embodied in the portrait painted in Luke’s Gospel of the dishonest steward. Although the steward was put in a position of trust, he abuses his power until he finally makes a deal with those he was cheating and overcharging. Paul could have had the dishonest steward’s very acts in mind when he wrote about people who “conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their "shame." Their minds are occupied with earthly things. Philippians 3:18-19

The dishonest steward is perhaps among the worst characters in society. Put into a position of trust to care for the possession of others, instead he lives down to his own selfishness and interests. Our culture and media are chock full of stories of the dishonest stewards our society has hatched – the charity executive lining his own pockets, the financial advisor embezzling his clients funds, the tax office worker padding her own expensive lifestyle with the hard-earned tax dollars of her fellow citizens. Dante reserved a special place in the eighth circle of the Inferno for fraudulent advisors like this.

Those who follow Paul are better suited to deal with the “children of the light” than the earthly pursuits of this Wal-Mart-to-Wall-Street generation.

Action

The signs of our times today are not pretty and seem to be getting worse with each daily drop in the Dow. Yet while we focus on bailing out billionaires and propping up the middle class with tax cuts and other economic stimulus packages, who is left to testify for the poor?

Discipleship is choosing between Paul and the steward because “economic justice is not a sideshow of the Gospel. It’s the main event.”

“Change does happen,” write Chuck Collins and Mary Wright in The Moral Measure of the Economy. “But it requires messengers of hope and agents of change.” They go on to quote Jim Wallis saying: “Hope is believing, in spite of the evidence, that change is possible – and then watching the evidence change.” And St. Paul reminded the Romans that “Hope does not disappoint.”