• Amos 8:4-7
• Psalm 113:1-2, 4-8
• 1 Timothy 2:1-8
• Luke 16:1-13

The difficulty about wealth is that it can easily turn into a god. A god is anything that demands to be put at the centre of our life. The trouble is that anything that is not the real God simply does not make us happy, because we are not designed that way. That is why the readings for next Sunday give expression to the deeply subversive doctrine that God prefers the poor and the oppressed. In the first reading, Amos is uttering the direst possible warnings against those who “trample on the poor and destroy the oppressed of the land”. For such people, religion (“when will the feast of the new moon pass?”) is merely an irritating distraction from the really important business of making money and cheating on transactions, “to buy the powerless for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals, and sell the sweepings of our wheat”. There is an uncomfortable contemporary ring to Amos’ remarks here, and an invitation to examine our consciences about our treatment of the poor, and our use of religion as a smokescreen.

The psalm is (as so often) an exuberant invitation to praise, “Praise Yah, praise him, YHWH’s servants, praise YHWH’s name; let YHWH’s name be blessed. YHWH is high above all nations, above the heavens is his glory”. But what is so special about this God of ours? “He raises up the powerless from the dust, and he exalts the poor from the ash-pit”. Read those words again. They are so familiar that they have lost their power to shock. Still more shocking is what follows, “to make them live with the nobility, with the nobility of his people”!

So we should be listening with a sense of shock as we turn to the second reading. Here we are invited to pray “for all humans”, and particularly for “kings and all those who are in authority”. Is this going back on all that stuff about the importance of the poor? Not really, because Paul’s concern is “that we may live a tranquil and peaceful life, in all piety and reverence”. In other words, the powers-that-be are important only for creating an atmosphere in which religion can flourish. What counts is God, “who wants everyone to be saved, and come to a knowledge of the truth”.

So we come to the gospel, and it is, I am afraid, dreadfully subversive. It starts with the story of “a rich man”; and we already know that in Luke’s gospel that means trouble. Then we learn about his steward, that “he was slandered to him on the grounds of squandering his possessions”. Presumably, therefore, he is not guilty as charged. Then he is sacked without being given the chance to explain himself, so the alert reader is decidedly in sympathy with the steward. So we are ready to applaud when he plays his trick on his “lord” (the word appears no less than four times in this gospel, as a reminder that there are many “lords” and there is the one “Lord”). He doesn’t have the strength to work as a labourer, and admits, “I am ashamed to beg”. So, quite legally, he changes the bills that his “lord’s” debtors have signed, and so wins friends outside. And the verdict? The gospel concludes, “The Lord (or lord?) praised the steward for his iniquity, because he had acted intelligently”. Is this Jesus or the steward’s employer? Either way, it is thoroughly subversive. And it seems as though it was puzzling also for the early Church, since three separate explanations are now added. First, you need to decide where you belong, and act accordingly, “in order that they may receive you into the eternal tents”. A second explanation is then offered in terms of “take care of the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves”. As he says, “The one who is reliable in a tiny amount is reliable in a large amount”. Then comes a third explanation, that “no servant can serve two lords”. And you and I have to choose to serve either “Mammon”, an Aramaic word for wealth, or God. Which will you choose this week?