Homily

Summer is just over (technically) and winter is not that far away (hope it is). The changing seasons remind us about what we will face, not so much for most of us here in this church, but for many people in our community, country and around the world – cold, hardship, hunger. All that accompanies what one has to endure especially when one is poor with little influence on decision making affecting society and their welfare. This reminder is provided through the well-known fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1845 – The Little Match Girl. It’s especially relevant to our first reading from the book of Amos. 

On a freezing New Year's Eve, a shivering, bareheaded, and barefoot, poor, young girl tried to sell matches in the street. She crept along trembling with cold and hunger – a very picture of sorrow, the poor little thing! The little maiden walked on with her tiny naked feet, that were quite red and blue from cold.

Afraid to go home for failing to sell any matches, she huddled in the alley between two houses and lit matches, one by one, to warm herself. However, the little girl was ignored by passersby.  No one bought from her, leaving her to suffer alone in the cold weather.

In the flame of the matches, she saw a series of comforting visions: the warm iron stove, the lovely roast goose, the great glorious Christmas tree. Each vision disappeared as its match burned out. 

In the sky she saw a shooting star, which her late grandmother had told her meant someone was on their way to Heaven. In the flame of the next match she saw her grandmother, the only person that ever treated her with love and kindness. To keep the vision of her grandmother alive as long as possible, the girl lit the entire bundle of matches.

When the matches were gone the girl froze to death, and her grandmother carried her soul to Heaven. The next morning, passers-by found the girl's body with a smile on her face, and expressed pity…”

The Little Match Girl fairy tale speaks of needed compassion and charity, and our failure to provide them. It speaks of the effects of poverty. The prophet Amos did too, but his words were very sharp and focused on the failings and cruelty of the wealthy, powerful, and privileged in his time. That’s obvious from what we heard in our first reading. For example: “We will fix our scales for cheating! We will buy the lowly for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals.”

Amos was a shepherd who worked the fields. He condemned dishonest commerce causing the poor to become poorer. During his lifetime in the mid-700 BC, the needy were trampled upon and the poor of the land destroyed. Wealth and resources, as well as social and political power, were concentrated in the hands of a small, wealthy, and arrogant ruling class always increasing its social and political power. That power was used to seize the land of the poor reducing them to near slavery and to serve as tenant farmers on lands they once owned. Amos was outraged at the suffering and hardships he saw all around him. He railed against the powerful’s unjust and extortionist tactics.

Like Amos, we Catholics should be similarly outraged and not ambivalent and wishy-washy about misuse of power and widespread poverty. For example, one in 10 Americans lives in poverty, nearly 40 million people.  1 in 6 children in America live in poverty. Being followers of Jesus, we recognize our responsibility to the poor and disadvantaged made powerless and stranded by social and economic inequalities, especially affecting people with black and brown skin, immigrants, refugees, and women and girls.  

Our reading from Amos introduces us to the very difficult-to-understand and confusing Gospel reading. Jesus gives us this parable of the dishonest steward who collected the debts owed to the master by the poor. I prefer to title this parable “the dishonest master,” not steward, with Jesus’ message still being the same: make friends with dishonest wealth. Stated a better and clearer way: make friends using dishonest wealth, but at the same time, recognize why it is dishonest. The parable explains. 

The master was a rich man to whom many poor people were in debt, so great those debts could not be paid. The master’s wealth was dishonest – dishonest because it was based on exorbitant, unjust, and oppressive tactics and loans driving the poor into even greater poverty. The rich man’s intent was to eventually take their land and make them indentured servants.

Because the master’s steward wasn’t totally committed to or enthusiastic about increasing his master’s fortune acquired through dishonest means, he was to be fired. Recognizing his dilemma, the steward concluded: “I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they – those in debt – may welcome me into their homes.” He wanted to make friends who would help him after he was fired.

Using the master’s dishonest wealth to make those friends, the steward met with those in debt and drastically reduced what they owed to the rich man. The rich man praised his steward for being shrewd and calculating, like him. Perhaps that’s why he gave praise. Birds of a feather flock together, so to speak.

Towards the end of the parable, Luke cleverly and subtly shifts the identity of the master to Jesus, our master, who then tells us: “I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” In other words, Jesus tells us: “Get friendly with, get to know and understand what defines dishonest wealth and how it fails us. It is wealth acquired through mis-use of power, unethical behavior, hypocrisy, selfishness, deceit, greed, corruption, and disregard for those who are in need.” Jesus instructs us to reject that wealth because of how it is acquired. When we do, we will be welcomed into eternal dwellings – heaven. 

That brings us to Jesus’ final point.  “No servant can serve two masters…You cannot serve both God and mammon." If we want to be welcomed into eternal dwellings, we should serve God by helping the poor using our honest wealth to make friends with the poor and with God.

Finally, do we know any little match girls, or boys?  This world has many of them creeping along, trembling with cold and hunger, very pictures of sorrow – the poor little things. Do we see their cold, tiny, and naked feet? Do we only express pity for those cast aside? Will we passersby stop to buy their matches, so they won’t suffer alone? We must; otherwise, they will light all their bundles of matches, and we will watch them burn out.

Deacon David Pierce