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The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe, Wk. XXV-C, 18 September 2016
Amos 8:4-7//1Timothy 2:1-8//Luke 16:1-13
If you have not yet seen the movie everybody is talking about, try catching the “Train to Busan” this Sunday. Yes, do catch the “Train to Busan” for it speaks so well of today’s Gospel, asking us whom do we really serve?
Though “Train to Busan” is a zombie-movie, it is essentially about relationships and love, selfishness and pride among the many characters skillfully welded together like the high-speed train into a single story. Main characters were a father and his young daughter celebrating her birthday in Busan where her mother lives following their divorce. The father is a successful fund manager without time for his young daughter and perhaps with his former wife. There were many instances that showed his self-centeredness as he even taught his daughter to always think of her own good and safety. The turning point came when the little girl offered her seat to an old lady after they have escaped the zombies. The lovely daughter explained to her dad why she offered her seat, then reminded him too of only thinking of himself that he missed her recital where she practiced so hard for a song dedicated to him. In the end, it was the same song she had practiced in school that would save her and another pregnant woman from being mistaken for zombies as they walked through the tunnel leading into Busan train station. They were the only survivors because they were the ones who truly loved and served, forgetting themselves and always thinking of others.
“You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Lk.16:13)
Our Gospel today is very striking with its parable of the wise steward. Jesus is not praising dishonest manager but simply wants to remind us that in life, we must be as wise as that manager in assessing the more important, the more essential things we need to choose. He realized that money is not everything after he was caught cheating by his master; hence, he had to win the confidence and friendship of their debtors once he is fired. He realized the higher importance of spiritual things like the relationships we keep. And the supreme among these relationships is the one we have with God which is expressed at how much we love others. Hence, in the end, Jesus declares the undeniable truth that one cannot serve God and mammon or money. In some translations, mammon is capitalized to show how Luke insisted in teaching that there are people who worship money as their god. It is a grave sin against the first of the Ten Commandments of God which is idolatry.
Service in relation with God means so much because it is the total engagement and surrender of the whole person. Serving is an expression of undivided love that amounts to adoring and worshipping. There is no need to debate about the dishonesty of the manager in the parable; it is always immoral and sinful to steal as the Fifth Commandment declares. Jesus Christ is now asking us to make a choice between God or Money because it is impossible to serve both at once. There are no ifs and buts, no compromises that may be made between God and Money. The Lord’s declaration at the end of the parable is best translated into a question we must truthfully answer, “whom do we really serve?” The movie “Train to Busan” teems with so many scenes that seem to ask that, defining the different characters. In the same manner, when we make an accounting of everything entrusted to us by God, we would find that eventually everything we have done, every decision we have made in this life reveal our response to that essential question of “whom do we really serve?” This is very evident in the first reading when Prophet Amos lambasted the people then of their evil deeds and plans in the guise of observing Sabbath. “When will the new moon be over,” you ask, “that we may sell our grain, and the Sabbath, that we may display the wheat? We will diminish the ephah, add to the shekel, and fix our scales for cheating! We will buy the lowly for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals; even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!” (Am. 8:5-6)
It is a scathing rebuke of the religious hypocrisy prevalent not only during his time but well into our very own when we profess to believe and worship the true God yet our actions and desires reveal we actually worship Money. Hence, in the second reading we are reminded by St. Paul through St. Timothy about the basic truth that “(For) there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as ransom for all.” (1Tm.2:5-6)
Every Sunday when we gather at the Eucharist, we profess our faith in God alone. We do the same whenever we would pray in private and with our family. What we say in our prayers, individual and communal, as well as our devotions reveal our true spirituality, of whether we serve God or we serve Money. The same is true with the things that we do in life, our priorities, our dreams and aspirations as well as our points of view reveal whom we really serve. Surprisingly, we can always find the answers to that question of whom we really serve in the various media platforms we use today like Facebook where a lot often, we could be our worst selves without us knowing it! Watching the news can remind us of the preaching of the Prophet Amos against the deplorable self-serving attitudes of the rich and powerful like our lawmakers who shamelessly disguise their efforts “in-aid-of-legislation” instead of working on laws that could serve and benefit the people like reforming the tax system or promoting economic growth. So far, it is the movies that help us like modern parables in realizing who we really are, and whom we really serve. While watching “Train to Busan,” I realized why zombie-movies are so popular. Could it be that it has become a mirror of our society where there is growing number of zombies, of self-serving people who believe only in themselves, who serve mammon and willing to trample on others just to be ahead? Jesus is inviting us today to be alive filled with life and joy by serving the Father. To serve money and pin all hopes in it is to be a zombie, a living-dead.
Choose God and have a blessed, selfless week ahead!
Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ni San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
