The Wise Men ...

The bible tells us that

the wise men after meeting Jesus

returned a different way.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said,

"Of course they did!

No one ever comes to Christ

and goes back the same way they came.

The whole purpose of being Christian 

is transformation.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, 

for you never know how soon it will be too late.

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

The Parable of the Deceitful Steward.

The parable begins with a rich man calling his steward before him to inform him that he will be relieving him of his duties for mismanaging his Master's resources. The steward, realizing that he will soon be without a job, makes some deals behind his Master's back by reducing the debt owed by several of the Master's debtors in exchange for shelter when he is eventually put out. When the Master becomes aware of what the wicked servant had done, he commends him for his "shrewdness."

This parable about the shady steward is one of the most puzzling Jesus told. Not only does this steward get away with bribing the master’s debtors by reducing their debt, but his boss praises him for being shrewd! 

What’s the moral for us? … What’s the takeaway from this odd parable?

Maybe it’s right before our eyes. 

Jesus praises the steward for forgiving the debtors their debts. Isn’t forgiving our debts precisely what Jesus came to do? Isn’t the steward, in an odd way, doing what Jesus did?

Remember the Our Father. We Catholics say, "forgive us our trespasses," but many Christians say, "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Jesus taught us this prayer; it's how his heart works, it’s how he thinks. Maybe this story is about the shrewdness of forgiveness.

When our Master asks for an accounting of our life, what will we have to show Him? Maybe this bad steward got it right and Jesus wants to find us forgiving our debtors their debts. The shrewd thing he is calling us to do is - forgive others - like the steward forgave his Master's creditors. That's our calling.

Everything we own is a gift from God. God is the owner of everything, and we are His stewards. Our call is to use the Master’s resources to further the Master’s goals.  In this specific case, he is calling us to be generous with His gifts to benefit others. Our call is to make the debts of those around us lighter, to let them know we have a master who finds forgiveness praiseworthy. 

Jesus told them this parable:

“There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard,  and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, ‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not, you can cut it down.'"  Luke 13:6-9

The parable Jesus told isn’t really about a Fig tree. It’s a story about the Jewish people, God’s chosen people … and … it's a story about us too, we who call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ.  All who call themselves Christians receive a call to bear fruit.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus says very clearly, “My Father's glory is shown by your bearing much fruit, and in this way, you become my disciples. John 15:8                                                                  

Like that Fig tree, our job is to bear fruit for the master … for God. 

Are we? 

Are we bearing fruit for God?

This thing we call religion isn’t a private thing; it’s a call to action. It’s a call to share the Kingdom of God with those around us. 

God's Kingdom is all about fruitfulness.

Bearing fruit requires action. Action that results from developing a close relationship with God and knowing what He desires. It comes from an intimate, sensitive connection to Jesus.  Jesus once said, "If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing." John 15:5

Apart from a relationship with Jesus Christ, it's impossible to bear fruit.

How is your relationship with Jesus?

Fruitfulness is Christlikeness. The definition of Christlikeness is a person who has qualities like Jesus Christ. Examples of Christlikeness are being kind, forgiving, sincere, and caring and being a person who produces healing. When we become more like Jesus, when He increases in our lives, we can deliver the fruit that honors God.  Jesus is the nourishment we need to produce fruit.

Being Christlike means giving a human face to the gifts we receive through the sacraments.  The gifts we speak of here are the “fruit of the Spirit” … love … joy … peace … patience … kindness … goodness … faithfulness … gentleness, and self-control.  When we see these traits in our lives, we will begin to see the fruit.

The fruit God wants us to share is our faith, a faith that brings people to Him, including new believers and fallen away believers.  That's the fruit Jesus wants.

Jesus is encouraging us all to till the soil of our faith and develop a Christ-like attitude full of … love … joy … kindness … attitudes we develop through studying the Bible and daily prayer time and being charitable, giving to those who need it.  

That’s how we till the soil; that's how we bear fruit.  

 

The story of Adam and Eve is given to us to explain the mystery of good and evil.  In the story, God gives Adam and Eve life and then adds a seemingly strange commandment: “Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” 

What God was saying to them is, "I am giving you life. It's a gift, enjoy it." God even told them to: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. I give you dominion over all the earth.”  God was telling them, and us, to receive life as a gift, not as something we can acquire.  

The original sin was a failure to respect the gift.  Taking the apple represents the sin of wanting to be in control.  The original sin was a failure in gratitude, a failure to appreciate the gift. 

It is so important we realize everything is gift, including life itself.  Nothing should be acquired as if it was ours by right. It's all gift. The highest compliment someone can give to the gift-giver is to enjoy the gift thoroughly.  The highest praise we have to give to our God, our Creator, is to enjoy the gift of life indeed. 

That is why Jesus during his time with us didn't need anything and lived so simply, he understood the gift. We all need to let go of the need to acquire – to take – and simply receive God’s gift of life.

My favorite Broadway musical is Les Misérables. It is the story of Jean Valjean, who in hard times stole a loaf of bread from a baker. They caught and imprisoned him for 19 years.  Trying to recover from his imprisonment, he meets a Bishop, a noble priest who begins Jean Valjean's redemption by welcoming him to his home. In an act of extreme kindness and sacrificial love, the priest gives Jean Valjean a pair of candlesticks Valjean was attempting to stealing. This act of kindness by the good priest transformed Jean Valjean into a new man whose soul had been "bought for God." 

At the end of the musical, as Jean Valjean lies dying before his beloved daughter Cosette and her husband-to-be Marius, he has a vision of Cosette's dead mother, Fantine. In this touching scene, Valjean commends Marius and Cosette to marry and reveals his long-held secret that he had spent his life running from the law. As Jean Valjean sings his last confession, Fantine appears to welcome him into heaven.  Jean Valjean then experiences an almost beatific vision of the priest, surrounded gloriously in candlelight. At this moment, he utters one of the most beautiful lines ever written in a play:

"To love another person is to see the face of God."

The message from this excellent musical for us all is that one simple act of kindness has the power to transform a sinner into a forgiven saint. Even in his humble and lowly position, the priest became a vessel for Jean Valjean and, by extension, the audience to see the very face of God through his indefinable love for an embittered thief. 

We can be like this good priest.  We can show the face of God through our love. Too often, we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Let’s all show the face of God by our loving kindness to one another!

If you have become bitter and sour, it is because when God gave you a blessing you hoarded it. Yet if you had poured it out to Him, you would have been the sweetest person on earth. If you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour out anything to the Lord, other people will never have their vision of God expanded through you.

Oswald Chambers