On a recent radio program, I learned that when
someone asks, "How are you?" you're simply to respond, "Fine.
How are you?"
Unless you're speaking with your doctor or some
other medical personnel, you're to presume the questioner really isn't
interested in your physical or mental well-being.
All cultures have parallel conventions. After a
while, one learns what to take seriously and what to slough off.
Un-serious faith
One of the problems the sacred authors surface
on Sunday revolves around some people not taking their faith seriously.
Though these individuals employ the proper religious words and gestures,
they don't expect anyone to take what they say and do literally.
In the first reading (Amos 8:4-7), Amos
confronts such people. "When will the new moon be over," they ask,
"that we may sell our grain, and the Sabbath that we may display the
wheat?"
Determined not to break any of the laws
regulating the use of sacred times, they wait to buy and sell their products
until those holy periods are over. But, when they finally return to business
as usual, they "diminish the ephah, add to the shekel and fix their
scales for cheating."
In other words, they're planning to defraud the
poor with false weights and measures.
It's logical to ask why these dealers so
scrupulously keep every religious law governing the Sabbath and full moon,
yet deliberately connive to break Yahweh's law to love one's neighbor.
They're not serious about living and growing in their faith. As long as it's
culturally convenient, they're faithful. When it's not, they're faithless.
Yahweh's judgment on such behavior is classic:
"Never will I forget a thing they have done."
In the Gospel (Luke 16:1-13), Jesus, fearing
that some of His followers will adopt the attitude Amos condemns, gives an
example of a dishonest servant who plots, schemes and conspires to avoid his
master's punishment, and eventually comes up with a strategy to impoverish
his master and enrich himself.
Jesus uses the dishonest servant's ingenuity in
doing evil as a goad to get His followers to be just as ingenious in doing
good: "For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with
their own generation than are the children of light."
Amos and Jesus agree: Evil people frequently
spend more time honing their
field of expertise than good people exert developing their area of
specialization.
That's why Jesus returns to His basic message
of repentance, encouraging us to undergo a change in our value system:
"No servant can serve two masters. He or she will either hate one and
love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve
both God and mammon" (dishonest wealth). In other words, put your money
where your values are.
God at center
The author of the second reading (I Timothy
2:1-8) is committed to the same belief. Though he presumes Christians will
lead a life different from non-Christians in the community, he encourages
them to live that unique life in a "quiet and tranquil" manner,
not calling attention to themselves.
Still, nothing should alter their conviction
that "there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the
human race, Christ Jesus, Himself human, who gave Himself as ransom for
all."
If
this short, early Christian hymn isn't at the heart of our faith, then our
practice of that faith eventually will become just as insipid as telling
people, "Have a happy day!"
(9/20/07)