Sunday the 21st of September 2025 - The Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Amos 8:4-7/ Ps 113(112)/ 1 Timothy 2:1-8/ Luke 16:10-13

We are urged to contribute to food banks and there are collection points in our churches. This worthy cause is not to feed people in far off countries suffering draught and conflict but to provide much needed essentials to people living within our own society, a society that in relative terms is wealthy. Many of the people needing the support of food banks and relying on charities to help them through life are those who prop up our economy, working in the service industries often with two or three jobs earning very little. We do not have to look far to see examples of the extreme opposite ends of the spectrum. Every day you can see private jet aircraft coming and going through the airport, over high hedges and tall walls we can catch glimpses of enormous mansions sitting in extensive grounds. Most of us exist somewhere in between the extremes of poverty and super wealth. Is it not scandalous that in our society on our very door steps there are people who need the support of food banks just to get by?

In many respects our local situation mirrors what is happening on a global scale. The United Nations comment that despite progress in some regions income and wealth are increasingly concentrated at the top. OXFAM reported recently that in the ten years following the last financial crisis, the number of people considered to be billionaires nearly doubled with the fortunes of the super-rich reaching record levels. The 26 richest people in the world held as much wealth as the 3.8 billion poorest people in the world. The rapid rise of incomes at the top drive income inequality. We need successful business people to drive the economy but the fruits of success must be shared in a reasonable manner so that the people working to create wealth are not exploited and that large numbers of people are not forced out of the economy altogether.

Sunday used to be a day of rest with only vital amenities open allowing workers to spend valuable time with their families and people found it easy to join together in church. The churches have now been replaced by the temples of today, the supermarkets and sports halls. People flood into these new venues where different gods are worshipped. Increasingly for many Sunday is just another day in the week. It is worth remembering that all these places need staff to keep then running, many of who will have to sacrifice time from their homes and families in order to earn the money just to get by.

The readings given to us for today warn us about the dangers of wealth and the seduction of wealth. The prophet Amos, talking to the people of ancient times, could just as well be talking today. He rebukes those who “trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end.” In the gospel passage Luke gives us the uncompromising challenge from Jesus that “You cannot serve God and money.” We are called today to look closely at our relationship with material wealth and our responsibilities to the poor and needy both near and far.

Amos lived during a time of great prosperity for his people and as it is today under the surface was a profoundly unjust society. Amos condemns the wealthy merchants who on the face of it were following their religious laws but could not wait for the religious festivals to be over so they could continue with their dishonest business practices. They were in a hurry to get back to their trading, exploiting their customers by using dishonest scales, inflated prices, even selling the waste materials. What brings the ancient warning from Amos home to us today is that he is not condemning foreign  countries but his own people who claimed to be God’s chosen race, who should have known better. God can see through the false observance of the law into our very heart and soul. Mere observance of laws and tradition is meaningless if it is not connected with justice and compassion. It is all too easy to become indifferent to the suffering of others and their struggles are normalised or even become invisible to us.

Jesus speaks to us with startling directness, we cannot serve both God and money. Today wealth has become a thing to be worshiped, a false god demanding our attention. Jesus is not saying that wealth in and of itself is evil but our tendency to let it become our master rather than us make it our servant is wrong. This short gospel passage is rich in advice on how to live an authentic Christian life today. The person trustworthy in small matters will be trustworthy in great ones. How we deal with material goods reveals our fundamental character and our spiritual perspective. If we are dishonest with the wealth of the world God cannot trust us to be honest with the spiritual wealth of the Kingdom of Heaven. If we cannot be trusted with the property of others God will not give us what is ours. We are merely stewards of the gifts of creation not owners, all of creation belongs to all people. What we have through the chance of when and where we live belongs equally to all. We must do all that we can to ensure that the wealth of creation is apportioned to all who need it.

Our faith must lead to action, faith without action is dead. The Church teaches that those who are oppressed by poverty are the object of preferential love. This is not an option for us, it is essential to living out the gospel that we show preferential love to the poor and needy. We must examine our relationship with wealth. We must seek to use the gifts we have been given in the service of God and our neighbour. We are called to a life of charity by which we recognise the dignity of all God’s people. Love and service to others leads us to encounter God directly, closing our eyes to those in need blinds us to God. We must work for social justice, calling for fair living wages, affordable housing, economic policies that serve the common good not just the interests of the wealthy. If we do not share what we have we are stealing from those who have nothing. What we have is not ours, all is gifted from God and belongs to all of us, especially those in greatest need.

The challenge from Jesus today is a hard one. It is not easy in our society not to try and serve wealth and God when culture tends towards measuring success in financial terms, but Jesus calls us beyond material comfort in this world to a life of everlasting spiritual comfort in eternal life. Today let us pray for the grace to serve God as one master, for the wisdom to use the gifts we have been given justly, to build a society in which people do not have to rely on food banks and charity, never forgetting that what we do for the poorest of our neighbours we do for Christ.

God Bless Brendan.