Saturday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time

I’m sure you have all played Monopoly at some point, or at least are familiar with it. It’s one of those games where most homes have house rules, right? We don’t always play the way the game actually tells us to play. We play the way we were taught, the way our parents played, or the way somebody showed us. And if we ever go back and read the rules, we often discover that it isn’t actually how the game is supposed to be played.

But you still have to follow the house rules. The important thing is that there are rules. And if someone cheats, if you find out at the end of the game that they’ve been slowly sneaking money from somewhere and winning that way, you’re going to be upset with them. Not so much because you lost a game. You know it’s trivial. You know it doesn’t matter. You’re upset because you think, “This is a dishonest person.” They’re dishonest in this small, trivial matter, so perhaps they’re dishonest in important things as well.

That is how we view life, even though we don’t always speak of it in those terms. The person who might cheat me in Monopoly may very well cheat me in life. Even if you know the two aren’t logically connected, you feel deep down that it may be the case.

I think that’s part of what the Lord is getting to here. We get so focused on that phrase, “dishonest wealth,” and what he means by it, that I think we miss his point. If we cheat in the things of this world, if we are not honest with the things of this world, then we are not deserving of the things of eternity.

If the Lord can’t trust us with working in this world, being fair with people, and treating them honestly, if he can’t trust us with wealth here, then he certainly will not give us wealth in eternity. The wealth here is destined to be burnt up in the fires, destroyed, and lost. The wealth of eternity will last forever.

It’s important that we see that in our lives, because it’s so easy to focus on the important things and let the little ones go. At work, we may say to ourselves, “Well, I got the project finished. It doesn’t matter that I cut every conceivable corner to get there. It doesn’t matter that I did a little wrong, that I was a little dishonest here or there, as long as the big thing is finished.”

That is being unreliable with dishonest wealth in order to achieve an end. And that’s not how it works. If we cut corners, if we are dishonest in the small places, we will ultimately become dishonest in the big things. Our lives, how they turn out, and the character we develop are determined more by the little things than by the big things. In every little choice, we have to make the right choice.

As Christians, especially, we have to keep our attention on those gifts of eternity. While no one else may see what we do, God himself sees. And those little choices affect our souls.

If we cannot be honest in the smallest details of our lives, if we cannot do the right thing when no one is watching and no one will ever find out, then we do not build up our character. We don’t build up virtue. We don’t build up charity. These are the things necessary for us to receive the eternal gifts.

Christ is calling us to take care of those details. Even though everything in this world will be destroyed and disappear, we are called to take care of it, to deal with it honestly, to deal with it as if it truly mattered, so that we are authentically worthy of those eternal gifts. We are called to be trustworthy in the dishonest things of this world so that we may inherit those things that will last forever and in which we may truly rejoice.