Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to the Catholic influences podcast where we go deeper into the Sunday scripture reading to help you influence the world for Jesus. I'm father Rob Galea.

0:10

and I'm Danny Sullivan. And this podcast is presented to you by FRG ministry, a busy office this morning, Danny. That was quick. You said, let's go, hit record and started talking and I'm still putting my headphones on.

Speaker 2 0:23

That's the way we roll.

0:24

That's the way you roll. In the office. We also have Janine, Janine is a part of the FRG Ministry. Can you shout from the other side of the office? Say hello. Hello. So nice full office this morning also with my little dog Gozo, but we're missing another doggy . This is just becoming a podcast about dogs. Yeah haha, always dog updates. But exciting day as well for us. We also have filming today. We do, it's been pretty crazy filming the last a couple of weeks now, which is exciting. We can't wait like we haven't actually announced what this project is and I can't wait until we do. So FRG ministry does more than podcasts. We create , resources. We create some exciting projects, movies, music, and a very, very exciting , project that's coming out soon that we hope to announce soon. Anyway, so let's get to today's scripture verse. We're talking about Sunday gospel readings and this Sunday is such a difficult, such a difficult gospel to understand, to interpret because yeah , I don't know . Let's read it and see for yourselves here for yourselves. This week's gospel reading comes from Luke chapter 16 verses 1 to 13: He also said to the disciples, there was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’ The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’ So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ‘Nine hundred gallons[a] of olive oil,’ he replied. The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’ Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’ A thousand bushels[b] of wheat,’ he replied. He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’ The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own? No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. That is a difficult one. It's difficult to understand and difficult because why would God in the scripture why would they put such a negative? It's just confusing. It's difficult to extract meaning because who's the character is God the Steward is God the boss and this commending evil. It's almost like, where's the correction? Where's the black and white in this?

Speaker 4 3:59

Or I feel like up until this point, Jesus has really made the parables easy. They was coin. It was lost. Someone found it back. Everything is easy. And then this one is like, well, there's a steward, there's a master , there's some debtors. There's a lot of people doing things that aren't good. So it's really hard to be like, okay, what are we supposed to do?

Speaker 2 4:17

Exactly, so let's build this story in context as well. So there was, there are three, three main characters. Let's put the group of them into as one character. There's the master who owned, probably was a landlord, an absentee landlord. So he would own this land and then he would go away and he'd owned several land and pieces of land. And so he puts a steward, a person in charge, okay, who are slaves, a steward . And this person's job is to make sure that they receive payment for the rent, but it wasn't financial payment, it was payment in kind. So , for example, we can assume it's land because he received what ? Olive oil and wheat. So receiving the olive oil and wheat, we can assume that there was some kind of olive Grove and there was some wheat farming and the landlord would receive a percentage. So let's say 20%, 30% of the yield would go to the landlord and the landlord, we could do whatever they want, but this guy , was found out , he's gonna get fired. So he starts panicking and he just cuts the debt of everyone, you know, and he says, no, no, no, you owed me a hundred before, but now you owe me 80. And so the people, the third character, the people who use the land, that would have been happy, like, Oh fine, that's great. And so they cut their debt and all of a sudden everything's there. But the steward, the thing is, if you were someone , to give these discounts without the landlord knowing, you'd think that the bus would be upset.

5:57

Yeah. You'd be like. Oh, the master's is going to be like, he already fired him. Now he's going to be even more angry. But instead he's happy. Yeah, he like commends . He commends, the shrewdness... What does shrewd mean? Someone has shrewd. I don't know. We should, we need to ask Siri or Google, what does shrewd mean ?

Speaker 2 6:17

Well, I think it's someone who's sneaky. I don't know.

6:22

I don't know. Okay. Can, let's ask once we have Janine here. Can Janine, can you google shrewd? The word 'shrewd'.

Speaker 4 6:30

Janine is like the office manager and unofficial boss. She just knows everything that's happening in FRG Ministry.

Speaker 2 6:37

Wait we have the answer.

6:42

'Having or showing sharp powers of judgement; astute.' So it's someone who's wise in a sense and they have a good judgment and of course, Janine just defined herself when she took her bow.

Speaker 2 6:58

Well, there's a person who is shrewd there who shows fine judgments . So he commended this person, this , this, this honest person's fine judgment . So it is confusing like what is God? What is Jesus trying to say through this parable? Let's start with this forgiveness of debt. When this person decided, he found out that he was losing his job, so he started to cut the debts of people and he did it for two reasons. The first reason he did that was to make friends because he knew he's not going to have a job. So he started, Hey, I am taking your debt away . So now we're buddies. We're mates with friends. May be , you can employ me in your farm and you can help me out. But , the second reason why he could have forgiven the debt was as leverage as a black male. Hey, you are conspiring with me in the evil that I'm doing.

Speaker 4 7:47

Like, hey remember how you owed a hundred, but I only made you pay 50. Don't forget that.

Speaker 2 7:51

Yeah. But also, Hey, in the books, sort of you did evil as well. So if I tell the boss you're going to lose your land, so you better protect me, you better employ me. Otherwise I'm going to tell them that it was your idea, you know? And so he sort of could become an employee in that farm , either through favor , because I did you a favor. But if that doesn't work, then I have black man . I'm going to tell the boss and you're going to lose everything if you don't, if you don't give me that job.

Speaker 4 8:21

And yeah, like that is very shrewd. That it was a judgment and a quick one. But I think, yeah, like that panic that he felt like he's like, I lost my job. I can't work hard. I don't want to beg like it, you know, all of a sudden had to come up with the decision. But his motivation was all off flack , shrewdness and wisdom and you know, judgment . They are good things. That's why the master commended them. But it was his motivation that was completely like, unjust. And that's like, you know, he panicked and he didn't know what to do. So he quickly made a decision and it was, it was a decision that worked for him, but it only worked for him. Yes, it was selfish.

8:59

It was selfish and that even though they were discounted at the end of the day, he had in a sense, no authority to do that. But, but yet again, the confusing part, the bus commended him. So, but let's go into the lessons, the lessons. I think there are four lessons we can get out of this. Let's start with lesson number one. I think that's taken from verse eight. Okay. And it's saying that the sons of this world are wiser in their generation than the sons of light. What does that mean? Well, look at what he's saying is, imagine as Christians, imagine as Catholics. Imagine as the church that we had the same passion, the same enthusiasm to succeed. The same passion , to become Holy as people in this world have to earn wealth, to gain comfort, to gain power, to gain sort of authority. Imagine Jesus saying, you see the people of this world and they give everything, they dedicate everything and they're so passionate and they're so driven. You as Christians, it's almost like shaking us and saying, Hey, wake up. Become that passionate, become that enthusiastic, become that type of people who are so ambitious for the kingdom of God. Because the thing is, as a church, we are very often asleep. We're very often lost our passion. We've become apathetic and sure, there's so many things going on in the church that makes us want to give up, that makes us want to run away, that makes us want to hide and not be enthusiastic. But we need to get up. Now's the time to become enthusiastic. And even more so, even when the world hates us, even when the world is against us, that doesn't give us a reason to hide. But it should give us a reason to be more driven, to be more alive as a church, to be awakened, to be quickened you know what the word quickened means. Well, I didn't until you decided to start using it in every second. You get like a jolt. Yes . Be jolted into something. So it's like when you scratch your finger against the Blackboard, you know, and you jump. And so the cooking yesterday we were on stage and I tore sort of a calf muscle. I'm a little bit of a calf muscle and when I, when I did that , um, it's created an extremely, I had a crack and then an extremely sharp pain, like just, and in the, I was in the middle of talking and I just got up and I had to pull the microphone away because I screamed at a point. It's almost like a quickening. It's like it caused me to jump up, to jump up and to , and to protect my leg. And so that's the same way. Um, it's, that's a quickening in a sense that you do anything that you, the almost uncontrollable drive to do something. And this is what Jesus is saying that we need that drive. If the people of this world have that drive, why aren't we as a church alive driven for holiness, for helping the poor for looking after the refugees, for making a difference in this world, for bringing people to heaven.

Speaker 4 12:02

You know, one of my favorite things about this podcast is father Rob?

12:04

What? That I just kind of sit here silently and then I get like a little mini Homely and like this is awesome. I'm learning so much and I just have to sit here.

Speaker 5 12:13

But now you give us your, your 2 cents worth, $2 million worth .

Speaker 4 12:18

Thank you. I felt like there was an insult coming there and you withheld . Thank you very much, um...

12:24

[ laughing] you see, you see, she's ready for the defense. But then when we went quiet. Look, he could put a price on silence . [laughing] Let's do this . Let's have three minutes of silence as we reflect on the gospel. Yes. So do you have anything to say?

Speaker 4 12:44

Okay, what about here's my 2 cents or $2 million? We can decide later like yeah, if the church, if we put as much time and effort and you know , focus and enthusiasm into discipleship, like imagine what we could create. I think of the early church, like how quickly the church spread because those disciples, the apostles, they were quickened, they just put everything into going and spreading the message. And somehow in the last 2000 years, that's just become diluted and we've become distracted by so many things like money and our jobs and study, in exercise and you know, whatever it might be, social media, becoming an influencer, whatever it is. Like that has all just kind of taken our attention. So we're not Quicken, we're not ready. We're not racing towards sharing the gospel and you know, doing what we should be doing. And storing up our treasures in heaven where kind of focusing on all these earthly things.

Speaker 2 13:39

Yeah, and it's become almost like I'm Christianity today and our faith is one of the things we do well for the first disciples, it was everything, meant everything. Like they woke up thinking about it , they went to sleep thinking about it, and they dreamt about it throughout their day. They lived out their faith. Everything was centered around the faith, but now it's just become an accessory.

Speaker 4 14:00

It's just going to come like another word in your Instagram bio like dog, mom, Christian food blogger, like it's just another thing. But it's not necessarily the thing that defines us and it should be.

14:13

Yeah, and as it should be in our own lives as well. I'm certainly, I get distracted by so many things and that's we all do, but this is what I think the first message that Jesus gives us is that saying, he's saying, Hey, if we have the same enthusiasm as the world does, the same focus, we sometimes give too . Well, the things that we've were to give them to God and how much, what a wonderful change and what a wonderful difference we would make to this the kingdom of God. The second lesson. So the first lesson is to put in 100% like the world, sometimes puts 100%. The second is invest nine, which talks about material possessions and that material possessions should be used to cement in the friendships. Um , permanent friendships, friendships of permanent value. You know, it's not about getting favors, but it's about, again, storing up treasures in heaven. It's about making friendships that will last forever. Not superficial friendships, but for example, there over here I start to think about the poor. You know, when we invest in the poor, maybe we won't be BFF , best friends with the poor. But at the same time, we're storing up treasures in heaven, friendships in heaven. And I think this is one of the things that we need to use our finances, our resources, everything we have, not only to invest in our own kingdoms, but to build others, to make the lives of others easier to make poverty , less of a reality in this world to help those who are suffering, who are struggling.

Speaker 4 15:47

And even like, you know, we are stewards of these resources but they aren't ours . Like they come from heaven. And then if we use them to help the poor and you know, make friends as the scripture says, like that is what we should be doing with them. We should be like the justice steward where we have been entrusted with, you know, this wealth or time or whatever it might be. And we should be giving that back to people. You know, giving that back to the kingdom here on earth for the sake of the kingdom in heaven.

Speaker 2 16:15

Yes. And it is about taking the oppositions , even though money we get, the money we have and it understanding that it is, and this is all given to us by God, a gift to us from God. And so at the end of the day, it's not how much am I going to give away, but how much of what God has given me am I going to keep that I need? The rest is for the building of others, the development of others for helping others. So whether it's our family, whether it's support, whether it's those who are in need, whether it's also even making the lives, being generous, extravagantly generous again towards others.

16:50

Prodigal. The prodigal being prodigal. That's right . Last week we learned that word. Okay, I learned that word. Exactly what this is where we need to be. Like, it's not about storing up our treasures . It's not about keeping of what we have, but it's about what we can give away. Making life easier, not only for ourselves, but for , for friends and for, for people around us. The third lesson I think is taken from verses 10 and 11 this is in fulfilling the small task is proof of that we are capable of something greater. So if we're entrusted with a little, then we're going to be given more. But the thing is if we're not faithful in a level , then even that's going to be taken away from us. So we need to be people who I am a faithful and who are good stewards of what we've been given and God is gonna trust us with more. It's not about abundance, it's not about being an influencer that has millions of followers with the 10 followers, 15 followers, whatever followers you have, say on social media or whatever. How are you being faithful to that? How are you proclaiming Jesus in that, in the influence of the people around you and if you are faithful and authentic and real and a person of integrity with a little, God's going to bless you with more gods are going to increase his influence in your life. But we need to remain faithful. And that's the most important thing. And the thing is, I was a rector of our seminary and I was studying in the seminary. I started in Malta and then I finished in Melbourne here and I was sort of very close to, to the rector and I used to always ask him for permission. It's like , can I go out there? Can I do this, can I do that? And you know, he came up to me, he said, he said, Rob , he said, I'm going to trust you. You don't need to ask for permission all the time. He said, I'm going to trust you. He said, I'm going to trust you blindly until he said, you give me a reason not to trust you. And then I'm going to measure things, then I'm going to check things. And then he said, so, so this is the thing that we are trusted until we have a reason not to be trusted and God continues to bless us. And even if we are mistrusted and we do the wrong thing, God forgives us. God welcomes us back. But we need to continue to be good stewards of what God has given us.

Speaker 4 19:11

And we have been given so many gifts and is from God in this world, you know, possessions, you know, talents, family, whatever it might be. And we're called to use these gifts for heaven. And that's where our focus should be. So it might be in our family or social media or our school or our workplace. That's where we use them. But ultimately it's to get ourselves to heaven. That's where our focus should be and that's where we want to prepare to be. And I think like the steward at the start of this scripture, it was when he found out that he was getting fired, that he's like, Oh, now I have to prepare. And that's where he made, he's like panicked, unjust decisions. Whereas we're called to be shrewd but to be shrewd, justly and you know, use these gifts in this possessions, in this wealth that we have, well so that we can get to heaven, but use it now. Not when it kind of like, you know, comes to crunch time. And we realize there's not much time left. You know, we have to be shrewd and prudent now every single day with that kind of eternal goal in mind.

Speaker 2 20:11

Yes and exactly. Cause ultimately what have matters is not the things we have or not even the things we have responsibility for, but that we make sure that we get to heaven. Holiness is our primary vocation. Getting to heaven is our primary vocation. So we have to use everything like you said, including family , resources, everything. We have to make us holier and not take us away from the thing that is most important and that is our vocation to become saints.

Speaker 4 20:38

But then with that holiness, with that vacation to become saints comes the great commission of bringing people with us. Like if we get there by ourselves, it's going to be really lonely party. Well it worked, but there's no one here. So like, yeah, we have to go out and use those positions to make friends.

Speaker 2 20:55

Yes. To make friends. And bring them, bring them with us to heaven as well. And looking back, and this is one of the things that I hope one day is I will make it to heaven. God willing. And when I do that I can look behind and there'll be a queue of people behind me and not because of my good. It's simply because they saw the love that are and the passion and the drive that I had to love Jesus. And it's not to say again or to speak much of our perfection, but it's to speak of our stewardship of our resources and using everything. You know, and again, this is one of the reasons I as an influencer , as a priest gets criticized that why are you putting the things like why do I'm using, why are you a musician? You should be a priest. Why are you a filmmaker? You should be a priest, you know? And , but this is the thing that we need to use everything with given been given in stewardship to bring people with us to heaven and to make sure that we get to heaven too.

Speaker 4 21:50

And like we've all been given such unique things like, and the priest in the parish over from, you might not know how to pick up a video camera, but that's okay cause he's really good at going and visiting the sick or something like that. Like we've all got unique gifts, we've all been entrusted with different things, different gifts from God that we're called to use. Like you are a preacher, you're a public speaker. When we prepare for these podcasts, I come to you with like a list of jumbled notes and different dot points and you somehow like have this beautiful flow and structure that you can do because that's what your gift is. And you can speak in front of thousands of people, but I can go and have a coffee with one person and that's my gift.

Speaker 2 22:27

And which for me is a big struggle? You know, like the sit down with someone and not that I'm, really I'm happy to whoever wants to have a coffee with me and just that you can contact Jeanine. But the thing is I struggled . That's the biggest struggle for me. Like, and that's your gift. That's a wonderful gift. That's one soul at a time. That beautiful gift. And we all have different gifts.

Speaker 4 22:45

And we all need to be good stewards of these different gifts. And then as a family, as a Christian family here on earth, we're going to lean more and more people to heaven. If we can work together, I can let you write the homilies and write the talks and speak in front of thousands and I'll go out for coffee with me. Good teamwork.

23:02

You, Introvert you. Okay, let's go to the fourth lesson. Number four. And this I think taken from Vers 13. And that is that no slave conserve two masters that we have a jealous God. Now we don't really have this understanding today because people have multiple jobs and multiple roles. You know, like today you can be, I don't know... ...work full time and finish uni. Work full time and finish uni. Yes, you can be a teacher and at night a barista or whatever or maybe not at night or bar, yeah musician or whatever. But anyway, you can have , different roles. But in the, in Palestine it wasn't, so you were almost owned by the master. Okay. Your owned. So that became your life. You're just there totally consumed by , um, the, the work that you do. And, and this is also maybe Jesus is trying to say here that God isn't the most exclusive of masters, that he's a jealous God, that God doesn't employ part-timers. He only employs full-timers. That why the belonged to him. Totally. Oh , not at all. And so he's saying, Hey, just listen, be dedicated, be mind, be everything. Let me be your world.

Speaker 4 24:21

I think that like a couple of weeks ago we'd read the scripture whereas you know, someone built a tower and they couldn't finish it. So it's better that they didn't build it at all. Like weighing up the cost of discipleship. Can you follow God with everything? If not, don't, yeah. He's saying that again. Like he really wants to bring that out . Point home.

Speaker 2 24:37

And again , the, the thing is when we are focused, as you said in the, in the first lesson as well, when we are focused and our enthusiasm like the first disciples and becomes our world, then we are more likely to become the saints that God has called us to be. So I think this, even though it is a difficult scripture, there are few beautiful lessons that do come out of this scripture and this Sunday is going to be at time for you to pay attention. I'm just curious to see what the priests are going to come out with . But because it is honestly it's, I bet you that most priests would preach on the first store the second reading the Sunday because it is a really difficult gospel to preach from. But there are beautiful lessons that can come out of this.

Speaker 4 25:19

Speaking of priests homilies, my spiritual directors like I'm really glad you're doing this podcast and gospel readings cause now I'll listen to it in preparation.

Speaker 2 25:27

Yeah and they can get , ideas for their homolies. But this is a, I hope you got something out of this, and I hope this Sunday that you go, you listen with all your heart as you stand up alert, listening to the gospel being proclaimed that it allows to impact your heart and you take these four lessons that God has, has tried to teach us through these scriptures to be his, to be enthusiastic, to be passionate, to be exclusively and entirely belonging to Jesus.

Speaker 4 25:57

Thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. We love having you listen. It's such a joy. So please get in touch with us, give us any feedback or your thoughts. We'd love to hear them. So podcast@frgministry.com if you want to send us an email or get in touch on social media, FRGministry at Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

26:15

Yeah. And again, snail mail every week. Not every week, but almost every. But PO box 96 Strathdale, Victoria, 3550 Australia. Australia mate [in an australian accent]. Australia mate. Okay. So thank you. God bless and we'll catch you next week. And don't forget to subscribe. Oh yeah, that too.