Fresh Dew Media

 25^th Sunday Year C: Homily by Fr Isaac Chima

Theme: Why Does Evil Seem to Prevail Over Good?

Intro: Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, today, the church directs our focus towards our perspectives on material goods, particularly our attitudes towards the poor and the marginalized people in society. She presents before us the rationale behind the persistent spread of evil in our society and encourages us to take action to prevent its continued triumph in our midst.

Homily: Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, do you find it troubling that, on numerous occasions, evil seems to overshadow goodness in our society, despite the significant number of churches and Christians worldwide? Nowadays, many individuals question why evil seems to prevail over good in our communities. Some even go so far as to assert that God has permitted the devil to govern the world, while others interpret the presence of evil as evidence of God's nonexistence or abandonment of the world.

Today's gospel reading provides us with one of the explanations for why evil appears to overshadow good in our world. However, let us begin to draw the profound lessons of this Sunday from the first reading.

Dear friends, Prophet Amos has some important insights to share regarding the socio-economic structure of our society. Amos is recognized as the prophet of Social Justice. The first reading today comprises a segment of the book of Amos that addresses the social and economic challenges faced by his people. In this passage, he speaks out against greed, oppression, and injustice directed towards the poor in society.

During the era of Amos, Israel was divided into classes, with the rich on one side and the poor on the other side. Every society has the poor and the rich as well. Nevertheless, what troubled Amos was the fact that the rich of his time were becoming increasingly wealthy while the poor were sinking deeper into poverty, with the rich amassing their fortunes at the expense of the poor. The wealth of the rich was bolstered by their unjust and malevolent socio-economic policies, which they safeguarded with their financial resources. They thrived on the misfortunes of the poor and mistreated their less fortunate neighbours.

According to Amos, these rich people controlled the large farms and dictated market prices. What were they doing? They were inflating the prices of goods in such a manner that the poor could not afford basic necessities without enduring significant hardship. Thus, for the poor people of the time of Amos to sustain themselves, they were compelled to borrow money from these same rich people. In lending to the poor, the wealthy also raised interest rates to such an extent that the poor individuals would find it impossible to repay the debt. Furthermore, they imposed lending conditions that were intolerable. Those among the poor who failed to repay their loans within the stipulated timeframe were forced to surrender their lands, while those who had lost their land were compelled to sell themselves and their families into slavery to settle their debts. Amos noted that the wealthy eagerly anticipated a time when they could buy or sell the poor as slaves.

Dear friends, do we have people in our society who engage in similar behaviours? Are there those who impose unimaginable and unreasonable conditions on those seeking their assistance? Do we have individuals who seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor, those who are indifferent to whether the less fortunate can afford the prices or conditions they impose on their goods and services? Amos has declared woes upon such individuals.

Amos also addressed another form of greed and deceit in the marketplace, a type of insincerity that could provoke the heavens to weep. He noted that these people were saying, “that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great … and sell the refuse of the wheat.” What does this mean? The ephah is the container used for measuring wheat in the market. So, these individuals were reducing the size of the ephah while still selling it at the price of a standard ephah without the suspicion of the buyer. They also mixed chaff, which should either be burnt or discarded, with the wheat to create the illusion of a larger quantity. In this case, when the buyer returns home, half of what they purchased would consist of chaff. Do we have people who cheat on their customers, those who alter the standard practices within their business sectors solely to defraud unsuspecting customers? All these are dishonesty in business. Amos condemned such behaviour; our society condemns it as well.

It is disheartening that despite the denunciations of these immoral actions, they continue to proliferate within society. Why is this the case? Jesus provided us with the answer in the gospel reading. The answer is this: “Because the sons of this world are wiser in their own generation than the sons of the light.”

Dear friends, a first look at the parable of the dishonest steward presented in today’s gospel may provoke numerous questions among many people. Some may wonder why Christ chose to narrate such a story and even commended a dishonest steward. Is He suggesting that we should emulate this man’s unethical behaviour in business? Is He promoting dishonesty? However, Christ did not share this parable to endorse dishonesty; instead, He urged us to observe the actions of the dishonest steward upon learning that his time was up. Did you notice how he meticulously devised a plan and executed it with great skill? Observing him, Christ remarked that the children of this world are more astute in their generation than the children of light. What does this imply? Christ was telling His audience, and all of us, that those who engage in wrongdoing invest more effort in strategizing their malevolent actions and executing them than we do in planning and carrying out virtuous deeds. This is why evil seems to prevail over good in our society.

Thus, Christ is highlighting the commitment of those who perpetrate evil in planning and executing their actions effectively, and He questioned why His followers, including all of us, cannot devote our time to perfecting good deeds. Consider how robbers spend sleepless nights strategizing a heist; reflect on how cybercriminals invest hours on their schemes; contemplate how those who deceive through media allocate time to refine their falsehoods; then, consider the minimal time we allocate to planning positive contributions to our community. This is indeed why evil seems to prevail over good in our society.

Today, God is calling us, the children of light, to recognize that if we desire goodness to prevail over evil, we must invest more time in planning our virtuous actions than wrongdoers do in their schemes.

Peace be with you

Fr Isaac Chinemerem Chima