Last week, my homily started off by acknowledging how tired and worn out we all seem to be… how our patience seems to be wearing really really thin in pretty profound ways.

Today, I’d like to propose that at least part of the reason why people are so worn out today — is that we’re actually probably trying very very hard to serve more than one master.

Jesus told us in our gospel today: “No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.”

If we’re really super honest, we’re all trying to juggle our faith with something else.

Jesus… and our job.

Jesus… and our kid’s future.

Jesus… and retirement.

Jesus… and our preferred political ideology.

Jesus… and our personal convenience.

Jesus… and YouTube, and Netflix, and TikTok, and Video Games…

Jesus… and all sorts of things!!!

We try to do this by sort of compartmentalizing Jesus… Church… Religion… from the rest of our life. We believe that we can transition out of one “mode” and into another fluidly, effortlessly… That we can “turn off” religion, and “turn on” another life-goal at will.

But in reality, you CAN’T serve two masters… let alone the 5 or 6 we’re probably trying so hard to serve on a daily basis!

When we try to do so, what happens???? 

….We end up burning ourselves out…. We get worn down!

We were made to have just One Master — One God… the Lord the Giver of all Life… but we spend our days, dividing our hearts up, splintering ourselves into a thousand different cares and worries. We try serving more than One Master!!! …And we fail.

And when we do, we end up sort of hating the Lord and the demands He has for our life…

In English, we have the very bad habit of speaking about multiple “priorities.” We say that we need to have ALL our “priorities” straight. 

And while people generally understand what we mean when we use that kind of language, it is problematic language.

It’s problematic because the word “priority” comes from the Latin prioritas, meaning “first in rank, order, or dignity.”

To talk about having “multiple priorities,” therefore, is by its very definition absurd!

You can’t have multiple things in first place! First place can only truly go to a single thing… there’s only one slot at the top which is your ACTUAL “priority” that then influences all your other decisions and values.

In the immortal words of Ricky Bobby, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”

Well, for a Jesus-follower, that is absolutely true: 

If Jesus ain’t first… He’s last.

In our second reading, St. Paul makes this very clear for St. Timothy: “For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as ransom for all.”

The Lord is ONE… And He is #1. He deserves to be FIRST in our life. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” the Ten Commandments say.

Jesus doesn’t want to be just one interest, one hobby, one activity, one important value among many….

No, He wants to be (and deserves to be) the ONE AND ONLY priority: The first in rank, order and dignity. He is the FIRST and the LAST, the Alpha and the Omega! The Beginning and the End!

For a lot of people, the #1 slot… the true PRIORITY that informs all other major decisions … is money.

In our gospel, Jesus says point blank: “You cannot serve both God and mammon.”

Mammon is to be understood as a kind of personification of money. 

In one of the commentaries I was reading while preparing this homily, I learned that the word Mammon …. is actually closely related to the Aramaic root for the word “Amen.” So, to serve Mammon… the personification of Money… is to say “Amen” … “I believe” … to Money…

What a horrible thing to even imagine!

But if we think about it, people will do just about anything for money. We’ll work ourselves almost to death for it. People sell drugs for it. They sell PEOPLE… even CHILDREN for it. More and more girls are selling their bodies and their dignity online for this horrible idol called Mammon… sacrificing themselves on the altar of money!!!

St. Catherine of Siena apparently once said that “When you set your heart on wealth, you drive God away.”

“The love of money is the root of all evil” the Scriptures tells us. And while money itself is not evil (we all need it to live in this world) we have to realize that money is seductive and it is powerful.

We should never say “Amen” to money… but only to the Lord.

“Seek FIRST the Kingdom, and all these other things shall be added unto you,” Jesus says.

Put the FIRST thing first… your relationship with God… and He will provide everything else you actually need!!!

Do we actually trust that to be true?

This brings us to our Gospel parable this weekend: The parable of the “Dishonest Steward.”

This parable is very confusing for a lot of people. Jesus tells the story of a Master who informs the steward — the guy who is in charge of all his wealth and possessions — that he is about to get fired. The steward, realizing he’s in big trouble, comes up with the idea of ripping off the Master by telling all his various debtors that they owe less than they actually do. The steward does this so that WHEN he does lose his job, he will at least have these people as his friends.

At the end of the parable, the Master seems to approve of the steward’s dishonest, underhanded practices. And people rightly wonder…. why?

And if you ask me, I think the point of the parable of the dishonest steward can be boiled down to this:

Jesus is saying that worldly people are usually much, much better at, much more intentional, and much more effective at pursuing their worldly top priority — than believers sometimes are at making the Kingdom of God their top priority!

Just think of how devoted, how intense, and how systematic the most successful people in this world are about their goals in life.

We might think of a totally non-controversial modern example, such as… Elon Musk… who apparently has an absolutely INSANE work ethic. 

The guy works 80-100 hours a week on average… painstakingly organizing his day into little 5 minute blocks of intense work to minimize wasting time as much as humanly possible. The dude is a machine, and he easily puts ALL of us to shame when it comes to zeal, determination, and goal-setting.

“For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”

What would happen, I wonder, if someone with the work ethic and the personal drive of an “Elon Musk” suddenly invested themselves wholly into the advancement of the Kingdom of Heaven?

What if our daily prayer routines became non-negotiable?

What if we were more militantly against EVER missing our daily rosary, Sunday mass, or Holy Days of Obligation?

What if we buckled down and set clear limits on our screen time?

What if we worked together more efficiently and strategically to evangelize our neighbors around town? To make sure the local poor had better, more reliable resources? To keep track of the homebound in our community?

What if our entire being strained towards heaven as if it really, truly WAS our NUMBER 1 priority and not just one of many side-goals?

I bet our parish would change dramatically!

St. Josemaría Escrivá once put it this way — “What zeal men put into their earthly affairs! …When you and I put the same zeal into the affairs of our soul, then we’ll have a living and working faith…there will be no obstacle that we cannot overcome in our apostolic works.”

So let’s resolve together right now to make Jesus our top priority. Let’s give this our ALL…

Because we realize… that on the Cross: We were somehow His priority. He laid down His life out of love… for me….and for you! If you were the only sinner in the entire world: He would have still sacrificed himself for you.

The least we can do in return… is make Him OUR #1… our priority in life.

Amen.