CHOOSING GOD

Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Am 8: 4 – 7 / Ps 113 / 1 Tm 2: 1 – 8 / Lk 16: 1 – 13 or 16: 10 – 13

“Namamangka sa dalawang ilog (paddling the banca on two rivers).” A Tagalog idiomatic expression which means that a person has a divided heart. Here are some examples: a married man having relations with another woman; or an altar of the Santo Nino placed side by side with an image of a golden cat; or your friend backbiting you when you are not around. Simply said, the Tagalog saying means living a double standard lifestyle.

Our Gospel this Sunday explicitly rejects a double standard lifestyle. Jesus tells us, “no servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.” Even St. Paul in our second reading today tells us that there is only one God. “There is also one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as ransom for all.”

And so, we ask ourselves, why only one? Isn’t it that the more, the merrier? Why not two? Why love one and hate the other? Let me answer our questions with the three F’s.

Loving God alone makes us focus our heads, hearts, and hands to God alone. When we love the Lord alone, then, we focus ourselves to things in our lives which can help us love the Lord more. We work only for things that can make us focus on our relationship with Him.

Loving God alone makes us faithful to our relationship with Him. When we look for other loves, then, our hearts become divided. When we entertain the other side of the fence, then, time will come when we fall out of love for God and become unfaithful to him. Hence, we must love God alone.

Loving God alone brings us to our finish line we call heaven. If here on earth, we only love God and our neighbors then surely we are brought to our finish line that is heaven. If students learn to love their studies, then, surely, they will reach their finish line which is graduation and ultimately the fulfillment of thier dreams. This is also true with us, children of God. If every day we practice loving and serving the Lord, then, surely, at the end of our lives, we are brought safe and sound to our finish line which we call heaven.

My dear friends, Jesus’ instruction of serving one master and loving God alone is not about selfishness. Rather, it is about preserving a relationship that has been wounded because of the presence of a third party – which is sin. Just as we set rules to preserve order and harmony in our human relationships, this is also the same context of our Gospel instruction today.

This is therefore our challenge that in this life, we choose God and him alone. By choosing him, then, we focus our lives to Him. By choosing him, then, we become faithful to our relationship with Him. By choosing him, we are led to our finish line, our home which we call heaven.

Our world today is like a marketplace. We have a lot of options and choices. However, in any marketplace, despite the abundance, customers only choose what is best for them. I hope and pray that in this worldly marketplace, we also choose what is best for us that is to love God and neighbor alone. By doing so, we focus and remain faithful to Him and for sure we will be led to heaven, our finish line.