Wiser Than The Children Of Light
I was looking this afternoon for a modern example of an unjust steward, someone who, like the protagonist in today’s Gospel parable, makes friends with the mammon of unrighteousness to achieve a higher purpose. I didn’t have to look far.
At 4pm on Saturday afternoon, I turned for inspiration to Fox News Online, and there was the perfect example. The headline reads “Sanders pressures top Biden aides for 100-day working class agenda after throwing weight behind president.” It seems that the eminently sly Bernie Sanders has made friends with the highest-ranking mammon of unrighteousness in the country, Joe “President” Biden. Far be it from old Bernie to miss out on a chance to advance his own Marxist agenda one step further and now it seems, he’s been handed the perfect opportunity to squeeze another drop of compromise from the delusional mind of our fearless leader. Our two working-class heroes are now working hand-in-glove to achieve their mutual goals to stay in power and take us ever closer to their anticipated revolution.
The politics of the situation, however, is irrelevant to our Lord’s message in today’s Gospel, other than as an illustration. There’s nothing inherently wrong with what Bernie Sanders has done here. He’s simply swallowing his distaste for the “not-quite-Marxist-enough” Joe Biden, taking advantage of his current challenges in order to get something out of it for himself. What makes his ploy immoral is in its ultimate aim, which is the advancement of Marxism. But what if we were to do something similar, what if we were to swallow our distaste for the clergy of the SSPX, or even of the Vatican II Church itself, and work with them with the aim of deposing Bergoglio from the throne of Peter. Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with such a collaboration (after all, many good traditional Catholics do it already, walking and praying the Rosary together as we all protest against abortion in a March for Life). As long as we do not compromise on any of the articles of faith or morals during our temporary alliance, we would be counted by God as wise in seeking our common goal. Wise, “as the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.”
It would not be wise, in other words, to ignore the potential for good that may be achieved by making “friends” with the mammon of unrighteousness. Could we even make friends with our Mammon-in-Chief, Joe Biden? Let’s not ignore the possibility of a foreign invasion, when we need to rally behind a suddenly united government in our efforts to gain victory over a common foe. Even the Democrats were singing the National Anthem in the days after 9-11. One of the chief lessons to take away from George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, was the way that Big Brother fictionalized a common enemy who placed the people of Oceania in a permanent state of fear and crisis. This was his clever way to unite his downtrodden subjects and retain their loyalty. Hitler did something similar when he turned the Jews into public enemy number one. What our Lord wants us to know is that we too have such an enemy, and that we should all be united in fighting him. The difficulty for us is in finding people who aren’t already on the Devil’s side!