it is the how - 25th Sunday C 2013

Summarizing into a statement our readings today most especially our seemingly complicated gospel, we can come up with this: How do you use, how do you make use of the resources, the gifts, the responsibility given to each one of us.  Paano mo gina-usar ang mga butang ukon bagay-bagay nga yara sa imo.  Paano mo ini ginagamit?  Given his precarious situation, the dishonest steward in our gospel today taught of something ingenious so that he can use money to his advantage, so that he can use his position in order to engender good relationships with others and thus bring security to himself.  This is not about holding a high position, this is not about the amount of wealth one has accumulated, it is not about the number of talents one has, it’s not even about what you have.  Rather it is how you use the things that you have, it is how you use the things you already have.

I was once involved in a deliberation regarding the salary of workers in a parish including priests for that matter.  And one of the things we have discovered is this – bisan anano mo pa ka pataas ang sweldo sige man sa gihapon ang utang.  Basta tugutan mo gani ang cash advance, basta tugutan mo gani ang utang, nagalab-ot kon kaisa sa punto nga daw obligasyon niya nga mag-utang, obligasyon niya nga mag-cash advance, pati SSS kag Pag-ibig dalasa.  Of course many times kulang gid man ang sweldo, but many times also kita man lang ang nagatuga sina nga kakulangan ukon kita man lang ang nagapalala sang sina nga kakulangan. 

This also includes what we have in terms of human resources.  Precisely we have terms like the “dream team” kon sa diin ang tanan nga A-1 nga mga talento yara sa sina nga team, ukon yara sa akon kag sa mga kaupdanan ko.  But the gospel wants us to focus not only in what we have but on how we use or even make use what we have.  How do we pool our resources together, how do we enhance each other’s gifts, how we tap the hidden and perhaps undiscovered talent, how we make use what we have.  In the coming days you will begin to discover that many times in life it is not what we have that only matters.  It is also how we use what we have, how we work as a team, how we allocate meagre resources, how we prioritize certain things including time for practices, how we support each other.  People who always daydream of the dream team, people who always daydream of a dream situation - tani may amo sini, tani may amo sina, tani may extra time, tani si ano diri lang . . . people who do these live in a dream.  A famous world war II general said we fight we the soldiers we have, not with the soldiers we want. 

So how do we enhance?  There are many ways to enhance the power of the team.  But our first and second readings seem to point on one important ingredient.  And what is that  – thinking not of yourself but of others.  The prophet Amos condemned people who take advantage of others thinking only of themselves and their own good – nga usaron mo ang tawo para sa imo kaugalignon, para mag-angat ka, para bentaha ka.  We call this kind bentahoso.  St. Paul in our second reading advised Timothy to pray not only for himself but above all for others,– in your prayer think of others, pray for everyone. 

When someone in the team is full of himself, when someone in the team has a very big ego, then things will go wrong – sia ang bida, sia ang focus, sia lang ang sagad, sia lang ang palakpakan, sia lang ang sa spotlight.  When you do things thinking only of yourself the team suffers.  But if you begin to do things for each other, things will change and it will always be for the better.

This days of contests in the literary, musical and sports aspects of our life is not primarily about the literary, the musical and the sporting talents that we have.  It is about our relationship.  These contests will test our relationship, this is about our community life – how we look at each other, how we take care of each other, how we support.  We already know what – you talent, your guts perhaps – we already know that.  Now we want to see how – because it is in the how that we will come to know the other important thing in a person – and what is that?  The important thing which we will come to know is character, the persons character – and this will be revealed in the how.

PS – what we have is not so important, even the rain does not matter.  Remember it is the how.