Today's Gospel parable isn't perhaps the easiest to understand, but I'm could be terminally bewildered by the interpretation given it in the Carmelites 'of Australia and Timor-Leste' (and incidentally, NZ)'s latest 'JPIC Reflections'.
The steward of the parable, whom the JPIC team liken to a manager whose CEO has given him notice, "won't be the most successful man on the planet compared to the 'children of the light' who are more concerned with accounts than with real people, but he is free-spirited and values what is important."
Ahem. He's actually dishonest and values himself more than the people to whom the money belongs.
"He's a bit of a scoundrel, but Jesus liked scoundrels, once their efforts were put to good use."
Jesus loves everyone, scoundrel or not. But he hates sin, and the steward's efforts were sinful. He was guilty not just of theft, but theft as a servant.
So when as usual the JPIC team turn their attention to 'climate change', can we trust their judgment? They call for "a measure of cunning (which) may be helpful …. to create more sustainable ways of inhabiting the planet."
They describe Swedish teen activist (or is she pre-teen, is she even out of nappies?) Greta Thunberg a 'modern prophet' and ask "are our children being encouraged to emulate the actions of the dishonest steward: "For the children of this world are more astute in dealing with their own kind than are the children of light?"
Confused? #Metoo.
I can’t understand the reference to the "children of light" as being more concerned with accounts than with people. The "children of light" are people who are concerned with eternal values, and consequently are hugely invested in people, whom they love as God as commanded, rather than concerned with the 'accounts' which engross worldly people.
Jesus is reproaching the "children of light" - that is, His own children, who live by His light - for not being as single-minded in our pursuit of eternal values as the "children of this world" are single-minded in their pursuit of wealth.
So to apply the parable to the Carmelite JPIC's ‘Seasons of Creation’, we are to be absolutely single-minded in our purpose, which is to attain eternal happiness for ourselves and for others. The role of the Church and Carmelites is to use our own means wisely, in view of our eternal destination, and to encourage other people to do the same.
The means we have at our disposal are primarily the teachings of the Church and Scripture, which tell us that all evil, including 'leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth' as Pope Francis so threateningly phrases it, in Laudato Si, is caused by sin.
The Church and Carmelites as ‘children of light’ must try to be as single-minded as the ‘children of this world’, not by protest which Jesus Himself eschewed and never encouraged, but by living according to the Gospel and God’s Commandments.
It’s sin, and primarily in the last 50 years the sin of abortion, which causes evil, even the evil of so-called ‘climate change’, and it’s only repentance, conversion and prayer that can mitigate its effects.
Leo Leitch says:
Return to the Stone Age? Where would we be without the Northland Age? - Editorial, "Climate protests getting out of hand"
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northland-age/news/headlines.cfm?c_id=1503402
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