Does God Trust Us?
Deacon Patrick Constantino | Photos: Maddie Pascual
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke (Luke 16:1–13):
Jesus said to his disciples, A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, “What is this I hear about you! Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.” The steward said to himself, “What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.”
He called in his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, “How much do you owe my master?” He replied, “One Hundred measures of olive oil.” He said to him, “Here is your promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.” Then to another the steward said, “And you, how much do you owe?” He replied “One hundred kors of wheat.” The steward said to him, “Here is your promissory note, write one for eighty.” And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.
I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones, and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. If therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you what is yours? No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.
The Gospel of the Lord! Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ!
Does God trust us?
Maybe you have never been asked that question before or considered it on your own. Of course, it is always a little “iffy” when we ask these sorts of questions about God—as if we know what God is thinking. And even using such words to talk about God reduces God, in a certain sense, to someone like us, that is, attributes to Him the kinds of attributes we see in ourselves. Yet, words are all we have. If we are going to say anything about God we have to use human language, and by doing so, automatically fall far short of the reality of God, the majesty of God, the mystery of God. That does not mean, however, we should simply throw up our hands and simply abandon these sorts of spiritual quest. Rather, we acknowledge the limits of language but forge ahead anyway—hoping to gain a little insight into that which is beyond all understanding.
So I ask again—Does God trust us? It must be a pretty important question. After all, we just heard a lengthy and somewhat mysterious story about trust—a parable often called The Unjust Steward. And there is a lot going on in this story—stuff about proper stewardship, squandering, prudence, honesty and dishonesty—a whole array of things.
Yet, Jesus seems to sum it up by telling his disciples they need to pick a side, pick a master, pick whom they will serve. Put another way, Jesus alerts them to a deep truth—if they cannot be trusted with things that do not really matter, they cannot be trusted with things that matter. We are either on the right path or we are not. We are either trying our best to serve God or we are not.
We are either serving God or serving something else that matters little. Put simply-either the world has our earth or God does. It cannot be both! So, back to my original question—Does God trust us?
I guess it matters what we mean by trust. If we mean God can always count on us to do the right thing, the good thing, the holy thing or that He can always count on us to follow through on the promises we make to Him, then of course not. God cannot trust we will never turn our backs on Him, will not ever disobey, will not ever sin. He knows that is simply not possible. But if we mean trust in the sense He never gives up on us, He never stops inviting us to be more than we were yesterday, He won’t ever stop entrusting us with continuing His mission, His work, His sanctification of the world, then we’d have to say He trusts us implicitly, continually, unconditionally, deeply. And He does that most visibly by always respecting our freedom. We do not believe in a God who forces his will on us. Rather, He allows us to choose—that is, allows us to cooperate with His will or not, seek the good or not, love or not.
Do we deserve to have God put that sort of trust in us?
In one sense that scares me. Maybe even terrifies me. When I think about who God is and who I am, when I think about the things God is capable of, that is, anything and everything and what I am capable of seemingly little, when I think of how often I mess up, how often I fail, how often I do the opposite of what God wants, I have concluded God’s trust in me is misguided. He is asking for the wrong guy’s help. He is expecting too much. He is only going to be disappointed. And I am completely wrong when I think that way. Yes, I am certainly not going to be perfect. Yes, I will sometimes make a mess of things. Yes, sometimes I will find it difficult to love, to be kind, to be generous, to be merciful. All those things are true. Yet, God made me. In Love. In his image. With a dignity that cannot be forfeited. And God saw that it was good …
That means whatever God is asking of me is possible because He is the one providing for all that I will need. He knows I can be so much more than what I have been so far. And He will not let me down. ever. But will I continue to let Him down, continue to put my trust in the world and worldly things rather than in the only one who deserves my trust, the only master worth serving? I guess what I should be ultimately asking all of us is—Do we trust ourselves? Do we honestly believe we have what it takes to live a good, holy, fruitful life—the kind of life possible because God will be the one living through us, working through us, loving through us? And so, maybe today is a good day to also reflect on the words of the rich man in the Gospel passage from Luke. “Prepare a full account of your stewardship!”
What kind of steward have I been? Have I taken care of others as God would want me to? Have I treated the earth as the precious home it is? Do I use what I have to make the world a little more just, a little more kind, a little more peaceful, a little more forgiving? Do I go the extra mile, share an extra cloak, turn the other cheek, forgive seventy times seven times and every other thing that shows I have listened to and taken to heart the words of the Lord Jesus—our God who wants us to have the only kind of life worth living? Or am I serving something or someone else? It is time to choose. God always leaves that part to us. And we cannot choose both no matter how we wish we could. My friends, God trusts us. Let us show him we can be trusted, with both the big stuff and the little stuff. Who knows what kind of beautiful world we might help bring about?
Jesus, I trust In You! Amen!
Deacon Patrick Constantino retired from active Ministry on July 1, 2022. He is still a Deacon in good standing with full faculties to perform all sacraments in the Diocesan of Honolulu Hawai‘i. Constantino has been ordained for thirty-seven years. He is the first Filipino Deacon in the Diocesan of Honolulu. Prior to his ordination, Constantino was in government—first appointed in 1966 as Assistant Sergeant of Arms by the Speaker of the House Elmer F. Cravalho. When Cravalho became Maui’s first Mayor, Constantino became his Executive Assistant—the first of Filipino ancestry. Later, Constantino became the first County Treasurer of Filipino ancestry and the first County Grants Administrator and Risk Manager of Filipino ancestry. Constantino is married to his lovely wife Corazon for sixty-four years. They are blessed with four children, eleven grandchildren, and fifteen great grandchildren.