(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/BIC-Mass-Blog-for-the19th-Sunday-in-Ordinary-Time-2025.mp3)
In this troubled world, faith in one’s future is better guided by blessed assurance than cursed insurance. The lack of faith we put in the insurance industry is borne out by their fat, fine-print-packed prospectus documents detailing what their agents gloss over during sales pitches. Comb through those details and you’ll learn that conflicts of interest among an insurer’s agents are not only not illegal, but baked into the cost of doing business with them.
“A potential conflict of interest may influence your investment professional to recommend this contract over another investment,” one prospectus whispers.
Trying to understand the competing interests motivating financial insurance agents and their clients may help put them in the proper scriptural perspective. In this Sunday’s gospel reading (Luke 12:32-48), Peter asks Jesus if his parable about vigilance being the best homeowner’s insurance against thieves was aimed at the Master’s prospects or his own agents. Jesus responds:
“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward whom the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute the food allowance at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so. Truly, I say to you, the master will put that servant in charge of all his property.”
Jesus probably wouldn’t like the unfaithfulness demonstrated by some in the insurance industry. The same prospectus mentioned earlier argues that risk is the nature of this business, and any guarantees must depend on their firm’s claims-paying ability. “If we experience financial distress, we may not be able to meet our obligations to you,” the prospectus admits.
The insurance industry could never afford to offer the kind of blessed assurance the Book of Wisdom says the Israelites enjoyed on the first Passover when God promised protection to those investing in His shelter:
The night of the Passover was known beforehand to our fathers, that, with sure knowledge of the oaths in which they put their faith, they might have courage. (Wisdom 18:6-9)
Paul clearly defined the terms of such courageous faith in Sunday’s excerpt from his letter to the Hebrews:
Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. Because of it the ancients were well attested. (Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19)
Those ancients include Abraham, our father in faith, who trusted that God’s command to sacrifice his son Isaac was backed by sufficient divine currency to support humanity’s future—as guaranteed many generations later by the death and resurrection of our faith’s Master.
We’re all covered under that one single-premium policy. No need to worry that our private information will be used to market other guarantees of well-being to us. Our Guarantor knows every hair on our head, and no other prospectus can better explain the security we get from that knowledge than the sacred Anthology we read from every time we gather to celebrate His investment in us.
–Tom Andel
Thanks be to God that the only policy we need to own and continually invest in has the proper strings attached. There are no tangible disclaimers or out clauses and none are necessary. The problem is so many of us don’t put our full faith and trust in the assurance we are promised.
There is no fine print, it is all bold and plain to see if we have eyes to look, and ears to hear. We get the message over and over, many of us for decades on end, yet there is still a reluctance to fully buy in. The example of Abraham and his son Issac is powerful, but could we actually imitate that level of commitment? God only knows, but I imagine with His grace anything is possible.
The policy of eternal life is accessible to everyone. We know who makes the policy available. Are we buyers?
I think you and I might have pounded this analogy to death. Fortunately, it was insured, and we are all beneficiaries.
KISS – Keep it simple sinner!
In a world that tries to regulate and litigate so many things, Jesus’ promise of love, peace, mercy, and joy stand out in their simplicity. Praying that we can all allow him into our hearts and from there do great works for His glory rather than putting too much faith in the insurance of this world!
Right on, Mike. Putting it in the context of two of Jesus’s best friends, less of the busyness of Martha and more of the spiritual hunger of Mary