09/21/2025
Let’s be real.
It’s a common phrase, and one that many of us have heard or said ourselves. And who wouldn’t appreciate the sentiment: to be guided by the facts on the ground, to accept the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. To be pragmatic. But there is a danger is this mentality, right? What is it?
We’re probably all familiar with Machiavelli – who considered himself the ultimate political pragmatist. He was a critic of politicians who tried to govern the people according to moral principles, dismissing religion as naïve and weak. Such leaders, he thought, are blind to how life actually works. You could summarize his thought by saying: “Let’s be real, sometimes to make an omelet you have to break a few eggs.”
The Church vehemently opposed Machiavelli and this kind of thinking from the beginning. It is never permissible to do evil, we said, no matter what good you think will result. You can’t break the eggs. Christians walk by faith, not by sight. As Mother Theresa said, we are not called to be successful, but to be faithful. To do what Jesus tells us to do, regardless of the consequences.
So does this mean that Christians are called not to be realists or pragmatists, that faith calls us to reject the evidence, the empirical data, the science? This is what so many modern thinkers have claimed. That faith is just a tool that people use to rationalize their failures, or to justify doing things or believing things that they cannot prove. And this is why they argue that faith is incompatible with a scientific mind. Because a scientific mind is realistic and practical, whereas faith untethers us from the real world and places us in a delusional world of dreams and fairy tales.
Christ’s parable today directly confronts this notion. Jesus praises the practical, realistic thinking of the steward. He laments that “the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” He urges his followers to be trustworthy in small matters, that is, to be prudent and diligent and thoughtful about the small details of life and not to live in dream worlds and fantasies. For he tells us “If you can’t be trusted with the little things, who is going to trust you with the big things?”
What is the difference, then, between Jesus and Machiavelli?
The difference is what we consider to be real. The difference is the omelet we're trying to make.
Jesus tells us today: yes, be a realist. Act in a way that accepts reality as it is. But let me show you what is real. The material, fallen world around us is fundamentally dishonest, deceptive. The accumulation of wealth and power and influence, the securing of comfort and security and pleasure – these things are fleeting, like sand in the wind. That’s not the omelet.
The omelet is the divine life of God dwelling richly in your soul. And we should be, he argues, just as diligent, as ruthless, as decisive, as tactical and strategic in securing that goal as worldly people are in securing their misguided goals.
What are the eggs that need to be cracked? Maybe screen time. Maybe drinking or eating or shopping or gaming too much. Maybe the hard hearted unwillingness to forgive a family member or co-worker. Maybe our laziness and lack of seriousness in our approach to prayer and study of our faith. Maybe our tendency to gossip, malign, or mock those with whom we disagree. Maybe it is our temper, our envy, our jealousy.
Don’t be naïve, Jesus says, about your life – your real life and its real goals. Be like the steward. Humbly accept things as they are: our sinfulness, our weakness, our laziness and selfishness. Be like the steward who, realizing that he was going to going to need to produce a full account of his stewardship, sprang into action and acted prudently.
Because in the end, the unfortunate thing that Machiavelli and all those who spent their lives conniving and strategizing and jockeying for earthly power, wealth, safety and comfort will find out is that it was all dishonest, deceptive. They were trying to make the wrong omelet, to conquer an imaginary hill, to win a kiddie prize.
What a tragedy, what a waste, what a disaster, not only for them but for the millions of lives that they derailed, disrupted and tormented in pursuit of a pile of dust that would blow away in the wind. How much blood, sweat, and tears has been shed by men and women pursuing nothing but a dead end, when it could have been shed with Christ in the pursuit of true and eternal life.
So yes, let's be real. Break a few eggs, but the eggs that truly need to be broken! Be ruthless with your sin, be strategic in your charity, be prudent in your generosity, be pragmatic in your prayer. Be all of those things and more in pursuit of the true treasure, the real goal of this short life.
May the Eucharist, the living presence of Jesus Christ, the real bread that truly satisfies, give us the insight and courage to step away from earthly fantasies and deceptive grandeur and to embrace the reality of his sacred presence more and more each day.
