Eucharistic Gospel Reading for Sunday, Proper 20: Year C
“He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.” (Luke 16:6)
In this world of the power of money we should always remember to let compassion rule over cash. I think we only created money so that trade for much needed items, from someone else, could be conducted with a less perishable medium. Live stock, olive oil, grain, fish, fruit and other food items will not hold up for long. Currency in the form of coins, on the other hand, will often last a lifetime and can even be handed down to following generations. But money was always about the ability to take care of the needs of the family and community. This was the idea of people fulfilling their needs and not so much about profit. Money was the means to a needed end.
Then we began to make money the end rather than the means. We began to pursue money for its own end. Money soon began to be the object of worship. The new replacement priests were the people who had the most money. People with little or no money were people of little or no value. We somehow forgot that money was just a tool for getting what we needed. We forgot we needed each other more than the goods that money would buy. We forgot about being good to those who we knew had less wealth than we did. We should always consider our own fallen state. We are no better than those people we manage or those who have less money than we do. We are all without money in God’s eyes. After his exposure the crafty manager in our Gospel wants to be remembered for how he put money aside in order to help his neighbors. Right now we are creating the memory that others will have of us. Our priorities will be evidenced by where we put people in relation to wealth. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t serve God and money.
This decision to be nice to people only came about when the shrewd manager was told about the accounting that was about to take place. This accounting is going to take place with every one of us. This is a good time for a review of my personal creed again: “We trust in the Creating Word, through the Holy Spirit of the Incarnate Word, in whom we live and move and love and have our being, and to whom we must give an account.”
As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and to serve, and to teach others to love and to serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
Let us pray (BCP p. 234)
Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
onewhoponders 