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. . . . You cannot serve both God and mammon.” Luke 16:1-8, 13
Jesus praises this steward for his prudence is making adjustments to preserve something that matters to the man – his personal needs. One of the points of this story’s inclusion in the Gospel is that we should be prudently seeking to protect and further not our life and lifestyle, but rather our connection to God and, through our true identity there, connect ourselves with those around us. Our possessions will lose their values and importance over time; our relationships with God and each other will continue and grow in importance to us forever.
We cannot serve both God and money. Our culture tries to resolve this by denying God and minimize our need to acknowledge God’s presence in ourselves and in those around us. As Catholics, we believe that we are “made in the image and likeness of God” and that God gave us the freedom to choose to build a relationship with God or to ignore God’s presence in our lives. How much of each do we do on a daily basis?
