Transforming Our Desires – Br. Lain Wilson
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 16:1-8
Today’s Gospel reading is an uncomfortable one for us to hear.
A trusted servant mishandles his master’s property. After being caught, he worries that he will have to labor or beg to support himself. So he plans to ingratiate himself with his master’s debtors, ensuring he will find a warm welcome after he departs his master’s service. And his master, perhaps acknowledging the clever scheme, commends his dishonest servant.
And Jesus commends this story to his disciples, and us: “the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”
It is uncomfortable to hear that we should be more like the dishonest manager. But if we strip away all the details of this story—the manager’s dishonesty, opportunism, and abuse of authority—what remains? A man finds himself in trouble, reflects on and names his desire, and works to achieve it. If you’ve ever set a goal for yourself, I’ll bet this script sounds familiar.
It would be easy to stop there and say that we as followers of Jesus should be more like the manager in finding opportunities amid challenges. But the details of this story remain, and they are uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, perhaps, because we see too much of the manager in ourselves. Uncomfortable, perhaps, because we recognize that although we strive to be children of light, we are often stuck being children of this world.
I think Jesus invites us not so much to find opportunities amid challenges as to own up to our inner manager—that part of us that is “set on earthly things”—and to desire to transform it.
What do you desire? A new job, a physical change, a vacation (or a silent retreat)? What do you desire? And in achieving it, what do you hope will change? Our desires often bespeak a more fundamental yearning for an inner transformation; that, in fulfilling them, we will be different. But after planning and sacrificing and maybe achieving our goals, how often do we find ourselves unchanged? The dishonest manager achieved security, but he remained dishonest. How uncomfortable to know that, even in fulfilling our desires, we remain, at our core, the same.
Or, maybe, how comforting to know that. How comforting to know that what we desire to become does not depend on our own efforts. We are not the manager, struggling alone to transform our circumstances. We are not alone. God is with us and, as Saint Paul assures us, God can change us: Christ “will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory.”
We learn from the children of this world to name our desires and to work to fulfill them, but to be children of light—to be agents of God’s kingdom on earth—we must be in conversation with God. Rather than, “what do I desire,” ask God, “what do you desire for me?” Rather than, “how can I change myself,” ask God, “how can I be open to you changing me?” Bring your desires to God, and bring God into your desires, and take comfort knowing that God will transform them, and you.
Amen.
Br. Lain, you have done not only your readers but the world of Biblical criticism a great service in drawing out the ‘moral’ of this story from its own process rather than foisting on it some scheme of your own making. Thank you! I’ve always wondered why this parable seems to invite bizarre exegesis. I suspect it’s because it’s about wealth (you know, that god in whom we trust, as it says right on our money…..) and our crazy belief that ‘our’ wealth simply belongs to us, not God – and because it forces us to compare ourselves with another of Luke’s memorable crooks. Your reflection that it is also about management and change is challenging.
In fact, as the story makes perfectly clear, we are ALL in the crook’s position: having the use of someone else’s wealth, having used it dishonestly in all kinds of ways, and facing the need to account for our stewardship of it when we turn in OUR time-card. As we all approach our own ‘departure’, the need to ‘make friends’ with those who will control our own future state should be right up front in every decision about how to use wealth. Shouldn’t every such decision consider whether it will help or hinder our own welcome into the ‘right’ ‘eternal habitations’? Scary thought – but Luke makes no apologies for his celestial accounting protocols. Maybe we need to take them more seriously ourselves.
It might also be noted that the means that even a crook uses to assure a future ‘welcome’ among these ‘friends’ is GENEROSITY (even in its ‘alternate’ form: bribery) with the resources at his disposal. He shares out his master’s wealth so as to insure his own ‘welcome’ into a future home – isn’t that ‘wisdom’ for the rest of us crooks, so prone to forget that EVERYTHING we have to share belongs to a master who is generous to even the likes of us?
Br. Lain: Sobering thought: ‘even in fulfilling our desires, we remain, at our core, the same.’ I hadn’t looked at this parable like that before – in being dishonest he saved his physical self and secured his earthly future – but at his core he was still dishonest – and operating against God’s desire for him. What an insightful exegesis. Thank you for this. I will be thinking about it all day. Elizabeth Hardy+
Is it wrong to steal if your children are starving? What if you’re just covetous? Jesus chooses a dilemma somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, to get us to think about circumstances.
Yes, we need God’s guidance, not moral platitudes.
Thank you Brother for this wonderful reassuring message. I am now closer to God than I have ever been all my life and what a wonderful way of being. I’m excited and a little nervous of what God has in store for me but I, like so many believers that have gone before me, have faith that God will strengthen and transform me for the road ahead, whatever is asked of me and whatever comes before me. I HAVE FAITH! My faith in God is strong and unwavering. Thank again Brother Lain Wilson for speaking truth.
Very helpful to me to be reminded that I need God-help, not self-help