Posts Tagged ‘Luke 16:9-15’
Money and the Freedom of Jesus – Br. Keith Nelson
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This lectionary excerpt begins with the tail-end of a parable unique to Luke that is fairly universally acknowledged to be one of his most baffling parables, called the parable of the dishonest manager. It’s one of those passages that makes a preacher pray: “Oh, Jesus…what do you mean here?” What follows is a series of short teachings strung together that further elucidate Jesus’ teachings on our relationship with money – already, of course, an intrinsically challenging subject for many.
The point seems to be that money – of all the things human culture deems necessary – most easily becomes dishonest or unrighteous if its use is not channeled and directed by our ultimate allegiance to God, to whom all things belong. This spiritual allegiance relativizes the value of money, knocking it from its pedestal as a would-be master over us.
Jesus calls us into a perspective which offers freedom. When we have access to plenty, this is the freedom to be generous for the sake of good. When we have access to less, this is freedom from incapacitating worry. Read More
Mammon – Br. Jonathan Maury
Romans 16:3-9, 16, 22-27; Psalm 145:1-7; Luke 16:9-15
Luke’s Jesus speaks about money a great deal; or perhaps more precisely about possessions and the money or wealth which make them ours. Of course, these things—wealth, money, possessions—have but one original source: the generosity of the God who brought all things into being.
As Br Geoffrey so rightly made clear in his homily yesterday on Luke’s parable of the dishonest steward or manager, all things which we call ours—possessions, relationships, power—are given to us in trust. We are made stewards of all that we possess. We may receive them with an avaricious or selfish attitude and come to be possessed by them. Or we may come to realize that all we hold in trust is much better, more shrewdly or astutely, used for the building of community, for the nurture of a community in which God’s gifts to us—and the responsible sharing of them—create lasting well-being for all. Read More