Money is supposed to be a means to an end. This manager treated money like it should be treated. When the owner came in to fire him, he had to admit the manager was smart to handle the situation that way.ĭoes that make more sense? It does for me.Īnd once you understand the story, the lesson about money becomes clear. Now, he had a good reputation in town and friends he could rely on.
Sign a new agreement that puts your payments toward principal.” He brought in another who had just started paying down a similar loan, and cut her interest in half. One worker was paying $75 twice a month to cover just the interest on a $500 loan. But he simultaneously realized that he was already in maximum trouble and had nothing to lose. The manager knew he would have a hard time getting another job in town, after cheating so many people and then getting fired for cause. He exploded in rage during a Zoom meeting: “You’re fired! I’m coming next week to get your final accounts, then you’re out!” Today you could compare the master to the truly wicked “payday loans” operations that prey on people desperate for money by demanding outrageous interest rates, and you could retell the story this way:Ī “payday loans” owner heard that the manager of one of his locations was wasting his money. Like ours, that economy was rife with corruption, as the First Reading makes clear, with merchants ready to mess with their measurements and manipulate their scales. Jesus tells a story about a “steward” who works for a rich master who is engaged in lending money in an agricultural society where his clients pay him in wheat and olive oil. To grasp what the parable means, let’s start by retelling it in modern terms. You know it is hard to grasp because Jesus has to explain what it means, and he draws several lessons from it, especially a lesson about money and a lesson about our task as disciples.
But now we get a lesson we have to ponder - the Parable of the Shrewd Steward - for the 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C. In last Sunday’s Gospel, he told us complicated lessons in a simple way in the Parables of the Lost Sheep, Lost Coin and Prodigal Son. But the greatest teachers also give you lessons that you have to sit with and ponder, because the lessons you personally discover sink even more deeply into your soul. Great teachers make difficult things simple so that you can understand them right away.
0 kommentar(er)
