Friday of the Thirty-First Week in Ordinary Time, Year II. Phil. 3:17-4:1; Luke16:1-8
I once listened to a song by Lucky Dube – ‘The Way it is!’ The lyrics of the chorus went something like, “Be good to the people on your way up the ladder, ‘cos you’ll need them on the way down…” Can’t say I don’t agree. Life is full of ups and downs. And just because you’re high up today doesn’t mean you won’t come back down someday. In the gospel reading of today, one crafty steward, aware that he’ll soon lose his high seat of favour, decides to slash the debts of his master’s debtors as a ‘retirement’ plan. The master came to know about it, and praised the servant for his cunning.
Friends, the master does not praise the steward for his dishonesty (in fact, he was about to lose his job because of it). He is praised for his ‘craftiness’ in dealing with his own kind. Why? Because he knew exactly what to do to secure his material future even after he would have been sacked. Why does Jesus bring up this parable? Simply because he wished that we would take spiritual matters more seriously than we take our earthly concerns. Can’t we determinedly plan towards our salvation, the same way we do with our earthly aspirations? St. Paul reminds us in the first reading, that our homeland is in heaven. What does it profit us if we gained the world and lost our souls?
God bless your weekend ahead.
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