“The children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.”
This is the last verse in today’s reading from the gospel of Luke. How true this is for many of us. We know how to conduct ourselves in our business affairs, but seem quite at a loss sometimes on how to actually handle our faith in real life. Yes, we go to mass, receive communion, go to confession, observe all the holy days of obligations and precepts of the church. We pray the rosary, read our bibles, contribute our time, talent or treasure to the church but we don’t seem to be very comfortable sometimes with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Yes, we do worship together. We see each other at church functions and volunteer together in many of the church’s ministries. However, is there really a connection there? Or is it a superficial connection?
Jesus is trying to teach us something very important in the parable about the dishonest steward in today’s gospel. The meaning of this parable is a bit allusive, like many of the other parables are too though. Perhaps Christ meant it to be this way, because it makes you think about how it might actually apply in your own life.
One way of looking at this parable today is that the dishonest steward lived superficially most of his life. His immediate concerns were the most important thing to him. He had a comfortable life, with all his needs taken care of. Why should he care very much about the people he served, or his master for that matter? He already had a good life and things were humming along smoothly.
However, when the rich man confronted his steward and demanded an accounting of his property and told him he was fired, that threw a wrench in the gears of the dishonest steward’s life. His life came to a screeching halt. It was only then that the dishonest steward realized he was in pretty dire straights. Without his job, who actually cared about him? That’s a good place for us to stop for a moment, and think about this as well. If we no longer had our jobs, would the people we know still care about us, and want to be a part of our lives? How many former coworkers or classmates do we actually stay in contact with?
Sometimes people who worked hard on their jobs all their lives retire and then find out there is a great big, gaping hole in their life. They have a lot less social contacts than before. Suddenly, all the people they used to care about at work are not there anymore. Their children grew up and left home and although most people do spend some time with their grandchildren, there is still an empty place in their lives. It gets a whole lot worse after the death of a spouse. Women often spend their lives devoted to caring for their husband and children and then the last 20 years of their lives, they may find themselves entirely alone. Adult children have to work and the grandchildren have lots of activities they are involved in so they do not have very much time to visit. And, it happens pretty often that your family may move a great distance away and have trouble finding the time and money to visit you.
Retirees may wonder, what am I going to do now? And that is the same question that the dishonest steward asked himself in today’s gospel. All of a sudden, the people he was involved with on a day to day basis, suddenly became important to him. He looked ahead and visualized what the rest of his life looked like, and then did something about it. He took steps to make sure he became everyone’s friend overnight, so when he lost his job, he wouldn’t be alone and without resources. He would always be welcome in these people’s homes, for dinner or to “network” for another job.
Jesus praised the dishonest steward because he recognized the condition of his life and took prompt action to take care of it and secure his future. That might be why Jesus said, “the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of the light.”
Have we stopped to realize that the way that we are currently living our life will not go on forever? No matter who you are, life never stays the same. We can get comfortable and go through long periods in life where everything remains pretty much the same, but it might not hurt to realize that this isn’t going to last forever.
If you lost your job, or your spouse died, and the rest of your family or children moved away, what would be left? Hopefully, our faith in God is forever, but there is also a great big extended family who Christ calls “the children of the light”. Today might be a good day to think about making some genuine connections with our brothers and sisters in your faith community. We will never be alone then, no matter what the future may bring. God is our Father, Jesus is our friend and brother, but our brothers and sisters in Christ travel with us as a family too, the rest of our life, and will also be with us in our eternal life as well.
Daily Mass Readings:
Philippians 3: 17-4:1 / Ps 112 / Lk 16: 1-8
