“No one can serve two masters; you cannot serve God and wealth.” That’s the conclusion of today’s gospel. And if our reading and interpretation of the story that Jesus tells doesn’t move us in that direction, then maybe we’ve missed the point. Which is why today’s parable often confuses us. We hear the manager labelled as dishonest, we see the way he breaks the rules and fiddles the accounts. Then we find it jarring to hear the dishonest manager praised by both the rich man in the story and then again by Jesus in his concluding remarks. What’s going on here? Most people call this the parable of the dishonest manager. The author and preacher Brian McLaren suggests that a better title wou
The movement from resentment to joy is one of the most profound and necessary conversions of the spiritual life. Of any life. Resentment is the feeling that something is unfair, it is a paralyzing litany of complaints about the people and situations that surround us. It makes us frustrated and angry. But it’s an anger that is turned inward, that expresses itself not in outbursts, but in a deep feeling that life has let us down. It leads us to judge others, it makes relationships and community life difficult. Resentment is a thief which robs us of joy. And as Henri Nouwen points out, some people are more susceptible to resentment than others. “It is the curse of the faithful, the virtu
We live in a world of competing demands, and for the most part, we’re pretty good at it. We are, after all, the multi-tasking generation. We can watch Netflix, chat on Facetime and do schoolwork all at the same time. And it’s a good thing that we know how to multi-task, because there are a lot of claims on our lives. School. Our family. Our love-life. Work, friends, finances, health, we want it all, and we’re figuring out how to manage it all. We balance our competing interests, we negotiate, we compromise, we make adjustments. We have time-management techniques and life hacks to help us hold it all together. But when a push comes to a shove, when the moment of crisis comes, when mult