Making Friends

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” Luke 16:1-9

Loving Creator and source of wisdom

we try to shut out the world's horrors

and ache for a simpler calmer time

yet you call us to be in the world now.

We judge the world's cruelty as not ours

though we are truly a part of it all

we pretend we are above the chaos

yet we have caused great pain and hurt.

You told your disciples to be shrewd

to pay attention to the ways of this world

for we are call to witness and to understand

the foolishness in every part of history.

Help us to be wise in these times

make us rise to the challenges of the day

let us be your servants in all things

so your peace might break forth today. Amen.