September 22, Checkered: a Sunday Scriptures blog

“And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” This Sunday’s Gospel is a jumble of practical wisdom including this lesson about the servant who, when fired, managed to turn things to his own advantage. Indeed, we do have to deal with our own generation. Our world, like that of Jesus, is a checkered one. We seldom get to choose perfect good; usually we must choose a good that has some bad in it. We have ideals but we find that it is not possible to meet them perfectly. In our work environments we encounter things and people that are harmful in some way to our environment, our communities and us, and we cannot get things changed — but we need the job, so we have to figure out how to survive. Our taxes pay for lots of good stuff and also for things we don’t like. It takes shrewdness to be and behave and work in a way that preserves our sense of integrity in the real world, a world Jesus described as like a field where the wheat and weeds grow together. The point of the story of the dishonest steward is not to become dishonest; it is to put our minds to the task of bringing the best possible good out of the messiness of our daily lives, dealing with people as they are, “our own generation.”

– Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia

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