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 tahat, 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.

 

This is one of those puzzling parables where it seems like Jesus is endorsing bad deeds. Let me retell you this story briefly. There was a manager who was dishonest. He spent money that didn’t belong to him. His boss found out about it and demanded an accounting. Knowing that his crime would be discovered and he would be out of a job, he begins ingratiating himself to his debtors so that — pay attention here — they would welcome him into their homes. So he calls in the debtors and discounts all their IOUs. They have 20-30% shaved off their bills.

 

There are many implications here, but we don’t have the time to go into them. It’s enough to say he was dishonest. Now his master checks the books and discovers what the manager has done, but he can’t really do anything, either to the manager or to the debtors, because he will only embarrass himself. All he could do was, possibly, fire the manager. Therefore, he grudgingly praises the manager for his shrewdness. It’s like one con artist praising another con artist for a better con. 

 

Then Jesus says that “the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light”. However, he is not praising them. He is making the point that worldly people do so much to secure their future, but people of the light don’t. And we can see the truth of this all around us, can’t we? We expend so much of time and energy in securing things that don’t last, but hardly do anything to secure our future in the life beyond. 

 

And then Jesus makes the statement that confuses many. He says; “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.” What? Strange, ya? But if you translate “dishonest wealth” as “worldly wealth”, which a lot of translators have done, it makes more sense. But how do we make friends in heaven by using wealth? Do you know the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus? (See Luke 16:19-31). The moral of that story suggests we use our money to help the poor. If we do, we will have friends in heaven when we reach there.

 

As Scripture says: “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and will be repaid in full” (Proverbs 19:17). Something to think about today.

 

Watch a video of this reflection by Aneel Aranha here:https://youtu.be/bx5y3hAGoQM











 

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