George Marsh sent this reflection and I’m posting it here for him: “I experienced cognitive dissonance meditating on this passage, which seems to conclude with verses 10-12. An adroit if dishonest servant (steward) is given faint praise by Jesus, who then challenges his disciples, asking, “If you then cannot be trusted with money, that tainted thing, who will trust you with genuine riches?” I think that genuine riches are the graces that God gives. The closing line we all remember: “You cannot be the slave of both God and money.” I like to think that without being a slave to money, I could still have and save money for good purposes. As George Bailey said to angel second-class Clarence in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” money comes in handy on earth. But, in my opinion, Jesus makes this point: money is very important, just as family was very important to the people of his time. But nothing is more important than our fidelity to God. God gave God’s self to us, and in response we have the grace to be God’s slaves. God emptied God’s self to become human, taking on the nature of a slave, wrote Paul.”
