Money may not buy love or happiness, but it does make life a whole lot easier. We live in uncertain economic times. Both readings deal with the same issue; a man is facing trouble due to  his poor work performance in frittering away resources, and the folks in Jeremiah are facing ruin through no fault of their own. This passage follows on Lukan concern for dealing with possessions in the gospel and in Acts. It directly follows the great story of the two brothers in one being prodigal in squandering possessions.

 

In the story, the dishonest manager decides to ingratiate himself to debtors to the owner in order to try protect what's left of his future. When apprised of the situation, the owner looks like he will will get something, instead of nothing, but he praises the shrewdness of the manager now in a very tight spot. Is Jesus condoning dishonesty in economic dealings? Even if Jesus may have a soft spot for rogues,like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, No. this is a heightened story to elicit comparison.These are big amounts, as Jesus likes to play with large sums to get the attention and imagination of his listeners, mostly poor struggling listeners. Could he have eliminated the religiously illegal interest (Dt. 23:19-20) or was he merely cutting arbitrarily? The big boss calls him dishonest/unrighteous,but now the steward is praised for his ingenuity.

 

Culpepper sees this as Jesus saying to cast caution aside, seize a moment of opportunity, make provisions for the future (kingdom of god?) Mammon is an Aramaic word for money. Use mammon don't fall in love with it-it is still less of a friend than God. Mammon to me is not only cash but our whole relationship to it. The trouble is we do fall in love with mammon. Is being faithful with material wealth-faithful in spiritual wealth? we do believe that we make building blocks of virtue, from small projects to larger ones. Does Jesus mean that alms-giving will make future friends? More likely, he means that how we use our money will make friends with God. think of how we give memorial funds to worthy causes. Jesus sees money as of far lesser concern that moral life, the opposite of what many, if not most of us, think, or at least how we behave with time and attention. Craddock highlights it not christening a ship but cup of cold water-write a book-write a note

 

Another way to approach this is to say that if we spent just a fraction of the time for god that we do over finances and shopping, how would it affect the quality of our souls? What if we followed God more eagerly than success?Money gets our loyalty and attention- mammon and business models in church.We have all of these panels on the wall (at Kingston) to remember people from years ago, and most of them don't mention money. We see Mammon's power in the change from WWII when we spoke of shared sacrifice to our current situation where the casualties of war are the sole sacrifice. the truth is that almost all of us are torn between attachments to spiritual riches and the lure of the love of money.

 

Is there balm in Gilead? Why not here?-Merthiolate-Money troubles are painful and worrisome. It is exceedingly difficult to tell if the prophet alone or with God is in such pathos. Money is one of our favorite balms for woe. We even have a phrase, retail therapy. Who doesn't like a treat sometime, even the most frugal among us? Life with God can ease the pain of a sin-sick soul, a broken heart, a tired body. God can even heal our relationship, our life-long torture love affair with money.