Year C
Season after Pentecost
Proper 20 (25)
What I Am Learning
This week’s gospel reading is one of Jesus’ strangest parables. A manager is about to be fired for squandering his master’s property. Before he loses his position, he reduces the debts owed by several of his master’s clients. By doing this, he hopes they’ll welcome him into their homes once he’s unemployed. Surprisingly, Jesus praises the man’s shrewdness.
First Century Culture?
In the first-century world, landowners often exploited peasants through impossible debts. The manager’s last-minute reductions may not have hurt the master at all—some scholars believe he simply cut out his own commission. Whatever the details, Jesus admires his creativity and urgency. He then drives the point home: use your wealth in ways that build relationship and trust, because you cannot serve both God and money.
Within Jewish Tradition
This teaching reflects a long thread in Israel’s Scriptures: money and possessions are not ultimate. The Torah called for debt release every seventh year (Deuteronomy 15), and the prophets condemned exploitation of the poor. Jesus is not rejecting Judaism; he is amplifying its vision of economic justice and communal responsibility.
The Challenge Now
We live in a culture that treats money as the ultimate measure of success. Christian Nationalism often sanctifies wealth and power as signs of God’s blessing. Yet progressive Christians can be just as captive to consumerism or to pride in how ethically we spend our money. Jesus insists that wealth is never ultimate. It is a tool, meant to serve trust, relationship, and justice.
The Challenge Now
We live in a culture that treats money as the ultimate measure of success. Our politics often bend toward wealth, and even churches can be tempted to chase security over mission. Christian Nationalism, at its core, often wraps itself in both religious and economic privilege. But Jesus points us another way: wealth is a tool, not a master. It is meant to build trust, restore relationships, and serve the common good.
Implications for Leaders & Communities
This parable pressed households and leaders to consider whether wealth was being used to build relationships or entrench power. In our time, the same question applies: are leaders and communities organizing their resources to strengthen trust and justice, or are they serving wealth as an idol? The health of our civic and congregational life depends on treating money as a servant, not a master.
What I Am Learning is that Jesus calls me to pay attention to how I use what I’ve been given. Am I hoarding resources for myself, or am I putting them in service of relationships that reflect God’s justice and mercy?
The question I’m sitting with:
How can I use what I have—money, time, or influence—to build trust and belonging, rather than letting those things become my master?
