Monday, September 24, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 16:1-6, 8

The 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 that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me in 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 you bill, sit quickly, and make it fifty.’ … And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly ….”

Prayer

So quickly I identify with the dishonest steward, Jesus. The reason is as immediate and inescapable as my own body. I am well familiar with the rush of anxiety streaming through his veins as I scramble to fulfill what of this ministry I am capable, much of the time carefully calculating what is required for survival.

Yet my love of you does not wane, and it will not. I dwell in the knowing smile that crosses your face as I survey the jumbled clamor of my service. I bump and jolt along from one emergency to the next, one tight deadline to an impossible one, one improvisation to another, one struggling heart to the pains of others, and so it goes.

On I go, with little more than my wits, a smattering of knowledge and a smidgen of experience--and your love that refuses to let me go. You smile on my efforts even as I have smiled at the stumbling first steps of my grandsons. I understand them. My lurching about in your service, Jesus, is little different from their maturing efforts, only they learn more quickly than I do.

But if you can show kindness to the despicable who shrewdly seek to serve your glory—even while protecting themselves, then may your face continue to shine on me. And grant assurance that even my jumbled efforts please and serve the intention of love in which you hold all that is.

Pr. David L. Miller