West End Umc Video Podcast Audio Podcast

A Shrewd Investment – Today’s scripture is a scene from Luke wherein Jesus tells his disciples a parable about a rich man who finds out that his manager has been squandering his property and confronts that manager, This parable can evoke questions and can be confusing because the manager, to save himself, does some things we might have expected from someone who is conniving and not honest. It can be puzzling that Jesus would have told this example of the rich and dishonest to his listeners who were likely not wealthy. The manager is clearly looking out for himself, and perhaps Jesus is encouraging his followers to be creative and clever in the economy of God, where, in Luke’s gospel, there is an emphasis that the last shall be first. Is Jesus encouraging us to cancel debts and exhibit forgiveness and grace creatively where people who have been pushed out are, by our creativity and cleverness, pulled in and embraced? Carol offers some real-life examples of people who used shrewdness to advance faith and fu