Have We No Shame?

Gospel: Luke 16: 1-8

We find a manager who has been found wanting by his employer and is to be dismissed.  This man has swindled his employer, is lazy, and now at an age where he is unable to find gainful employment.  So, before his dismissal, he sets about to forgive the debts of those, who owe money to the owner in the hopes that they will receive him into their help and provide for him when the day of destitution comes.  The manager shows mercy purely out of self-interest, not out of any altruistic motive.

Jesus provides this story to us in order to point out that such acts of help to others are fairly common in the world.  They are done out of selfish motives and not for any other reason.  Jesus notes that children of the light - those claiming belief in God and discipleship with Jesus, have many better motives for doing good - love, mercy, and the like - and yet we do not do so.  We are, in fact, worse than the worldly in our extension of mercy to others.  

Jesus attempts to shame us toward a life of love and mercy.  But the modern Christian proves difficult to shame.  When all the things offered to Jesus by Satan are readily embraced and then packaged as Christianity, one is utterly blind to all the words and deeds of Jesus that were all about love and mercy for others.  Yet maybe, just maybe, the Spirit can break through our hardened hearts and restore us once again to what we are called to be.