Written by Jonathan Melton
Luke 16:3 (NRSV) 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.”
Reading Luke’s lesson today, I hear foreshadowing of what Paul will refer to as Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation. After all, the power of the gospel is not measured in status achieved over others but in hostilities extinguished and friendships restored. Ironically, the manager in our story discovers this power when he loses his position.
As a campus minister at a public university, I ask the students questions about what they love about Jesus. I ask these questions because there is no obvious advantage for these students to have public identities as Christians. Perhaps once upon a time, church membership yielded professional gain, but that privilege no longer exists. Today’s students can be thought of as socially respectable without being good, church-going folk.
What motivates us to be loud and proud Jesus people? What you know will save you, but who you know (outside of Jesus) won’t. The question for today is the same that the manager asks: “What will I do now?”
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