Scripture Scribbles: September 21, 2025
the Gospel
Luke 16:1-13
Jesus said to his disciples,
"A rich man had a steward
who was reported to him for squandering his property.
He summoned him and said,
'What is this I hear about you?
Prepare a full account of your stewardship,
because you can no longer be my steward.'
The steward said to himself, 'What shall I do,
now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me?
I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg.
I know what I shall do so that,
when I am removed from the stewardship,
they may welcome me into their homes.'
He called in his master's debtors one by one.
To the first he said,
'How much do you owe my master?'
He replied, 'One hundred measures of olive oil.'
He said to him, 'Here is your promissory note.
Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.'
Then to another the steward said, 'And you, how much do you owe?'
He replied, 'One hundred kors of wheat.'
The steward said to him, 'Here is your promissory note;
write one for eighty.'
And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.
"For the children of this world
are more prudent in dealing with their own generation
than are the children of light.
I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth,
so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
The person who is trustworthy in very small matters
is also trustworthy in great ones;
and the person who is dishonest in very small matters
is also dishonest in great ones.
If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth,
who will trust you with true wealth?
If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another,
who will give you what is yours?
No servant can serve two masters.
He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and mammon."
the scribble
I believe this is probably a familiar Gospel for you, and if you’re like me, it’s a bit confusing. So I sit and ask: Lord give me your wisdom, give me ears to hear. I think about yesterday’s Gospel with the seeds and the sower and what strikes me is yesterday’s Gospel was followed up with an explanation, a clear breakdown of what Jesus was teaching. I’m not finding that in today’s, so I had to dig a little deeper. I had to find a few people much wiser than myself to break it down for me.
I’m going to start with the last line of this Gospel “you cannot serve both God and mammon.” Mammon = money… aha! We know this, we know we should not worship money, wealth, fame…. But do we live this out? Is God first in our lives? Is He at the center of all I do, think, say?
Am I raising my children to be concerned with worldly things, or spiritual things? The things of this world or the riches of Heaven?
Just this month I have experienced a huge life milestone. After almost 28 years of being home with my kids, I find us in an “empty nest.” I’m a bit surprised at how emotional it has been…I really thought I’d be a young mom with young kids forever. I thought I’d always have an “art cabinet” spilling out with construction paper, glue, glitter, scissors and play dough …. forever! Now, I can’t remember the last time I had play dough all over my table, chairs and floors. I thank God for the gift of the last 28 years and I am truly overwhelmingly grateful for those years. I do pray that my husband and I have instilled the importance of our faith. I realize this was not on our radar early on with our young family. Sure we were attending Mass on Sunday but we were missing a lot of the “Why’s.”
This parable made me think about my own “realization” that heaven was at hand. Like the steward realizing he was no longer going to be living his comfortable life with the Master. I needed to realize there is more to our life than our earthly existence. When I came to the realization that heaven was real, I began to understand that I needed to love better, pray better, and be generous with my time, talent and treasure. What if I started to do all these things, but! I didn’t share any of this information with my family? What if I kept it all to myself and never spoke about God or Heaven or Eternity? What if my husband and I told our kids that the most important thing on earth was their degree? What if we taught them that what made them important was where they went to school? Their job? Their 401k, or how the world views them?? What if this is the only message our kids learned from us? Then I have failed, we have truly failed them. I want them to wake up every day and remember that God made them on purpose for a purpose! That they are truly loved by us and most of all by God. That there is a Heaven and that we’re all invited to it, and if we don’t share and invite people to it, then we can’t build the kingdom of heaven and make it “crowded.”
We can’t serve both God and mammon…so let’s serve God, let’s share the Good News. Let’s teach our kids about spiritual wealth, let’s focus on our Heavenly future, let’s make investments for our eternity.
This was the gist of my take away, I hope we will all be wise investors!
God bless you.
Today’s devotion was written by Beth Brennan
