Iron & Altar

"For our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior." - Philippians 3:20

The steward in tonight's parable is a genuinely dishonest man, caught squandering his master's property, and his response to getting fired is to call in his master's debtors and quietly cut their bills, buying himself friends before the door closes on him for good. Jesus does not praise the dishonesty. He praises the shrewdness: the children of this age, he says, are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.

That's a hard compliment to sit with, brother, because it's aimed at us. A dishonest man used every hour he had left, once he knew his time was short, to secure something for what came after. Most men who claim to believe their time is short live as though they have decades to get around to what actually matters. The steward's math was corrupt. His urgency was not.

Paul's first reading gives the citizenship a steward is actually managing his account toward: not this age's economy at all, but heaven, from which we await a savior who will change our lowly body to conform to his glorified body. A man who genuinely believed that would use his remaining hours the way the dishonest steward used his - not to build one more thing that won't last, but to secure, urgently, what actually will.

Ask honestly: if you knew your time here was shorter than you assume, what would you actually do differently this week? Do one of those things, starting tonight.

Lord, the dishonest steward used his last hours better than I've used mine. Give me his urgency without his dishonesty, and make heaven the citizenship I actually manage toward. Amen.