The Urgency of the Reign
Friday: 31st week in Ordinary Time
Rom 15: 14-21; Lk 16: 1-8
Jesus may be slightly intriguing in today's Gospel, if he is justifying the shrewdness of the steward or approving of his lies. The point that Jesus is bringing forth is completely different. He wants us to realise how efficiently and time consciously the evil doers proceed with their affairs, while those who are committed to the cause of the Reign, find themselves taking their own sweet time, hesitating, calculating, planning endlessly, creating support systems that can help on a difficult day, building defence faculties, devising and revising strategies and so on and so forth!
St. Paul is given as our model today: a man with an urgency to make Christ known and with a compelling clarity as to what was his task: to take Christ to those who didnt know Christ. The Urgency of the Reign comes from these three factors: Clarity of our task; Conviction that I have but a short time; and a Commitment unto death.