Today's gospel reminds me of a story I read about a young boy.?He joined the Israeli army and, after his training, etc, he was assigned to a tank division at the Israeli Syria border.?He had only been working for one week when he went to his commanding officer and asked for a leave, time off.?The commanding officer started laughing and then said to him, " You want a time off??You just got here.?Ok I'll give you a time off, but on one condition, you have to capture a Syrian tank."
"No problem," said the young boy.?Later on that afternoon, a Syrian tank waiving a white flag pulled into the
"Simple," said the soldier, "I drove to the DMZ in one of our tanks, saw a Syrian soldier on one of the tanks.?I asked him if he wanted a weekend pass.?He said, 'sure' so we switched tanks."
Another story about two salesmen, Harry and Dave.?Harry saw Dave walking down the street and said to him, "Dave, I have a great deal for you ! An elephant.?A whole elephant for you for $500.00
Dave said, " are you crazy??What am I going to do with an elephant?"?"Dave," said Harry,"This is a magnificent beast.?All
grey. Complete with a work trunk."?Then Dave said, "But I have no place to keep an elephant. I live in a small apartment." "Dave," said Harry, Did I tell you about the tusks??Two three foot long tusks.?This is a beautiful animal.?They don't make them like this anymore."?At this Dave went wild and started screaming," Look I live on the third floor, I couldn't feed the elephant.?I don't even want an elephant."?"You are a very hard man, Dave" says, Harry, ok, I'll throw in a second whole elephant for only a hundred bucks extra."?And Dave said, "Harry, now you a talking." It is amazing how descernment we can be when making business deals. Whether its buying a used car or selling a house, all of us learn how to get the most for our money.?This not something new.?It is part of human nature to the deal possible.?Jesus was aware of this.?The parable he told about the steward who had to think quick to get himself out of a financial problem. ?/span>
The Lord's point is that we often demonstrate our intelligence, but we don't apply this intelligence to the one thing that really matter: our eternal salvation.?Consider the number of times we've sat down and worked out how we can use our talents to be better Christian.?Consider the number of times we've thought out we con put ourselves in situations, which would avoid moral problems we've plotted out how we can implant the practice of our faith in our families.?If we were to add up the minutes spent a month doing this and compare them the minutes a month spent working out our financial deals, would there be any comparison at all? ?/span>
Christ tells us," You have the intelligence, use it.?Use it to fulfill the mission you assumed when I call you to be my disciples.?We must be as resourceful and dedicated in the way of God as we are in the ways of commerce and politics.?Jesus' parable challenges us to be a eager and ingenious for the sake of God's reign, to be as ready to use our time and money to accomplish great things for the Gospels as we are to secure our own happiness.?Some people, like those in the first reading from Amos have perfected how they can out smart others.?They cheat with their scales.?They inflate money.?That is not why God gave us intelligence.?He gave us intelligence to make his presence real in the world.?The cleverness, skill and plain nerve that the manager used to serve his skin, and that the soldier used to serve a weekend pass, and that Dave used to get a good deal from Harry, we must use to make God's ways real in our world.?Today we ask the Lord to help us to ingenuity, in good quality, cleverness, in our life to promote his Kingdom.??/span>