Proper 20C (Luke 16:1-13)  09-19-2010

A few years ago when my family and I moved from the Chicago area to the suburbs of Washington, DC, we quickly realized that the traffic was going to give us an opportunity to practice our patience and we also realized that an early start on the morning commute would be a necessity. Because the traffic was also unpredictable, an early start often meant an early arrival at the seminary, so I became a regular at the Student Lounge. Like many of the commuter students who frequented this convenient gathering place, I became familiar with the bad coffee, the uncomfortable furniture and the dismal gray walls. And because we were quite certain that the traffic was not going to end any time soon, we decided that we should make some changes to the lounge so our time there was more pleasant. A few pillows on the furniture and some good scrubbing on the coffee machines made a big difference, but those dismal gray walls were still very depressing. We thought a cheerful yellow paint would make a great difference on everyone’s attitude. We assumed that painting the lounge would require someone’s permission, so we asked several school officials for the name of the person in charge of the lounge. In every case the answer was the same: I don’t know who is in charge of the lounge. After an unsuccessful search for the person in charge, we finally decided to do the only reasonable thing: we bought some paint and woke up early one morning to quietly paint the lounge before anyone discovered our plan. With paint and brushes in hand, we prepared the room, covered the furniture and were only minutes from starting when the Manager of the book store came in to the lounge and told us that one of the school officials had heard we might be painting and she wanted to see us in her office right away. With only minutes to creatively save our plan, we quickly painted the smallest wall in the lounge. With a bad feeling about our future, we headed up the hill to explain our secret painting project.

The property manager in our Gospel lesson had a bad feeling about his future as well – called to the master’s house to give an accounting of his actions. Continue reading →