Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
but what’s confusing you
Is just the nature of my game.
Mick Jagger could have had Jesus in mind when he wrote “Sympathy for the Devil.” At least he was probably inspired by Jesus’ parables. The one from today’s gospel is especially apt. Here we have a rich man who threatens to fire his steward for cheating him. Does the steward beg for forgiveness in order to keep his job? No, he ups his craftiness by discounting the debts of his master’s debtors in hopes they’ll remember his favor and take care of him once he’s out on the street. Did this scheme enrage his master when he found out? No. He was impressed! Respectful, even! As Jesus said, “the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.”
“The person who is trustworthy in small matters is also trustworthy in great ones and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.”
And because “the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation,” the master was moved by his servant’s trickery. He shook hands with the devil.
In our second reading, Paul tells Timothy whose hand we need to grasp: Christ, the mediator between God and man. After all, “God our savior wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.”
But as Jagger implies in his song, our generation would rather believe extravagant falsehoods.
Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
Cause I’m in need of some restraint.