Start with small stuff

You want a puppy. You've begged and bugged your parents and promised you'd take care of it, and it still hasn't worked. You don't know how to show that you'd do anything for a puppy!

Jesus would understand how much you want a dog. He saw people all the time who wanted something even bigger: to get into heaven. They promised everything they could to get what they wanted -- and in this week's Gospel (Luke 16:1-13), Jesus has some advice for them.

Jesus told this story: A man heard his servant was wasting his money and told the man he would lose his job. "What will I do?" the servant worried. He thought that everyone would help him if he helped them, so he called people who owed his master money. "What do you owe?" he asked, and then told them, "Now you only owe half." The master praised his servant for being smart. Like that servant," Jesus finished, "you won't be trusted with big things like going to heaven if you can't be trusted with small things like money now."

When you want a puppy, you'll promise anything: "I'll feed it and take it for walks and clean up after it, and I'll teach it to sit and fetch and do tricks. I'll even give it baths!"

The people Jesus met promised God everything. They said they'd go to church and not break laws, if only they got into heaven. The man in Jesus' story probably swore he'd be good when he got his job, too. Then he wasted money and almost lost that job!

If you got a dog, you probably couldn't do all the things you promised. You'd get tired of cleaning up after it and angry that it ran away from its bath. The man -- and Jesus followers -- found that out. They couldn't do everything right. The man had to help people to show he could be trusted again.

Like that, Jesus said we have to try to be good people if we want to be close to God. There's another lesson in that story, too: If you want a puppy, show that you can take care of what you already have. If your room is messy, clean it. If you have a fish, feed it. To earn big stuff, Jesus said, we have to work hard at small stuff!

PRAYER FOR THE WEEK: Jesus, help me to work for what I want. Amen!

(09-17-98) [[In-content Ad]]