Which 'Wolf' Do We Feed?

September 21, 2025

Today’s Gospel reading is often called the most difficult parable of Jesus, as it troubles many that  Jesus ends up praising the cunning and dishonest manager when he says, ‘The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly’. 

But considering everything that we know about Jesus’ teachings in the rest of the Gospels, does that seem likely? So then, how do we understand this passage?   First of all we need to remember that this is a parable, and not an allegory, which means that the teaching message is the focus, and not every element in the story is meant to represent something.  

In the parable, the dishonest manager, realising that he was on his way out, decides to use whatever intelligence and cunning he had, to ensure that he would still survive in this world, once he was thrown out of his job.  And, of course, the master in the parable   (who  is not allegorically meant to represent God or Jesus), who belongs to the same world where making a rich and comfortable living was the goal, while surely not approving the means used, was still able to appreciate the shrewdness of his dishonest manager.

There are a number of conclusions that Jesus draws out of this parable.  First of all, he points out that ‘the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light’.  In other words, Jesus bemoans the fact that people who are trying to make it in this world, are often more industrious and shrewd than those who claim to work towards making it in the Kingdom of heaven. Jesus, the one who demanded that one should be honest in everything one says, and not only when one swears before God  (Mathew 5;33-37) is obviously not asking us to be fraudulent here , but rather just comparing how people who work towards finding and accumulating wealth seem to be more committed towards that goal, than people working towards the kingdom of God. And when Jesus continues: “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings”,  he is not promoting the concept of buying our way into the Kingdom. Rather, he is trying to teach that just like these ‘worldly’ people use all that they have (time, talents, intelligence etc) to accumulate wealth and make their lives in this world better, we too, his disciples,  should also use whatever we have (whatever the few resources we have) to ‘love our neighbour’  (his primary commandment), for it is that which will help us gain entry into the Kingdom  (Mathew 25:31-46) .  Carrying on the teaching, Jesus goes on to point out that “if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?” - which basically means that if we cannot be trusted to use the little resources that we do have to make the Kingdom come about, then why would God want to entrust us with greater graces or rewards ? 

So, the question for us today is which ‘world’ are we trying to nourish ? - a question that is highlighted at the end of today’s Gospel with the much quoted teaching of Jesus: ‘You cannot serve both God and money’. This obviously does not mean one cannot or should not earn money, but it does mean that one can serve only one ultimate goal, and we have to decide what that goal is? There is an old Native American story that explores a similar theme:

An old Cherokee was teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

That really is the point of Jesus’ admonition that one cannot serve both God and money. ‘God’ here is representative of everything that works towards the ushering in of the Kingdom, and ‘money’ (often called Mammon, in many translations) stands for everything that competes for attention with this ‘God’. And therefore we need to look at our choices all through life, and ask ourselves, Which wolf are we feeding; which world are we nourishing? Of course, only we can honestly answer this question for ourselves, for only we know what choices we have made and in which direction the preponderance of our choices have been slanted towards. But it is perhaps misguided to think that we can choose to nourish one type of world for most of our life, and then,close to the end of our lives, choose to change the world we want to nourish - and so we really don’t have to stress ourselves from having to choose now.  For the world we choose to nourish, like a world of sinking sand,  has the power to suck us in, so that increasingly, we lose the freedom to choose differently, for by then we have too much to lose. 

First Reading: Amos 8: 4-7

Hear this, you who trample the needy    
and do away with the poor of the land, saying,
“When will the New Moon be over

    that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended
    that we may market wheat?”—
skimping on the measure,
    boosting the price
    and cheating with dishonest scales,
buying the poor with silver

    and the needy for a pair of sandals,
    selling even the sweepings with the wheat.
The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.

 Second Reading: First Timothy 2: 1-8

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.  This is good, and pleases God our Savior,  who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.  For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,  who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. 7 And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.

Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing.

Gospel: Luke 16: 1-13

 Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions.  So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

“The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg—  I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

“So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

“‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.

“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

“Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied.

“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.  I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.  So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?  And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”