Saint Paul did not do cold calls. You know the type: someone shows up at your door, unexpected and unannounced — politicians running for office, Mormon missionaries, or a cookie salesperson. In this age of universal cell phones, we suffer a glut of cold calls/robocalls.

On his three missionary journeys, the Apostle to the Gentiles had never visited the Christian community in Rome, the capital of the Empire and its largest city. He hoped to make such a trip, so he wrote to ‘prepare the soil’ for his eventual arrival to plant his personal message of the Good News. This very long letter is his only one to a community he had not personally founded and then nurtured with letters after moving on. Writing this epistle, Paul wants to share with great care details of his current preaching throughout Asia and Greece (Romans 6:12-18).

Jesus’ parable today (Luke 12:39-48) is shorter than the selection from Saint Paul, but it clearly lays out our choice: be a faithful and prudent steward, living and sharing God’s life of goodness, kindness, joy, and love, or choose the life of a bad steward, conniving, selfish, and cruel. The Lord concludes with the admonishment that when we have been entrusted with much as stewards, much will be demanded of us.

Begin a list of some of God’s gifts entrusted to us: God gave us his only Son, to share our humanity. That Son lived and died among us, suffering for our sins, dying on the cross, and rising from the dead in three days. Our Savior’s Holy Body and Blood in the Eucharist is the most incredible legacy entrusted to us. Now let us start on our list of responses to God’s goodness……Whew! Good thing, there is still time to work on our answer!

Let us pray:

Dear God, help us see clearly all you have given us. May we be good stewards of all your gifts, especially the great and never-ending bounty of the Holy Eucharist! Amen.