NOTES for Luk 16:10-15

"You cannot serve two masters" - what is this about? The body? The world? The love of money? And most important: if one cannot serve two masters, how can one live at all in a world that, as we know from the same Gospel, "lies in evil"? What is to be done? Run from the world, flee into the desert, as monks, hermits, and desert dwellers have done in every age?

But is that really a way out? Even in the desert and in the forest one will have to think about feeding oneself somehow, at least minimally. And there this may prove even more difficult than in the city. Nor is food the only issue; the matter is one of principle: if one cannot serve two masters, then one also cannot live by the laws of the world in which we live. Wherever you run, it is still with you, because any one of us is part of it, and the evil in which it lies has to do with us.

But if the Kingdom exists, if it has already entered our world in order to transform it, then not everything is lost. If there is an alternative, then it is possible to live in this world without submitting to it, to live according to the laws of the Kingdom and not be divided, not serve two masters. Of course, it is not easy to live this way, but in principle such a life is possible. And this means that there is an alternative to the world that lies in evil. The main thing is to find it, and, once found, not to lose it.