The last lines of today’s gospel reading (Luke 16:10-13) are difficult. We are told a servant cannot serve two masters. This is difficult because we know we must. Of course, Jesus wants us to serve God, we know that. We also know that if we are in the workforce, our supervisor, boss, the company, also expect that we will serve them. If we work with people in any type of service industry, those people, be they customers, clients, patients, expect us to serve them as well. Often our family and friends will have similar expectations.
We read these lines and wonder how we can avoid the need of meeting the expectations of more than the One. We wonder how we can live up to what is seems that Jesus is saying. Maybe there is a underlying message and answer to our dilemma. If we place the Divine as Number One in our lives and do what God expects (Love God, love your neighbors as yourself), perhaps we will be serving all who expect our service. If we go about our days doing what we can to help others, whether they are our supervisors, bosses, the company, the customers, clients, patients, family, or friends, we will be living with one Divine master. We may then find that everything else may very well fall into place.