My paraphrase of Luke 19:1-10 Jesus and Enron – would we be able to handle it?
Jesus entered Houston Texas, and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Kenneth Lay; he was the CEO of Enron and was wealthy. Jesus intrigued him; being an astute businessman he knew there must be something concrete about the Jesus buzz. He was incredibly late for the party where Jesus would appear; in shear desperation he grabbed his daughter’s scooter and raced to the function. When Jesus arrived at the entrance of the facility, he saw Kenneth on the scooter (sweating and wind blown) and said to him: “Kenneth, come down immediately, I must stay at your house today. He jumped of his super scooter and leaped up and down with excitement – he could not stop blabbering his thanks and joy – A fantastic meeting!
The people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a corrupted businessman, this is the man who weeks before his company filed for the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, touted the energy giant’s stock as an “incredible bargain” in a Web chat with his employees. He said to them: “My personal belief is that Enron stock is an incredible bargain at current prices, and we will look back a couple of years from now and see the great opportunity that we currently have,” THIS GUY IS SCUM! HOW CAN JESUS HANG OUT WITH HIM?
The people followed them, camera crews, journalists and reporters – it looked like the super bowl final! But Kenneth stood up and said to Jesus “You are Lord! Here and now I give half my possessions to the poor, and I will pay everyone that I cheated four times the amount I embezzled from them.”
Jesus, compassionately looked at him, “Today salvation has come to your life, you are a part of my family. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
How would you handle this scene?