The master commended the dishonest steward for his prudence.
Now, that’s just wrong. That is our first response – and the response Jesus is looking for among the ones to whom He tells today’s strange and confusing parable. We start with a crook – a steward caught ripping off his employer – and he ends up a hero? What could Jesus possibly be trying to convey?
Our protagonist, the steward, is not exactly sympathetic, but we have clue to his motivation when he says: I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. Too soft, too old, too weak to earn an honest living by his labor, he is also too proud to ask for the charity of others. He is honest at least in his self-assessment.
Though his time is almost up, he has a few days or even hours left in which he is still steward of the master’s resources. What is there to do but use his power to make other people’s lives better in hopes that in future they will return the favor?
His master, who will pay the bill for this, approves, commend(ing) the dishonest steward for his prudence. That’s weird. Then Jesus weighs in, and He seems to approve too: the sons of this world are wiser in their own generation than the sons of light. How can that be right?
This parable follows immediately after last week’s about the Merciful Father and his Prodigal Son, and the Found Sheep, and the Found Coin. Who is welcomed by the Father? Who is carried by the Son and Shepherd? Who is found by the lamp of the Spirit carried by the woman? Who, that is, is justified to enter the Kingdom of God?
The clue comes when the steward is honest with himself: I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. He describes precisely every one of us. And the steward’s master and our Lord commend him for how he solves the problem: by using what is not his to get what he needs.
Like the steward, we are too weakto gain what we need -- salvation; justification; entrance into the Kingdom -- by our labor. We just cannot do it. Inexplicably, we are also ashamed to beg; to throw ourselves on the mercy of God and repent, that is, admit how selfish, stubborn, and disobedient we have consistently been. We simply will not do it. So, like the steward, we are up the proverbial creek.
This realization dawns on us, as on the steward, only when we realize that everything we think we control now (our lives and goods and time) does not belong to us, but to our divine Master. He grants us seemingly total control over all this, BUT: for our misdeeds, He will take the stewardship away from us. We will die.
So, here we are: too weak to dig and too proud to beg. What shall we do? Use what we control for these brief moments (our lives and goods and time) to make other people’s lives better in hopes that in future they will return the favor by helping us. This is how to make friends for (our)selves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive (us) into the eternal habitations.
I admit it:I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. In fact, I should make a sign that says so and hang it over my desk. Maybe you should too. It will help us remember what we are to do: make friends for (our)selves by means of unrighteous mammon. There is nothing for it but to use what we control for these brief moments (our lives and goods and time) to do the works of the Lord, so that when it fails (He) may receive (us) into the eternal habitations.
That’s right: The master (will) commend (us) dishonest steward(s) for (our) prudence.
Monsignor Smith
