Luke 16:1-13
There once was a vicar from Crewe,
Who painted his cassock bright blue.
When asked, “Is that right?”
He beamed with delight,
“It hides all the gravy stains too!”
We know how poems go in English, rhyming at the ends of the lines, and a jolly rhythm: dum-dee-dee dum-dee-dee dum.
Hebrew poems works differently. There’s no rhyme or dum-dee-dee dum-dee-dee dum, instead they often use parallels, saying the same thing with different words:
The vicar was rather messy,
the clergyman dribbled his food.
Or opposites:
The vicar was rather messy,
but the church secretary was neat as a pin.
Or expanding:
The vicar was rather messy,
so the secretary gave him a bib for Christmas.
Jesus’ teachings, especially the parables, can work the same way. Sometimes a story is set alongside life, and we’re supposed to do the same thing. The Good Samaritan is a great example of this, with Jesus clearly telling us to “Go and do likewise!”
Other times, such as with the parable of the Persistent Widow, it’s a contrast. She nags and nags at the magistrate and eventually gets justice. Jesus is not saying that we have to pester a grumpy God before he’ll do the bare minimum in order to shut us up. This is a contrast. If even the grumpy judge will eventually do what is right, how super-fast and gladly will God do it? “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matt 6:8)
Others are expansions. “You have heard that it was said … <insert comfortable phrase that we know and love>, but I say to you … <insert bombshell>.”
So what’s with today’s parable in Luke 16, The Dishonest Steward? Is it parallel, contrast or exposition? Let’s ponder. It’s one of Jesus’ more difficult parables, since on the surface it appears to be commending financial fraud.
Two things we can take from this straightaway: Firstly, it’s great evidence that the Bible is a reliable record of Jesus’ life and teaching. If someone were making it up later on, they would not have invented this!
Secondly, it reminds us to be wary of ‘plain’ readings. There’s no such thing. There are folks who say, “I don’t interpret the Bible; I just read what it says,” and that sounds very devout, but we can land in all kinds of problems when we fail to take into account culture, language etc, and the inevitable lenses through which we read and interpret everything.
For example, those who think the Bible teaches that men are the bosses of women, based on 1 Cor 11:3 (… the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God), are failing to realise that using ‘head’ to mean’ boss’ is a modern Western idiom. In Bible times, ‘head’ either meant ‘thing on the top of your neck’, or it meant ‘source’ or ‘sticky-out bit’. It never meant boss, leader or decision-maker. Yet this ‘plain’ reading is still used as an excuse for misogyny and prejudice, even today. <Initiate_Eye_Roll>
Anyway, back to our Dishonest Steward (let’s give him a name. How about Stewart?) Firstly, what’s a steward? Today’s equivalent would be a cross between an accountant and a CEO. He runs a rich man’s business, house, finances, property, everything. But he’s not been doing his job well. Perhaps Stewart hasn’t been investing in the best stocks and shares, or perhaps he ordered his master a flash sportscar in the wrong shade of red. And now he’s up before the boss. And he’s about to be handed a large hessian bag.
“Yikes!” thinks Stewart, “What am I going to do?” He doesn’t want to end up a labourer or a beggar so he hatches a crafty plan. He fiddles the books. Stewart reduces the debts of some folks who owe his master money, so that they’ll owe him (Stewart) a favour when he’s out of work.
So far, so good. And then comes the curve ball. The master finds out what Stewart has done and commends him. And we all go, “What? Jesus, you’re kidding, right?”
I hope it’s obvious that this isn’t a ‘go and do likewise’ parable. Jesus is not suggesting that we steal from work or fiddle our expenses. So what is it about?
I’ve heard folks suggesting that the manager has merely cancelled his own commission in the debts, so he wasn’t really stealing from the master. But that goes against him being called a ‘dishonest manager’. Giving away your own money isn’t being dishonest, and I don’t think we need to ‘explain away’ his actions and try to make him good. He’s a cheat, a fraud, and that’s the point.
But it’s a very confusing point.
Fortunately, the first disciples didn’t really get it either and Jesus patiently explained it. First, that “the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” In other words, don’t be naïve – money talks. Just because we’re ‘children of light’ doesn’t mean we should be stupid about money. (But we don’t need to follow Stewart’s bad example).
Second, we’re to “make friends by means of dishonest wealth.” Jesus isn’t suggesting that we should get wealth dishonestly! That diamond heist? Sorry. No can do. It’s more an idiom, like we have in English, ‘filthy lucre’. “Since you have this money,” says Jesus, “and money tends towards the bad, do good with it for a change.
And what’s the good? Making friends who will “welcome you into the eternal homes.” This links to Jesus’ later teaching that God has an eternal home for us, in a mansion with many rooms. The friends could be those who have benefitted from our godly use of riches, but maybe we shouldn’t push the metaphor too far. There isn’t necessarily a 1-to-1 equivalence everywhere.
It’s worth noting that with regard to hospitality and being welcomed, for Jesus and his disciples that often meant the outsiders of society. Yes, he stayed with Martha and Mary, and took dinner with the occasional pharisee, but in this latter case he was pointedly not welcomed. The warmest welcomes, the biggest dinner parties, were from the unclean people – the diseased, the guilt-ridden, the collaborators, the kind of people who worked with the Nazis in occupied France, who shopped their Jewish neighbours to the SS. Bit more in-your-face than ‘tax-collectors’, isn’t it?
Third point, and this is why Jesus was telling the parable, is that it matters how I use what I’ve been entrusted with. My money isn’t mine, it’s Stewart’s. Sorry. I’ll try that again. My money isn’t mine, I’m a steward.
And then, finally, Jesus gives a pithy sound bite which we can all get our heads round. Phew. Many thanks JC. “No slave can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
So what are we to make of that? Get money dishonestly? No. Keep God and my bank balance separate? No. Give away everything and rely on the food bank? Also no; stewards use money sensibly.
Instead, have a right relationship with money. Give thanks for what you have and be content. Use it in a way that pleases God. Realise that no one lies on their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time accumulating gold. It’s just stuff. It’s useful, but it’s not important. Job understood. “I was born with nothing, and I will die with nothing. The Lord gave, and now he has taken away. May his name be praised.” (Job 1:21)
God gives each of us many gifts – perhaps financial, time, talents, skills etc – and the general idea is that we’re expected to use them. Whether we consider ourselves to be wealthy or not (and anyone who has two pairs of shoes is richer than a billion people in the world) let’s remember that the pennies and the pounds are not ours; we are managing them on behalf of God. And when he asks how it’s going, I don’t want to be caught out like Dishonest Stewart, sorry Steward.
Commentaries from: (BTW no endorsement intended, I just want to give you a variety of resources)
Working Preacher https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-25-3/commentary-on-luke-161-13-3
Got Questions? https://www.gotquestions.org/parable-unjust-steward.html
Desiring God https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/does-jesus-commend-dishonesty-in-luke-16
Bible Project podcast (from 36 mins) https://bibleproject.com/podcasts/finding-meaning-in-the-parables/
St Paul Centre https://stpaulcenter.com/posts/why-does-jesus-praise-the-unjust-steward
Catholic Answers https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/live-simply-live-shrewdly
Psephizo (Ian Paul) https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/the-parable-of-the-unjust-steward-in-luke-16/
Opus Dei https://opusdei.org/en-uk/gospel/commentary-on-the-gospel-the-astute-steward/
Luke 16:1-13
Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management because you cannot be my manager any longer.’
Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’
So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’
And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly, for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much, and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then, you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
The Reflectionary 