The Unjust Steward Becomes a Dishonest Manager

Thursday Midweek Communion 4 March 2010

Gospel Luke 16

⁹ I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

¹⁰ "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. ¹¹ So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? ¹² And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?

¹³ "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

¹⁴ The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. ¹⁵ He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God's sight.

Sermon

Gospel reading is last part of Parable of Dishonest Manager. NIV: Shrewd Manager. Remember the story?

Rich man had a manager. Summoned him. Said: I hear you are squandering my property. Sacked him without giving him a change to explain. Asked for his account books – sign of his authority.

Manager made deals with all those who owed his master money. Gave big discounts for settling for as little as half the debt. Hoped to curry favour with other merchants in order to get a job with them when out of work. By appearing shrewd, hoped to persuade them he was the sort of steward you needed on your side rather than against you.

Rich man instead of being angry at betrayal commended him for being clever. Jesus then gives his teaching. First – use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves on this earth, so that when it runs out you may be welcomed into heaven. Second – if you can be trusted with worldly things, God will trust you with the true riches that belong to God.

If this is really the message, it’s an odd one. The steward was not trustworthy – yet he’s meant to represent us. He defrauded his master to curry favour with others. The rich man does not deal with him fairly, and commends him for his dishonesty – yet the rich man is meant to represent God. What does it all mean?

Has Luke mixed up some teaching from elsewhere with this parable, or appended it to the parable when it actually came from another time altogether? Taken on its own, maybe the parable is meant to teach us that we are in and of the world for our brief span on earth, and must deal with the things of this world with ingenuity and vigour. The steward is his master’s agent, and makes the rich man appear generous to his debtors. Yet for all that, the manager is described as dishonest and is not reinstated to his job.

So it’s a mystery . What is undoubtedly true is that all the parables of Jesus are intended to surprise, shock, and exaggerate for their effect. This one does exactly that, and leaves us wondering what was the message Jesus intended to convey, even if we accept that what Luke adds at the end might have been drawn from another time altogether.

That does not take anything away from the message itself: no one can serve God and Mammon. We all have a choice to make: between the pursuit of money and possessions and the salvation of our souls. Maybe the unjust steward went about it in the wrong way but reached the right answer in the end?

Like all parables, we each have to reflect on them and draw our own conclusions. So over to you. Luke 16 – the Shrewd Manager commended for his dishonesty. Make of it what you will – I wonder what your explanation will be?