Today’s
Gospel can seem to be a bit challenging. One conclusion of the parable seems to suggest
that we are to follow the unscrupulous actions of the dishonest steward. A
little background is needed to make sense of what Jesus is trying to teach us
by this parable.
Jesus
uses parables to teach people about spiritual matters by relating them to
things of this world. Many of his parables use images that people were familiar
with such as from agriculture or weather.
Recall the parable of seed and sower where the seeds is scattered all
over and some falls on rocky ground and other on fertile soil. The seed is God’s word and we are the soil
where it grows or does not grow. Another
example is the parable of the house built on sand versus the one built on
rock. When the floods came the house
built on rock stood. The floods
represent the trials of this life and the rock represents building your life
upon a relationship with God.
In
today’s parable we have a situation of a steward employed to care for his
Master’s possessions. This most likely was
a plot of land used by tenants to produce agricultural goods. The tenants would give a percentage to the
Master of their harvest in order to pay for use of the land. The steward’s job was to make sure that
tenants cultivated the land and were paying their share due to the master.
We
don’t know the exact situation that occurred, but for some reason the steward
has lost his job for mismanagement of the property. The steward may have taken advantage of the
situation and charged the tenants above what was due the master. The word may
have gotten out that the steward was keeping a portion of proceeds for himself
even though he was already getting a salary from the Master. Or he may have been lax in managing the
tenants use of the land and had a less than stellar harvest, and the Master was
not happy with the results.
The
steward is now out of a job and reacts quickly to try to protect his own
interest. He considers his options to
support himself and concludes his physical condition limits doing manual labor
and his pride prevents him from begging, so he crafts a plan to try to endear
the debtors to him. He reduces the debt
owed to the Master in hopes the debtors will “welcome him into their homes”. His hope was that the debtors would be
grateful and remember him in his time of need.
There was not a safety net of unemployment compensation like we have
today. If the steward did not have
family he would be poor and destitute, just like the debtors.
The
Master commends the dishonest steward for acting prudently. This
statement is the key for interpreting this part of the Gospel. Jesus was trying to make the point of the
prudence of the action of the steward and not so much of how he went about
carrying out his actions. What is
prudence? Prudence is using right reason
in action. The steward acted in a
prudent manner to protect his self-interests by taking decisive action.
Jesus
then adds the following to the parable: “For the children of this world are
more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are children of light”. Children of the world are those who are
concerned with their material needs, which affects their earthly life. Children of the light are those who are
concerned about taking care of their spiritual needs, which affects the eternal
life. Jesus’ point in the parable is
that we should follow the model of the steward in being prudent and
prioritizing what’s most important to us.
For the steward it was protecting his self interests since he was
without a job. His concern was only of
this earthly world. For the children of
the light the primary concern should be of the eternal world, their destination
in heaven.
We
live in the world, and we have worldly concerns. We have to worry about keeping a job so that
we can afford our material needs. We need to earn money so we can pay for food,
clothing, and shelter. So we spend a lot
of time at out jobs to work overtime or get a promotion to make more
money. We also worry about maintaining
our physical health, so we visit the doctor, take vitamins, and exercise. Or maybe we don’t do this until we get a
scare that threatens our physical well being, and then we prioritize to do
these things.
I
think Jesus is trying to call us to be prudent in taking care of our spiritual
lives. We need to take decisive action
like the steward, but unlike him we need to focus on things of God, rather than
the world. We cannot serve both God and
mammon. Mammon it is anything that can
take our attention away from God. We need to take care of things to live in
this earthly world but we need to prioritize our relationship with God for the
sake of our eternal lives.
By
being here today we’re are all being prudent in taking the time to nourish our
spiritual lives. As we go through out
our week we need keep our relationship with God a priority as well. How much time do we spend in growing in our
relationship with Jesus in prayer? Do we
make it a priority to take time to show love for our neighbor? As we go forward to receive the Eucharist lets
ask God to help us take decisive action to make nourishing our spiritual lives
a priority throughout the week.
