This is a peculiar parable. Why is it that we find Jesus at the end praising a dishonest person? What is there about the actions of the crooked steward that Jesus finds good and invites us to imitate? To answer this question we have to be sure that we understand the parable correctly. The manager was certainly dishonest. But it is important that we understand correctly what his actions were, once his dishonesty had been found out. But this is not the case. In the ancient world managers were given their income through commission. His hope was that by giving back to the debtors what was his own, they would recognize his shrewdness and generosity.
A Question of Generosity
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This is a peculiar parable. Why is it that we find Jesus at the end praising a dishonest person? What is there about the actions of the crooked steward that Jesus finds good and invites us to imitate? To answer this question we have to be sure that we understand the parable correctly. The manager was certainly dishonest. But it is important that we understand correctly what his actions were, once his dishonesty had been found out. But this is not the case.
25th Sunday Year C
Jesus tells us in the Gospel today tells us the servant who is trustworthy in small matters is trustworthy in great ones and the servant who cannot be trusted in small matters cannot be trusted in great ones. Most of us know from human experience that this saying is certainly true. Employers tend to put new employees who they think may have some special potential to work in a smaller project to determine some of their abilities before entrusting them with greater responsibilities. When we meet someone new and enter into friendship with them, usually our inclination is to have smaller engagements with that person until we come to understand that we can trust them to allow that person deeper into our lives and personal affairs. Jesus, however, is taking this very human reality a step further to explain to us a far more real and more serious kind of trust. Jesus is using the example of the less-than honest steward to show not that we should be dishonest, but that we should be prudent in our business with the things of this world, and not overly attached to them. You cannot serve two masters, Jesus declares to his followers. It is enough of an important biblical phrase that it is frequently repeated as a regular antiphon in the cycle of the Liturgy of the Hours , the official prayer of the Church, during Vespers or Evening Prayer. And why does the Church place so much stock in this statement?
Use money to win you friends. A clear message in the gospels: Renunciation. The gospel of this Sunday took a lot of effort to prepare a sermon on. For one, this is one of the repeated themes in the gospels:.
