November 8, 2024

Luke 16:1-8

This is the story of the “dishonest steward,” or some people say the “shrewd manager.”  A landowner’s steward or manager was reported to him as wasting his resources, so the landowner asked him to hand in his accounts and resign.  Fearing that he had no other way to make a living, the steward decided to curry favor with the landowner’s clients by giving them discounts on their promissory notes for what they owed the owner.  Rather than being angry, the landowner commended him for his shrewdness, or perhaps grudgingly may have said, “Well, aren’t you smart?”  Nonetheless, the landowner admires the steward’s prudence in managing his exit (and prudence is after all one of the virtues). 

People may say, Why is Jesus holding up a dishonest steward as an example?  The conclusions that Jesus gives us are: first, that worldly people are more shrewd or strategic in financial deals among themselves, as it is a common language they share, than “the people of the light,” those who are solely concerned with spiritual matters.  Yet, secondly, Jesus is telling us that we can gain lessons from this: “Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”  Here this message points to the fact that the steward was using his little remaining power to give discounts to men who were heavily in debt, perhaps even increasingly the likelihood the owner would be able to collect on the debt that was less overwhelming.  We can draw from this parable that in our own business dealings here on earth, we can be generous with others, giving them discounts, cutting them some slack, and not squeezing every last penny out of the deal. In this way, we can foster peace and prosperity among people.

Finally, we can learn from this parable that God does not want us to be uninformed about money and the ways of the world.  God wants us to take care of ourselves and be well; we can use our resources to care for ourselves and our families.  Money is a fact of life, and taking prudent care of our business dealings is not an obstacle to “eternal dwellings.”  In fact, being fair with others and maintaining friendly relationships in business is a good thing.  Amen.