Are You Ready … Because The Jig Is Up?
First up, a bit of context. Luke is the only one to tell us today's parable. He will place it between two other parables that are also unique to him.
Just before today’s gospel, we have the story of the prodigal son. And following on from today’s parable, we have the tale of the rich man and Lazarus. You see, Luke’s got a bit of a theme happening here.
In the parable of the prodigal son, we have the wayward son who squanders his dad's living in seedy nightclubs and on slow horses. In today’s parable, we have the dishonest steward who squanders his master’s share portfolio, while the parable of the rich man and Lazarus begins with ‘There was once a rich man who used to feast sumptuously and dress in fine purple’.
When we come on a Sunday, we usually get just one gospel story, and we can easily forget that the one we hear is linked with others in a theme. We only get the ham in the sandwich.
Today’s story revolves around a rich man who calls his steward to account for poor management of his estate.
Faced with losing his position, yet unwilling to make a living as a labourer or through begging, the steward decides instead to summon his master's debtors one by one. After asking each of them what they owed, he then acquits a large portion of their debts to ingratiate himself towards them ahead of his impending dismissal.
Then comes the confusing part. The steward now has a track record of undermining his master's financial interests. But when the master discovers everything that has taken place, rather than becoming angry at the steward, he praises him instead:
The master commended the dishonest steward for his prudence; for the sons of this world are wiser in their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal habitations. (Lk 16:8-9)
What's going on here? The conclusion of the parable is startling, but that shouldn't come as a surprise. The Master has a disquieting habit of telling us a shocking story to grab our attention and shake us out of our complacency. With that in mind, several things can be said about the interpretation of the passage.
To begin with, we should notice that the master praises the unjust steward not for his dishonesty but for his prudence. Indeed, Jesus goes out of His way to clarify that those who are dishonest in small things will be dishonest in great things (v. 10), and He directly cautions against those who serve the almighty dollar instead of Almighty God (v. 13). Clearly, then, the steward in question is not being held up as a good guy to be imitated; he may in fact be in grave spiritual danger.
Nevertheless, while the moral conduct of the steward leaves something to be desired, the urgency with which he faces his predicament is admirable. So, as this unjust steward is willing to go to extreme lengths to save his livelihood, how much more so should you and I be willing to go to extreme lengths to put things right.
The dishonest steward is, in some ways, honest in that he is well aware of his limitations. “I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg”.
Something is refreshing in the honesty of those who know their limitations. Knowing your gifts, what you are good at and what you enjoy, is the easy bit. It's often harder to fess up and say I have never been any good with left-handed screw drivers and applying striped paint, and I must never pick up a chainsaw… like ever.
What is more, Frank (I’m sure I read once that the dishonest steward was Frank, because he is Frank about his situation)
Frank knows that he is in a crisis, and he never tries to pretend otherwise. As redundancy draws ever closer, she will not be right at all. Things need to be done, put in place, so that when he does have to front up to Centrelink, he at least has some friends who will feed him and maybe give him a bed for the night.
There is a call for us here. A vocation for us to take our spiritual shortcomings seriously and to actually do something about them. We need to be ready, and we need to be honest. The jig is up. All of us have a limited time on this side of the grave. Each day must count, every relationship must be enhanced and enjoyed, every conversation matters, and how we use our fleeting finances is an indispensable part of how we are to live in this life and how we will be judged. We are only stewards for a little while, and like the dishonest steward, sometimes painful sacrifices need to be made. Our stuff was and is, never really completely, totally, forever and ever, ours anyway.
Our real, lasting, authentic riches, like our real, lasting and authentic home is not on this side of the grave. So… Are you ready? Because the jig is up and we need to start practising for heaven.