25th Sunday Year C - Dishonest Steward
It was only a few
short weeks ago when we had the massive student move-in days happen here on
campus. It's hard to imagine the volume
of people moving the volume of furniture, books, computers, and all sorts of
crates of their belongings into town in, for the most part, the span of a
single day. I remember as I talked to
one student who had asked her friends to move her rather large bookcase around
in her apartment. This one tiny little
girl asking two very large guys if they could move it for her. One of the boys looked at her…and simply
said…So what's in it for me? The girl
thought for a minute until she finally said….umm, I can make brownies…and so
the bookcase was moved.
I think a lot of
times in our own lives we seem to ask ourselves that question any time we
decide to act. If we're doing what we
want to do, well, great. If we're going
to work…of course, ultimately we're working to get a paycheck, and feed our
family. If we're studying for school,
it's to better our lives in the future. The vast majority of what we do, we judge by
how well it serves our own interests.
Of course, sometimes
I think we can get carried away with self-interest, and find ourselves in
desperate need of friends, with no one around.
How can we expect others to treat us as we would like to be treated if
we do not first model the behavior we're looking for?
Today as we hear the
parable of the unjust steward, this was always a parable that I think I could
never quite wrap my mind around. The
master is about to fire him…and he suddenly summons in his master's debtors, forgives
part of their debt, and the master praises him for it. It always struck me as very odd. Shouldn't the master be terribly upset that
the steward gave away a fair portion of his debt?
Yet, as I was
reading a commentary today, that's probably not really what happened at
all. A steward, in those days, might be
roughly equivalent to a stock broker today.
Certainly they invested in different things, but he took care of
investing the master's money. When he
cuts the olive oil loan in half, but
only cuts the wheat loan by 20%, that should give us a clue. If he were really simply giving away the
master's stuff, why not forgive the loan altogether.
Yet, that probably
wasn't what he was doing at all.
Stewards would generally collect a commission on each transaction,
depending on what the going rate was when it was sold. Most likely, this steward was simply cutting
out all of his commission out of the purchases.
In effect, he was saying to each of his master's debtors. Look, I know you owe a lot and are having
trouble affording it, but I will do my part.
I'll give you what I can…my share of it…and then maybe you can pay
it. That's why the master commended the
dishonest steward, he has taken away the unfair commissions that he had been
charging.
When push came to
shove, that servant was faced with a choice…If I'm going to lose my Job, I can
either try to force collection on all of these people and try to round up
enough money to live on for a little while, or I can forgive my portion of
their debts, and hope that they will forgive me for my past sins and welcome me
into their homes. It's a pretty big
gamble either way. Sometimes it can be
very scary to try to put our faith in others, to realize life isn't going to be
completely under my control.
Yet, then again,
let's face it, when is life REALLY ever under our control. We've got to do the best we can, foster
relationship and help each other through whatever happens. Perhaps that's the real danger Jesus it
pointing out when he says you cannot serve both God and Mammon. Mammon is usually translated money, but a
better translation would be wealth. We
can find security for our future through trust in our own resources and wealth,
or through trust in God. The dishonest
steward took a huge risk. He gave up his
earthly resources in the hopes that someone would take him in. He sacrificed wealth for relationship. When push comes to shove in our own
lives…which one would we choose?
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