The Thing About Mammon

The Parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16, 1-13), as it is usually called, tends to confuse the reader more than the Lord’s other parables because in it the Lord seems to urge his disciples to imitate a man involved in massive theft from his employer.  Here is how the Frankish monk Walafrid of Strabo (d. 849) explains it in his commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke:

“ ‘A certain man’.  An estate manager, properly speaking, an overseer, but he stands for one who pays the bills, who dispenses the whole substance of the house.  Not everything this man does is put forward for us to imitate, for we ought not to defraud God.  On the other hand, this similitude is given so that we might understand that if this man, could be praised by the same lord whom he had defrauded, how much more will God be pleased with the man who keeps his commandments. 

“ ‘A hundred jars’.  ‘Jar’ is a Greek term.  The Latin term is ‘amphora’, and it holds three measures [about 10 gallons].  This is to be understood simply as whatever lightens the need of the poor with a gift of mercy, whether by a half or a fifth. 

“ ‘And the lord praised him’.  The dispenser of the wicked mammon is praised by the voice of his lord because he prepared justice for himself by an evil deed, and suffered him to do so, but he is praised for his prudence, not for his fraud.  If this is so, how much more Christ, who cannot abide loss, and leans towards clemency, will praise the disciples who, believing in him, are merciful.  ‘The children of this world’: whoever does another person’s works is called his ‘son’.  Thus, ‘the children of this world’ are children of darkness.  The children of light, on the other hand, are children of eternal life.

“ ‘Do you make friends for yourselves with mammon’.  ‘Mammon’ is a Syrian word that means ‘the riches of iniquity’ because they are gathered from wicked people.  Therefore, if wickedness is turned into justice by dispensing it well, how much more the banquet of the divine word [i.e. the Mass], in which there is no evil, raises up the good overseer into heaven. 

“ ‘He who is trustworthy in lesser matters’ -- in sharing money with the poor.  ‘In greater matters’ – adhering to the Creator and made in one spirit with him.  But he who possesses worldly goods and does not dispense them well, loses the glory of the eternal goods concerning which he was puffed up. 

“ ‘If, therefore, you are not faithful with mammon’: If he does not give to his brothers for their use that which was created by God for all, he will be faithless in dividing spiritual wealth, dividing the teaching of the Lord not for others in their necessity, for his own personal gain. 

“ ‘If you have not been faithful to what is another’s’: If you do not well dispense carnal riches that perish, who will give you riches that are true and eternal?

“ ‘No servant can serve two masters’: Censuring avarice, he says that those who love money are not able to love God.  Therefore, the one who loves God despises money.  He is not able to love passing things and eternal things at the same time.”