Friday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 6, 2020

Luke 16:1-8

Jesus said to his disciples, “A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, ‘What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.’ The steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.’ He called in his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’ Then to another he said, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘One hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note; write one for eighty.’ And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.”

One of the more disturbing qualities of some of the Lord’s parables is that the undeserving often come out ahead.  We think of the Prodigal Son, for instance.  Maybe — maybe — the son’s contrition wins his father’s forgiveness, but why should the father treat him like an honored guest and throw a huge party for him?  Here, the Lord speaks of a corrupt steward who is squandering his property.  Perhaps the steward does lose his job at the end, but his boss commends him for his double-dealing, even if it results in his further financial losses.  Not only should he be fired, but arrested too, at the least.  What point is the Lord making here?  

First, the Lord tells us, “A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property.”  The steward was “squandering” his property.  The Greek word can also mean “to waste”.  This does not sound like bad investments, but that the steward was incompetent in his position or contemptuous of his master’s goods.  The latter brings to mind the servant to whom his master lent several hundred million dollars and who could not pay it back, and also the tenants who killed the servants of the landowner on whose vineyard they worked.  

“ ‘What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.’ ”  The master believes the reports he has heard about the steward and based on them he announces that he will dismiss him.  In ordering the steward to render an account, he only wants to know how much damage has been done to his property.  It seems odd that he would trust the steward to do this.  Yet it also seems odd that his property was being wasted on a grand scale and he did not notice it.  Unsurprisingly, the steward, who has no incentive to provide such a rendering, makes no move to do so.

“ ‘What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg.’ ”  Unlike the wasteful servant in another parable, this man does not fall to his knees and beg for another chance.  He calmly assesses his situation and considers his options.  It is plain that he will never work as a steward again, but he is not in condition to do the lowest kind of manual labor, a job he might be able to get.  He also does not want to beg.  He has seen the shameful lot of the beggar many times, and he does not want to be pointed out as the man who used to be so well off and lost his position through his own fault.

“ ‘I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.’ ”  The steward hopes to leech off of people grateful for his interference on their behalf. This will at least stave off homelessness for the immediate future. 

“He called in his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’ ”  The “measure” here amounted to between eight or nine gallons.  Now, it takes up to 200 pounds of olives to make a gallon of oil, so we can see that this is the product of a very large grove or even several groves of olive trees.  A discount of fifty percent on the loan represents an enormous savings.  Likewise, for the discount on the wheat owed.

“And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.”  The master must be rich indeed to absorb these losses with such apparent equanimity.  And rather than have the steward beaten or arrested, he commends him.  Why?  Because the master has made his money as corruptly as his steward has wasted it.  The master does not act in a righteous manner because he is not himself a righteous man.  The Lord confirms this in calling them both “children of this world”.  Their hearts are set on worldly things such as wealth and power, or at least on their illusions.  They have no time for God or heaven.  They may cynically think of themselves as realists, but they are only materialists.

The Lord says at the conclusion of his parable, “The children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.”  Faced with the imminent prospect of ruin and homelessness, the steward aggressively positions himself for a living by deliberate theft on a massive scale.  He expects to benefit from people who know him to be a thief and utterly untrustworthy, and because they are also unscrupulous people, they will help him in the future.  Jesus lays bare the corruption of this world to show that it is not the place for the righteous.  He also implies that those who truly seek the higher things must act in an aggressive, unrelenting way for them.  This does not lead to harming the welfare of others, but rather to aiding others through obeying the moral law the Lord hands on to them and by preaching the Gospel.  After we leave this world, we face an eternity of homelessness unless we are welcomed into the Father’s home in heaven.  Let us spare no moment in working for this welcoming, for we who are the stewards of the life God has given us do not know when we will be called to account.