Eighth Sunday after Pentecost - Traditional Latin Mass

Dominica VIII Post Pentecosten (Extraordinary Form)
31 July 2022

   This is one of those parables that likely has us scratching our heads and thinking, what am I missing here?  Is the Lord really presenting sin and wrongdoing as a commendable trait?  Did I just hear that correctly?

   In today’s parable we hear that the unjust steward is commended.  He’s called “wise.”  We are encouraged to make friends with dishonest wealth.  If sin is being celebrated and we are told to imitate it then… the last one out today please turn off the lights because we are wasting our time here.

   Parables are famous for surprises and reversals.  We can easily hear the things that make the steward sinful, his self-interest, his cheating of his master, his injustice in possessions that are not his own, his dishonesty.  We can make an easy mistake thinking that our Blessed Lord is celebrating or commending this same wrong behavior.  But we miss the point.  There is subtlety we can miss if we are not careful to pay attention to what the Lord is teaching.

   What is commended, encouraged, and set forth as an example to follow is the prudence of the steward in his effort to establish security for himself and a safe dwelling and livelihood when he knows his master is about to take it all away.  This parable is clearly making a reference to the most important dwelling for any man to secure: the eternal dwelling of heaven!

   In this strange-sounding parable, the idea is that if the children of this age are so motivated, so wise, so prudent to take decisive action when they are in a bind and face losing everything, how much more should God’s children be wise, prudent, motivated, and decisive when what is at stake is heaven, and not merely money, food, or a house?

   Once you get past the surprise of thinking you are hearing the Lord commend sinfulness, the clear lesson here is that the things of this life will fail – the parable even explicitly says so – and yet still we take decisive action to guard such things and we try to store them up.  But it passes away and does not follow us to the next life and does not benefit is there.  Meanwhile what lasts is ignored.  So be wise, prudent, motivated, and decisive to secure heaven and real treasure.

   Don’t be confused.  It is not being unjust or dishonest that is being set forth in the parable as an example to follow.  Rather, what we are being called to model and copy is the prudence of the steward to take decisive action to attain godly life and salvation.

   What spurs us on in this call to be prudent and prepare ourselves for lasting treasure is that our master is not a taskmaster.  As the epistle to the Romans declared we are not in bondage and fear, but rather we call out to a master who is Abba, that is Father!  And so we are called to be prudent and wise in preparing for our eternal dwelling.  And we are called to have confidence that the master who calls us to stewardship is the God who has first bestowed upon us His love and all the goods we have.  And so claimed for and marked by Christ in the waters of baptism, in sacred anointing in confirmation, and in our constant renewal in confession and Holy Communion we are “sons of God; and if sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God, and joint hears with Christ.”