Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
/Dominica XXV per Annum C
18 September 2022
Last weekend we heard the “lost and found” parables by which the Lord highlights his outreach to sinners. If we are honest we, like we heard from St. Paul last week, need to recognize ourselves as “foremost” among that group of sinners to whom the Lord is sent on mission to save. The remainder of this section of the Gospel is the Lord’s instruction on the proper use of wealth. It is a good preface for us to think and pray about as in a few more weeks I will want to address our common call and need to be stewards and to share responsibility for the needs of our parish.
But in the meantime, you better get ready for the car ride home, especially if your kids were listening closely to today’s parable. The parable our Lord uses today is a real head scratcher and is regarded rather widely as one of the most difficult to understand. It’s the parable of the dishonest steward who squanders his master’s property, is threatened with losing his position as steward, who then clearly cheats his master by lessening the amount the debtors owe the master and then… the Lord concludes the parable with “And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.”
Is anyone else wondering what is going on here? If we are supposed to take this parable at face value… commending the dishonesty and thievery… it sure seems like a huge link in the project of Christianity and morality and virtue has just given way. If THAT’S the case I’m not sure what you are doing here. And if dishonesty is being commended I’m really not sure what I am doing here as a life’s commitment and calling. In fact, I think I’ll leave now and head to brunch at the Devon Tower… last one out turn out the lights!
Is the Lord’s parable congratulating the steward’s dishonesty? Is the dishonesty put forward as a model for us? What are we supposed to make of this? The key here is to not get locked in on the steward’s dishonesty, which is clearly wrong. What the parable is commending is not dishonesty and thievery but the steward’s response and reaction to a threat, and to his acting prudently to gain security for himself. In other words, it is the prudence that the Lord is highlighting in this parable, albeit through the means of a confusing figure who is dishonest. I think this is how we can know the focus is prudence. Consider how the parable continues next: “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”
The dishonest steward saw a threat, saw a loss coming his way, and he didn’t hesitate to take decisive action to change the course of things and to try to improve his lot. He did this when faced with losses in this world, with loss of material gain, job, and earthly security. His prudence to take decisive action is supposed to serve as the model for us… a model which is not a call to dishonesty, but to likewise take decisive action to secure our life – not in this world but – in the world to come. “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” How do we know that we aren’t supposed to leave here today thinking the whole Christian project of morality and virtue is falling apart? How do we know that we aren’t supposed to leave here today thinking we are being told to be dishonest? Because if you have faith in the Lord as your master, and all the more if you are baptized, you are NOT a child of this world but a child of the light!
The point of the Lord’s lesson is for us to see what threatens our eternal dwelling in the kingdom of light and to take prudent action to change course! Where have we squandered the Lord’s grace? Where have we been unfaithful as stewards of all that we have been given? Where is there sin in our life? What is an obstacle to our life with the Master? And when we take account of our stewardship and admit those things, then the encouragement of the parable is to take decisive action to change course! We might ask ourselves: Why can we be slow to address sin in our lives? Why can we ignore for so long things that are not consistent with belonging to the Lord? Why do we not respond quickly and prudently to take some step, however small, to seek our security in the face of coming judgment? This is the lesson in this confusing parable.
Think of it this way. If I let you borrow my car, you are probably going to be inclined to be much more careful with it and attentive to guard it than you would be with your own car. By faith and by baptism we are children of the light! We have been given life and the life of grace with its hope of eternal life. What we have is not properly ours but is ours to exercise stewardship over. And this gets us to the root of the final twist in the parable: “I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” The steward who was dishonest but who acted prudently changed the balance sheets of his master’s debtors. In this he was taking what was not his. It was dishonest wealth; dishonest gain. He was taking his master’s wealth to benefit others so that those others would help him when he was in need. When you consider that the Greek word for master in this parable is “kyrios” from which we get Kyrie – meaning “Lord” you get a glimpse into the final twist of this parable. This twist should serve as a foundation for our thoughts and prayers about how we are doing as stewards of the Lord. We are called to recognize that all that we have is really not ours but belongs to the Lord. What we have is really the Lord’s. It’s like our dishonest gain. We don’t deserve it. The Lord freely gives it. We take from what he has blessed us with and we use it as stewards to pay the debts, to provide for the needs of others. In doing so, we have a proper relationship to our gifts, to our wealth; we honor the Lord who makes us his stewards; and, we act prudently as children of the light so that we have made friends with those who will assist us in our need, rally for us, and pray for us that we arrive not at dwellings of this world, but in the eternal dwelling our generous Master and Lord has prepared for us in heaven!