Daily Devotional • November 15
A Reading from Luke 16:1-9
1 Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ 3 Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ 7 Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly, for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
Meditation
Well, this parable is a head scratcher. There is no consensus among scholars as to what it means. We do know that a “steward” was someone who had charge of his master’s possessions and could handle the business end of things. This particular steward was, at best, incompetent, with dishonesty and manipulation not far behind. The one thing he could do well was to look out for his own welfare, especially when that welfare was threatened — in this case, by being fired.
The steward threw out whatever loyalty he had to his master when he had to take urgent action to protect himself from imminent dismissal with no obvious place to go. So he stiffed his master while making the master’s debtors obligated to him. Those debtors connived with the steward’s dishonesty to their own benefit by accepting the reduced debts without question.
There is nobody who is commendable in this parable. The only aspect of it that smacks of truth is when the master acknowledged the steward’s cleverness. That, at least, was true. The meaning of the parable opens up when Jesus contrasts “the sons of this world” with “the sons of light.”
Those who have no hope beyond this world have little sense of honesty or uprightness, but value cleverness in getting through the wiles of a wayward world to save themselves. Those who look forward to the kingdom of God are urged to be as dedicated to their own survival for that kingdom as those who have no such hope seek their own safety for this world. The sons of light are urged to rise above the scrabbling self-preserving dishonesty of the worldly, and use their money according to heavenly standards, and with the same dedicated cleverness seen in the worldly.
David Baumann is a published writer of nonfiction, science fiction, and short stories. In his ministry as an Episcopal priest, he served congregations in Illinois and California.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
St. Francis in the Fields Episcopal Church, Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky
The Diocese of Kibondo – The Anglican Church of Tanzania