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The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost
O God, who declarest thy almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running to obtain thy promises, may be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 21)
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The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost
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Scripture citation(s): Luke 16:1-13
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Luke 16:1-13
✛
A Foothold on the Future
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In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen
Saint Luke’s parable today is usually called “The Dishonest Steward,” but it has also been called “The Shrewd Manager.”[1] A rich man hears his steward is wasting his goods and summons him to give an account of his stewardship – from which he would be fired. But the steward responded decisively to his crisis. “What shall I do? I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg.” So he quickly reduced the bills owed to his master by substantial amounts, thereby ingratiating himself to his master’s debtors. His maneuver was designed “that they may receive me into their houses” and thereby secure the steward future employment. The rich master commended him for this; not for his dishonesty as a steward but for his resourcefulness in the crisis. The steward was shrewd, even wise and prudent as a survivor.
It was customary in the ancient middle east for loans to be made with interest, on top of which the agent of the transaction added his own fee or commission – like a tax collector acting as Caesar’s agent. In this case it appears that the steward, in reducing the bills for his master’s debtors, eliminated his own cut.[2]
Robert Frost’s poem, Provide, Provide, gets at what the steward did to meet his crisis: “Too many fall from great and good/For you to doubt the likelihood…/No memory for having starred/Atones for later disregard/ Or keeps the end from being hard./Better to go down dignified/With boughten friendship at your side/ Than none at all. Provide, provide!”
Jesus, by concluding this parable with the rich master’s commendation of his servant’s cleverness, makes his own moral of the story. He says we are to use “unrighteous mammon” (i.e. “filthy lucre”) in such a way that it opens doors of houses in the eternal habitations. Make yourselves friends in this way, says Jesus. He means, use money to make deposits in God’s Good Will Bank. Be faithful with the money of this world to inherit the treasure of God’s kingdom. You can’t serve God and Mammon, but you can use mammon for God.
Money by itself is not evil. But human economy and enterprise, not to mention our love of money, taints it in every way so that it is called unrighteous mammon or filthy lucre. We must use it. Jesus says, use it to do good and win yourselves friends in heaven!
The dishonest steward was faced with a crisis. He was called to account and about to be out on the street. His swift resourcefulness, giving away money that he customarily pocketed, won him a foothold on the future.[3]
When Jesus comes into our lives, we have a crisis on our hands as well: a judgment, a change of perspective on all we do and all our relationships. Everything looks different when Jesus arrives. Our families and friends, our jobs, our social affairs, our values and priorities suddenly are brought into the light of Christ and thereby receive an inventory or audit. Furthermore, the crisis is existential: time is short, eternity is long; our life is on the line.
Jesus’ Rich Fool a few chapters earlier in the same Gospel[4] had laid up riches for himself and was taking his ease, when suddenly God spoke to him: Fool! Your soul is required of you this night! And the things you have accumulated, whose will they be? So it is for those who do not invest in their relationship with God. It was too late for the Rich Fool, but the Dishonest (Prudent) Steward acted in the nick of time. Watch, says Jesus, for you know neither the day nor the hour when your Lord will come.
How many churches, hospitals and schools have been built and endowed, how many good deeds have been performed, by people who got the message and used their money to invest in the Kingdom of God! Some of these donors may even have been clever rascals; but they were prudent ones: people who acted in time, or who created gracious surprises in their last wills and testaments.
We are not saved by pure motives. That’s a good thing, when you start being honest about your motives! But helping the poor, doing good works, giving money to good causes, opening the hand to the appeal of human need certainly helps. It wins friends in heaven. Charity signifies a turning towards the kingdom of God and its subjects, so that when time is up and worldly goods are left behind, we may be received into eternal habitations.[5]
Saint Thomas, past, present and future, speaks to this legacy. Here, in the midst of the temples of commerce on Fifth Avenue, people have used “the unrighteous mammon” to open the doors of heaven for themselves and countless others. Here on “Babylon’s strand” our ancestors raised this glorious temple of the Lord, this House of God and Gate of Heaven, whose Centennial we celebrate this year. For a century Mammon has been devoted to the service of Jesus and his saints on this amazing street corner. Now it’s our turn for such devotion. Let’s do it while there’s time! Let’s gain a foothold on the future: provide, provide!
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
[1] As in the New International Version (NIV), “The Shrewd Manager.”
[2] Joseph Fitzmyer, Anchor Bible Commentary Luke, pp. 1094-1099. Thanks to Fr. Victor Austin for this reference.
[3] Ibid.
[4] St. Luke 12:13-21.
[5] F.F. Bruce, The Hard Sayings of Jesus, pp. 186-188.
