The Parable of the Unjust Steward
Luke 16:1-8
I have heard some absurd things before, but this parable takes the cake. Can you believe what Jesus is saying? If I follow correctly, Jesus tells a story about a guy who cheats his employer, robs him blind. Then the employer commends the guy for being a thief and we’re told to go become just like the thief. Is that right? Is that what you heard, too?
Actually,
it’s what most people hear. But it is
not what Jesus said.
*****
The
parable of the unjust steward is one of the hardest things in all the gospels
to explain. Julian the Apostate, the
Roman Emperor about fifty years after Constantine made Christianity a state
religion, used this parable to argue that the Christian faith was morally
bankrupt and should be abandoned. It
sure seems kind of sleazy, but that’s only because we don’t understand the
culture of the first century Middle East.
Ken
Bailey, a New Testament scholar who will be our theologian in residence next week helps us to understand this
parable by understanding the legal and social norms that would have impacted
the characters in this parable.
Essentially, what we read is the stuff on the surface; what is
important, however, are the motives, intentions and pressures that are unseen beneath
the surface, the things of culture.
The
first thing to notice are the characters in the parable. Most people think there are three
characters: the master, the steward and the various debtors. But there are four. What many people forget is that there is a
community of friends gathered around all of the first three. The parable begins, “There was a rich man
whose steward was accused of wasting his possessions.” Who made this
accusation? How did the master know to
be concerned about his steward? No
doubt the master had friends. We can
easily imagine one friend saying, “Hey, you better watch that guy you have
working for you. He seems kind of shady
to me.” And another friend saying, “I hate to have to tell you this, but your
steward is playing fast and loose with your business.”
So
the master, heeding the advice of his friends, calls the steward in and fires
him: “Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any
longer.” The steward is now,
officially, without a job. But here is
where the culture begins to impact our understanding or misunderstanding of the
parable. The steward is fired, but that doesn’t mean he leaves work
immediately. The master has asked the
steward for an accounting of his management.
In other words, “Go round up the contracts you have negotiated around
the community and bring them to me. I
want to see both the contracts and the account books.” So the steward doesn’t have much time. But at least the master has not thrown the
steward into prison, as is his right, or made him into a slave, also the
master’s right. But who knows how long
the master will be patient? So the
steward has to hurry.
Not
only does the steward not have much time with the master but he doesn’t have
much time with the community, either.
The reason the steward’s timing is running out is that, by first century
law, once the master notified the steward of his being terminated, then nothing
the steward does afterward is valid; nothing the steward does in renegotiating
the contracts with the master’s debtors is legally binding. This is important and will show up later.
So
the steward is in a bind. The steward
knows himself pretty well: “I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to
beg.” Self-awareness is an important
first step toward the truth. But what
can the steward do? “I know,” he says
to himself, “I’ll do something so that, when I lose my job here, people will
welcome me into their houses.” This
phrase, “welcome me into their houses,” is an idiomatic expression that means,
“offer me another job.” The steward
knows that what he really needs are some friends on the outside. What the steward does is go around to the
master’s debtors to renegotiate the contracts.
“Summoning
the master’s debtors,” the steward had each debtor come to him. Now this is really gutsy. The steward is on a short leash; he doesn’t
have much time. If the community finds
out the steward is fired, he’s finished!
We would expect the steward to scramble around town to each of the
debtors, madly rewriting contracts. But
then his plan wouldn’t work. For his
plan to work, the debtors have to think he’s still in charge. “How much do you owe my master,” the
steward asks them. They all give a
number, and the steward lowers the number.
Now, what’s happening here?
In
the first century, it was noted that in the Hebrew Scriptures, interest is
forbidden. You could charge interest to
a foreigner but not to a fellow Israelite (Deuteronomy 23:19-20). So the common practice of the day, in order
to get around the law, to obey its letter but not its spirit, was to write a
bill or contract for one, single number.
On our mortgage statements today, the bill breaks out how we are being
charged $700 in interest and $81 in principal.
In the first century, the bill would say the charge is simply $781. So what the steward is doing with each of
the debtors is this: he is saying to them, “Rewrite your bill and forget the
interest.” He is taking the customary
interest rate for each different kind of produce – whether olive oil or wheat –
and he’s telling the debtors to forget it.
Now, the debtors are going to wonder about this, but the steward will
say something like, “I’ve been talking to the master and we know it’s
tough. Plus, as I told the master, you
know the Law of Moses really discourages interest. I said to him, ‘Isn’t this the act of a righteous man?’ He agreed
and told me to call you in.” The
debtors love this guy!
With
the ink still not dry on the new contracts, the steward presents them to the
master who now has two choices. He can
reject the new bills because they were written after the steward had been
terminated. They are not valid, not
legally binding. But if he rejects the
new bills, the master appears harsh and stingy. After all, the debtors have gotten their hopes up; they think the
master is a great guy. The second
option is for the master to accept the new bills and appear gracious and
generous in the eyes of the community.
Which would he do? What would you do?
And how did the steward know that the master would choose option number
two, choose to be gracious and generous?
Let’s
go back to the beginning of the parable.
What did the master not do to
the servant? Sure, he fired the
servant. But what the master did not do is he didn’t imprison him in
debtor’s prison, nor did he make him his slave. Basically, the master demonstrated at the beginning of the
parable that he was a pretty decent guy, a generous and charitable guy. And here’s the important point:
the steward
so trusted the master’s graciousness, he knew he could rely on it.
Jesus
ends the parable saying, “The people of this world are more shrewd in dealing
with their own kind that are the people of the light.” In other words, if a son of darkness like
this unjust steward can learn to trust in the graciousness of his human boss,
how much more should we who are children of light be able to trust in the
graciousness of God? If this unjust
steward can see that his master is gracious, why can’t we see that God is gracious?
Are we shrewd enough to trust that God is gracious? Are we shrewd enough to rely on God being gracious, not wanting
to imprison or enslave us, but willing to pay the price of our debt himself?
*****
How is it that so
many find it so difficult to trust that God is gracious? Perhaps the answer is found in the midst of
God’s people. Phillip Yancey recounts a
telling story, from a friend of his who works in a church in a down-and-out
part of Chicago:
A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears she told me she had been renting out her daughter…. She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could her on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story…. At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the looks of pure, naïve shock that crossed her face. “Church!” she cried. “Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.”
I
hear Yancey tell this story and I think, “Yeah, she’s probably right. We would.”
“And justifiably so,” we would tell ourselves. “What she was doing was horribly wrong,” we would tell
ourselves. “The Gospel can’t mean that
we accept that kind of woman,” we
would tell ourselves. And, with this
last thought, we would go too far. In
the words of the old slogan: God hates the sin, but loves the sinner. God may reject the behavior, but never the
person.
It
can be a difficult, scary, almost impossible leap of faith to trust that God is
gracious. Yancey again tells the story of how Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson,
founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, went to a prominent attorney, Bill D., who
was also a notorious alcoholic who had flunked out of eight separate detox
programs in six months. Strapped to a
hospital bed as punishment for attacking two nurses, Bill D. had no choice but
to listen to his visitors as they shared their own stories of addiction and the
hope they had discovered through the twelve steps and their belief in a Higher
Power. As soon as they mentioned their
Higher Power, though, Bill D. shook his head sadly. “No, no,” he said, “it’s too late for me. I still believe in God all right, but I know
mighty well that God doesn’t believe in me anymore.” Bill D. had lost the ability to trust that God is gracious.
How
sad.
What would it look
like for us to trust the God is gracious?
I think it’s a matter of focus.
With the woman in the story above, are we focused on the woman or on
God? If we look at the woman, all we’re
likely to see are her sins, but if we look at God, we have the hope of seeing
his mercy. With Bill D., where was his
focus? It seems to me that all he could
see was his own self and, therefore, his own brokenness. He said he still believed in God, but he
wasn’t truly focused on God. What about
with you and me, are we focused on ourselves or on God?
Ø
Are you afraid that your
weakness could separate you from the love of Christ? It can’t.
Ø
Are you afraid that your
inadequacies could separate you from the love of Christ? They can’t.
Ø
Are you afraid that your
inner poverty could separate you from the love of Christ? It can’t.
Ø
Difficult marriage,
loneliness, loss of job, anxiety over your children? They can’t.
Why?
Why can’t your falsehoods and failures, your spiritual poverty and
perversions keep you from the love of Christ?
Because it’s not about you. It’s
about God.
The
question this morning is not whether or not God will be gracious to you. Goodness sake! God sent his son into the world that you and I may have life
eternal! No, the question this morning
is whether or not you and I will be shrewd enough to trust that God is
gracious?
“The people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind that are the people of the light.” Be shrewd, my friends. Trust that God is gracious toward you.