Jesus is continuing to teach – presumably
to a mixed, divisive crowd. He turns from a powerful parable about grace to
lessons about proper stewardship while keeping a wary eye fixed on the
Pharisees (I see you Rabbi Feldman!), many of whom are audibly scoffing at His
words (I can hear you, too!).
The rich man’s steward has a really sweet
gig. As manager of his master’s estate, he has a lot of responsibility and
autonomy. He’s practically a member of the family. He’s got a good setup, and
he knows it. Sadly, that doesn’t prevent him from betraying his master by using
his autonomy and authority to set up a little side action.
The steward has been cooking the books by
padding the invoices and skimming off the top. It’s taken a while but somebody
has finally gotten fed up with paying more than he should and has ratted him
out – turned him in.
The jig is up, the news is out. The sweet
ride grinds to a halt.
Now what?
The man doesn’t take responsibility for the
situation (he blames his master for “taking away” the stewardship). To him, it’s
a new variable to his life equation – a new constant. “I’m too fat to dig and
too fat to proud to beg,” he thinks, “so what should I do?”
It occurs to him to use his imminent
departure from his master’s house to speed him on his way to a new home. Under
the guise of wrapping up a few loose ends, he shrewdly calls each of the master’s
clients in for a heart to heart about their outstanding invoices. He works with
each client to remove the obvious evidence of his embezzlement – each invoice
is restored to its original state.
This, of course, ingratiates him to his
master’s clients and may very well open a few doors for him and lead to his
next long-term opportunity – or not. After all, he’s been shaking down these
clients for months if not years. Just how grateful will they be to save 20% off
just one invoice? Probably not much.
Jesus uses this parable to teach us about
faithfulness and character. True faithfulness, He says, is about doing what the
Master wants and giving Him His due – without worrying about what’s in it for
you. True character, He notes, will always come out. Like a bad tree with bad
fruit, bad character produces bad actions. The steward may have learned his
lesson, but the likelihood is that he’s only learned not to get caught.
