16 1-2 Jesus said to his disciples, “There was once a rich man who had a manager. He got reports that the manager had been taking advantage of his position by running up huge personal expenses. So he called him in and said, ‘What’s this I hear about you? You’re fired. And I want a complete audit of your books.’
3-4 “The manager said to himself, ‘What am I going to do? I’ve lost my job as manager. I’m not strong enough for a laboring job, and I’m too proud to beg. . . . Ah, I’ve got a plan. Here’s what I’ll do . . . then when I’m turned out into the street, people will take me into their houses.’
5 “Then he went at it. One after another, he called in the people who were in debt to his master. He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
6 “He replied, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’
“The manager said, ‘Here, take your bill, sit down here—quick now—write fifty.’
7 “To the next he said, ‘And you, what do you owe?’
“He answered, ‘A hundred sacks of wheat.’
“He said, ‘Take your bill, write in eighty.’
8-9 “Now here’s a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.”
The master praised the dishonest servant “because he acted shrewdly” (other translations of why the servant was praised) that is he was…“sharp-witted, perceptive, smart, wise, savvy, clever, canny”.
“This is the most difficult of all parables and no interpretation is wholly satisfactory.”
And if we get stuck in trying to figure out what is happening and how Jesus could
use such a scoundrel to make his point we will miss the point of it all.
What Jesus is dramatically laying before us is that we are to be as shrewd and cunning as those who don’t care - and we are to do it as those who do care, because we have a God who cares. As those who live by grace and know it is the only way we can make it - in this life or the life to come.
As children of the grace we are to work hard at being shrewdly graceful in how we live with the priorities of God’s Kingdom deeply imbedded in our heart, soul, mind and being. How we live with faith as “a power and passion in authority among the powers and passions of life.” A power and passion born of grace which means we live not to get even but to forgive; not to judge and condemn but to be compassionate as our God is compassionate!
“The point of the parable is not to approve what the steward did wrong, but to applaud how rightly he did it. We are to do rightly what is right, even as he did rightly what was wrong.
"If he doesn't disturb us,
then he's not Jesus."
Andrew Greeley
Prayer thought for the week: “Lord, help me to be shrewdly graceful in all I do, letting compassion rule my heart and my actions.”
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