September 21 2025 Pentecost 15

Jeremiah 8.18-9.1     Psalm 79.1-9     1 Timothy 2.1-10    Luke 16.1-13

The parable we have heard this morning can be a bit confusing to understand.  We may be unsure of what Jesus is trying to tell us.  The unscrupulous manager appears to be doing his boss a disservice by reducing what is owed by his master’s debtors, but Jesus seems to be commending him for his actions.  So maybe knowing the ‘background’ to this situation might assist us.  This parable is one of many teachings in which Jesus critiques the priestly and ruling classes.  The law gave these people authority to care for the people and land, but they have used this power to serve their own agendas, to the detriment of the people and the land.  Jesus, in this parable, is holding up a mirror to unethical stewardship.  The master praises the steward for his shrewdness in improving the lives of debtors by his financial dealings.  The steward has prioritised relationships and the well-being of others over financial gain.  And we see trust as a key concept emerging from this story.

And through it we are invited to consider our relationship to creation as a gift and trust rather than seeing creation as ‘ours’ to ‘control’ and treat as we wish, because that will always open the door for misuse and abuse. 

At the end of the parable Jesus gives us four interpretations, but that only increases our confusion.

·      The children of the light need to act more shrewdly

·      Christians should make friends by ‘dishonest wealth’

·      If you are not faithful with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with the true riches

·      You cannot serve two masters.

Even if we can overlook the fact that the dishonest steward’s actions were driven by sheer desperation, we can still admire his actions as an attempt to establish mutual benefit for both him and the debtors.

I’m not sure where I read it, but something in the ‘deep recesses of my memory’ tells me that what this steward is doing with the debtors is simply removing the ‘cream’ that was automatically added to all debts by the ‘chief steward’ as his ‘commission’ for overseeing the transaction.  In the same way as tax collectors used to ‘add a bit for me’ in their calculation of the tax you owed, this steward added ‘cream’ for himself to all his master’s accounts when he calculated them.  So in ‘reducing’ the debts owed to his master, maybe all he is doing is removing the ‘cream’ that he would have taken for himself, so his master is no worse off anyway.  And this practice of adding cream was probably known to and accepted by the master, so when he sees the steward he has just fired removing it, he recognises and commends his shrewdness in ‘forgoing’ his ‘cut’ of the debt, and thereby being perceived by the debtors as being ‘kind’ to them, thereby strengthening his relationship with them.

But this steward’s actions still give us a good example in stewarding creatures and creation.  Rather than treating creatures and creation as ‘mine’ to use for my own advantage, this parable cautions us to see it as mine to look after and maintain for the advantage of those who come after me so everyone can all enjoy God’s creation forever.

When we look at our world today, do we see reflections of what is happening in this parable.  The boss commends the manager for acting shrewdly to ‘save his skin’.  Does our world today reflect this – a world where dishonesty, corruption, self-interest and ill-gotten wealth rule the day.  A world where selfish ambition garners praise and prosperity whereas honesty leads to contempt and cynicism.  A world where unfairness, exploitation and privilege are so endemic we fail to recognise them or protest them.  Where ethical living is neither straightforward nor easy.  And maybe Jesus is telling us, through this parable, that being ‘children of the light’ is both radically countercultural as well as painfully hard.

The truth is, we are living in a world that is profoundly interconnected and profoundly compromised, and this makes the decisions we make, as Christians, incredibly important.  Decisions like where do we shop, how do we invest our money, do we only buy from companies who do not engage in ‘slave labour’ in their manufacturing, do we only buy from traders who engage in ‘ethical’ practices toward our environment, do we favour utilities that ‘protect against climate change’; all these have important and far-reaching consequences.  And this parable reminds us to always hold this complicated reality close to our hearts and our consciences.

When the manager realises he is about to lose his job, he loses no time in developing a plan that will ‘save his skin’.  He knows himself very well, he is not strong enough for manual labour, he is too proud to beg, so develops a plan to ‘make friends’ with those who could benefit him in the future.  I wonder, does Jesus’ comment about the children of this age being ‘more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light’ mean that we can do a better job of engaging the crises, issues, injustices, losses, and failures facing our generation, our Church, our world, here and now.  In what ways are we failing to meet ‘head on’ the challenges of our time and place?  Where in our individual and collective lives are we ‘sitting back waiting’ for a solution to be handed to us rather than ‘hitting the streets running’ and creating our own solution.  In what areas of contemporary life have we lost cultural relevance as Christians?  How and where could we be ‘more shrewd’, more clever, more creative, more single-minded in our vocations as children of light?  If the manager can hustle so hard for his own survival, how much more might we contend on behalf of a world God loves?

And what if we see this parable as speaking to us about forgiveness.  The sort of forgiveness that is totally ‘out of this world’, that is truly radical.  Jesus, at the end of this parable tells us ‘You cannot serve God and wealth’.  If we see this parable as a story of forgiveness, then even the rich boss’s actions end in grace.  When he sees the reckless generosity of the now fired steward, the boss chooses to commend his generosity – even though it has cost him money.  If the rich man loved and served his wealth over everything else, he would not find it in his heart to forgive and approve the steward’s actions.

There are no neat correlations in this parable.  We cannot equate the rich man with God, and the steward is not necessarily us either.  But there are glimpses of the divine in this story.  Where there is forgiveness, there is God.  Where there is unburdening, where there is liberation, where there is crazy, radical generosity – there is God.  And where God is?  Well, that is where we should seek to be as well.

There is no one, single, interpretation for this parable.  But, at the very least, this parable might remind us to tread lightly when it comes to the words and stories of Jesus.  To approach with humility, to hold a place for mystery, and to avoid closing down interpretations too soon.  As is often the case with Jesus, we are dealing with an overabundance of meanings, truths, and possibilities – not a lack of them.  But the calling is still to live as children of light in a world that desperately needs solace, grace, forgiveness, and freedom.  May we enter into that calling with our whole hearts and minds – creatively, urgently, shrewdly – while we still can.