September 21, 2025 at Saint Agnes, Saint William, & Saint Peter Churches in Naples, FL
Amos 8: 4-7 + Psalm 113 + Timothy 2 1-8 + Luke 16: 1-13
Jesus was a master at undermining systems. He saw people who benefited from a system that rewarded some at the expense of others. He saw that people in debt were caught in a vicious circle of increasing interest. He saw widows losing a chance to survive with dignity, the blind and lame being blamed for disabilities over which they had no control. It grieved him and his Father. Today’s episode digs in as a response to what he saw. This parable is one of the most complex and sometimes troubling of all the parables in the Gospels. Saint Augustine is said to have remarked: “I can’t believe this story came from the lips of our Lord.” This parable is only found in Luke, and some scholars believe that even Luke had trouble with it because of those final verses added at the end. Luke’s Gospel, more than the others speaks about money and the trouble it causes. It is Luke who quotes Jesus saying that we cannot love both God and money. I was in a discussion group years ago with a group of Protestant Pastors, and this text came up in our study together. One of the older men said: “When this text comes up, peach about something else or you may end up getting fired.” I’m not worried about that very much.
What Luke describes here is the saturation of a rich man whose life-style is made possible by the income from his estate run by tenant farmers. They have to buy what they need from the company store with whatever is left over after they pay exorbitant rent to that rich man. The harvest is never enough to pay the rent and buy what they need. So, they just get deeper and deeper in debt. That steward knows just to enough realize that something is wrong, and it gets him in trouble. What he does about it is wrong, and so we have characters here. Both of them do wrong leaving us to wonder what it is we might get from this parable.
Remembering Luke’s overall critique of the wealthy who are only interested in their own welfare, we might begin to see that this saying is about more than money even though wealth is clearly at issue. Jesus is speaking to us about our values and ultimate loyalties. This parable is primarily about one’s approach to wealth and about how one uses it and to what end.
The steward or “manager” enjoys special praise not exactly for what he does, but for why he does it. This steward is praised because rather than accumulating wealth for himself, he invests in good and lasting relationships. He sees that ultimately wealth and security are not really provided by money, but rather by friendships and relationships. In the end, when the two men are compared, we might just want to see which one did the most good for others. The Gospel seems to suggest that real prudence values relationships more than anything else.