The Unjust Steward: The most difficult parable of all?
Why on earth does Christ hold up a worldly trickster in this parable? His comparison calls us not to admire deceit, but to expose the spiritual laziness of 'the children of light.'
Why on earth does Christ hold up a worldly trickster in this parable? His comparison calls us not to admire deceit, but to expose the spiritual laziness of 'the children of light.'
Editor’s Notes
The story of the Unjust Steward – for Coleridge says that it is not exactly a parable – is one of the most perplexing parts of the Gospel.
It is read on the Eight Sunday after Pentecost, and occurs during Our Lord’s final journey towards Jerusalem and his Passion. Although it may not be a parable according to Coleridge, it falls between Our Lord’s parables of the Prodigal Son and the Lost Sheep, and that of Lazarus and the Rich Man.
Focusing on the correct stewardship of temporal goods, Our Lord contrasts the “prudence” of worldly men with the negligence of those believing themselves aiming for spiritual goods. He reminds us that all we have is from God, and invites us to find ways to use these gifts in the inerests of charity and eternal life.
In this first part, Coleridge sets out the comparison, and explains Christ’s use of what might, at first glance, seem to be a strange analogy.
The Unjust Steward
The Preaching of the Cross, Part II
Chapter VIII
St. Luke xvi. 1-13
Story of the Gospels, § 115
Burns and Oates, London, 1887
Reference to the Pharisees
St. Luke proceeds from the parables of which we have last been speaking to another head of doctrine, concerning the use of riches. In this case, as in the former, he joins together more than one teaching of our Lord, as to which we are not certain whether they were, or were not, delivered quite consecutively.
The connection between them as to subject-matter is obvious at once. There are a few words at the beginning of the second of these instructions which tell us that the Pharisees had heard the former, and that they met it with derision and contumely. In consequence of this, our Lord went on to the second instruction, which contains the story, or parable, of Lazarus and the rich glutton.
It will already have been noted, that in the parables of this period our Lord seems to have had the Pharisees very much in His mind, and it may perhaps be the case that He saw in their souls the immense evil of covetousness in spiritual and ecclesiastical persons. It was a secret root of mischief in their souls, affecting their whole character, and operating most powerfully in preventing them from becoming His disciples, and helping to the conversion of others.
This tacit reference to the Pharisees may help us to the more thorough intelligence of the parable, or history, now to be considered.
The Unjust Steward
‘And He said also to His disciples, There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him and said to him, How is it that I hear this of thee? Give an account of thy stewardship, for now thou canst be steward no longer.
‘And the steward said within himself, What shall I do, because my lord taketh away from me the stewardship? To dig I am unable, to beg I am ashamed. I know what I will do, that when I shall be removed from my stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.
‘Therefore calling together every one of his master’s debtors, he said to the first, How much dost thou owe to my lord? But he said, A hundred barrels of oil. And he said to him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then he said to another, And how much dost thou owe? Who said, A hundred quarters of wheat. He said to him, Take thy bill, and write eighty.
‘And the lord commended the unjust steward, forasmuch as he had done wisely, for the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.’
Perhaps an actual example
This is a history of which it seems probable that the individual details are not to be so pressed as if each had some spiritual meaning. Indeed, as it is not said to be a parable by the Evangelist, there is no need whatever for assuming it to be such, and it is only as such that we should be justified in supposing that all its details are full of meaning hidden under the facts. The attempt to interpret it in such a manner has been the cause of endless perplexity to those who have made it.
The example is that of a man of the world, unscrupulous as to the use of the means which happened to be in his hands, who made of them, without regard to justice, the use most advantageous for his own interests in a moment of pressure.
Our Lord seems to tell us that this is His meaning by the last clause, in which He speaks of the children of this world being wiser in their generation than the children of light.
The steward made a clever use of his opportunity, and thus secured, or seemed to secure, the object which he had in view, although it was gained at the expense of his master, who was about to discard him.
The lord who commends the unjust steward is the master, who admires the clever trick by which the friendship of his debtors had been gained. He went over, so to speak, to the side of his master’s debtors, and made them his friends, at the cost of losing his master’s friendship, which he had no hope of retaining.
It was the only way open to a man in difficulties, and he had the wit to avail himself of it. He had thus done wisely. He had shown that he understood the ways of the world, and was wise enough to grasp the occasion which presented itself before it was too late. It seems as if the lord could have had no redress, under the circumstances, from the debtors, who could produce the steward’s acquittance of their debts, while the steward himself had no substance which could be seized to make it worth while to proceed against him.
Our Lord would have us to be on the look out to make the most of our opportunities, to use them, and money, and whatever comes to our hand, for the true interests of our soul. And He tells us that, ordinarily speaking, worldlings are more skilful, more vigilant, more energetic, more discerning, as to the interests which they have at heart, than we are as to those eternal goods which we have so many opportunities of gaining which we let slip.
He sets before us a man who used his opportunities to make himself friends, and it is this point on which He insists in the injunction with which the parable closes. In this way the history is at least easy to understand, and the lesson which it conveys is very practical.
‘Make yourselves friends’
‘And I say to you, Make unto you friends of the mammon of iniquity, that when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting dwellings.’
The friends whom the steward secured by his cleverness might have remained his friends for a time only, and their means of sheltering him in his destitution must have failed in time.
But those whom we can make our friends by the right use of the mammon of iniquity will be our friends for ever. And the homes into which they may receive us are the everlasting mansions of the Kingdom of Heaven. This, then, our Lord seems to tell us, is the reason for which the good things of this world, wealth and the like, are placed in our hands.
Of themselves they cannot secure us any good, they cannot preserve or restore our health, they are not in themselves the cause of any pleasure or solace, they cannot soothe the wounds of our heart, or answer the questionings of our mind, or be our companions in solitude and bereavement, any more than they can satisfy our hunger or thirst, or relieve our pain.
They can procure us some of these things from our fellow-men, and it is on this account that we value them and use them. But they are not useful in this way in this world alone, and for the ends of this world. They can make us friends in this world, as the steward’s example shows us.
But far more they can make us friends in the next. We cannot carry them with us, but we can send their fruit before us, which can furnish us in our everlasting home with friends whose aid can never fail, who will meet us on the eternal shores with welcome and love when otherwise we might land thereon in utter destitution and abject misery.
But who are the “friends” which Our Lord wants us to make with the help of “unjust mammon”? Find out in Part II.
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The Unjust Steward
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Thanks for posting Fr Coleridge’s explanation of the reading before the Sunday it is read at Mass. It makes a real difference to spend time thinking about what is being said in advance.