Life And Wealth

Parables are not so much “timeless truths” as they are short stories to make us think. They can be challenging, disturbing and perplexing. Our understanding of a parable can (and probably should) change over time as we have more life experience and grow in faith. There is always something more to receive from a parable. One of the challenges of parables is how to read them. Sometimes they can be read as allegories, other times as metaphors, sometimes they are statements about how the world ought to be, and sometimes they are statements about how the world actually is.

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?” He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him,’Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly, for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation that are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much, and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If, then, you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Luke 16:1-13 NRSVue

Sometimes commentators and preachers work really hard to justify the manager’s actions. This can come out of an assumption that in this parable, the rich man/master is acting as God or Jesus would act. Or they assume that every story, including parables describes how God wants the world to be.

In this parable, Jesus is not describing actions that he approves of. He is describing the world as it was, and still is. We are not to emulate this, rather we are to recognize the world for what it is. Then he talks about how disciples live in such a world.

When we read this parable, we need to remember how the Roman Empire in the first century CE was structured. Society was based on a patronage system. People were either benefactors/patrons or they were clients¹. This was a hierarchical system and each party had responsibilities to the other. Also in this system, as the manager for a rich master, the manager probably held significant status himself.

The master’s debtors were also rich. “jug” was about 40 liters.² To make one hundred jugs of olive oil, one would need a large grove. It’s a little more difficult to know how much a container of wheat was, probably somewhere between 6-12 bushels.³ To make a hundred containers of wheat they would need to own a large amount of land. The point being these are large amounts of produce and the ability to produce this much was beyond the capability of the average peasant farmer.

Commentators offer various explanations for what the manager did when he reduced the debts. Some think he waved the interest on the debts, and was correcting an unjust means of loaning money. Some think he waved his own commission. ⁴ These are attempts to make the manager somewhat less dishonest. The simplest explanation is, what the text says, that he reduced what people owed his master so that they would be in the managers “debt”. By his actions he has become their patron, and they owe him. He expects that debt to be repaid with hospitality; “welcoming [him] into their homes”. Remember these are rich people, so he is planning on staying in nice homes.

His master’s response, is essentially, “well played.” The manager worked the system to his benefit. The master appears to appreciate his skill in manipulating the system. For what good are systems if you can’t bend them to your own advantage?

Our clue that Jesus doesn’t approve of these actions and has something else in mind begins with verse 8. “for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” (Luke 16:8-9). Is Jesus telling us to work the system as the manager did? Is he saying it’s a corrupt world so disciples can also manipulate the system like the rich guys?

I think what Jesus is saying here, is that the disciples (and us) are stuck in unjust and corrupt systems. We can’t remove ourselves from the world we live in. We have to eat. We have to survive and the only way we can do that is to be part of the system we live in. The only “wealth” we have to work with is “dishonest wealth”. We can’t participate in any other way.

However, what we can do is use that dishonest wealth in better ways. We can put that dishonest wealth to work for the Kingdom of God. This is consistent with what Jesus has been saying earlier in the Gospel of Luke⁵. Public meals and banquets were ways that social and economic hierarchies were maintained. Jesus tells his followers to disrupt that way of life by how they live. Here, he is doing something similar.

It is impossible for us to completely step out of the current cultural, political, and financial systems we live in. We don’t have the power to change our local, national or global economies. However, we also are not without any agency. We can be “faithful in a very little”. We can be faithful with what we have. We can do what we can do. We can be “faithful with the dishonest wealth” as we strive for the “true riches” of the Kingdom of God.We can be “faithful with what belongs to another”. We can be faithful with our lives and possessions in a society that rewards and glorifies wealth and power and status.

Who are the friends we are supposed to make with dishonest wealth? I suspect Jesus means the poor and marginalized. They are the ones, who in the Kingdom of God, will be raised up. Will they be the ones who welcome the rest of us?

Once again, Jesus is asking us to examine our lives and to decide how we are going to live in this world? Where is our allegiance? What do we love? How shall we live in a world of wealth?

1. The word “patron” comes from the Latin, patronus, which comes from pater, father. The word “client” comes from clientem, follower, retainer, which is related to clinare “to incline, bend”. “The notion apparently is ‘one who leans on another for protection’.” https://www.etymonline.com/word/client ↩︎
2. Green, Joel B. The Gospel of Luke, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1997, page 592. ↩︎
3. Culpepper, R. Alan, “The Gospel of Luke” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol IX, Abingdon Press, 1995, page 308. ↩︎
4. Green, 592. Culpepper, 308. ↩︎
5. See chapters 14 and 15. And see the last few posts on this blog. ↩︎