The Unjust Steward

A Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity
Preached at the Church of St Bartholomew, Regent Park Toronto
21 July 2008

Quia filii huius saeculi prudentiores filiis lucis in generatione sua sunt. For the children of this age are in their generation more prudent than the children of light. Luke 16.9

A steward who cheats his master, and when he is fired cooks up a scheme to cheat him even further and is then praised by his master for his prudence and shrewdness is hardly someone you would expect Christ to hold up as an example for us. But this seems to be what we have just heard in the Parable of the Unrighteous Steward. Though there are other characters in Jesus’ parables who are pretty shady: the unjust judge, the neighbour who does not want to be bothered in the night, and the man who pockets someone else’s treasure by buying his field, but this fellow takes the cake. The only way to make the steward’s actions anything other than embezzlement and fraud is by making excuses.
From ancient times enemies of the Church have seized on the seeming incongruity of a story that praises a scoundrel as a charge against the faith. Christians themselves have found it to be rather an embarrassing story, and have come up with an almost endless variety of ways to make sense of it, Usually, they fall back on allegory, but this has only confused the issue. One of the wisest of nineteenth-century Anglican commentators on the parables, Archbishop Trench of Dublin, began his look at this one by saying,

No one, who has seriously considered, will underrate the difficulties of this parable—difficulties which Cajetan found so insuperable that he gave up the matter in despair, affirming a solution of them impossible.

Cardinal Cajetan was one of the great biblical scholars of the sixteenth century: if this parable was to much for him, it is daunting indeed. (If you want a good book on the parables, by the way, I commend Trench’s Notes on the Parables of the Lord; it is readily available in libraries or on-line at the Internet Archive.) Trench notes many of the previous attempts to interpret this parable, but finds that

very many of its interpreters have (to use a familiar expression), in my judgment, overrun their game. We have here, as I am persuaded, simply a parable of Christian prudence, —Christ exhorting us to use the world, and the world’s goods, so to speak, against the world, and for God.

If we read the story carefully it is obvious that Jesus is not praising the dishonesty of the steward; rather it is the rich man in the story who praises his steward’s prudence, on hearing of his scheme. And perhaps it is no more than saying something like: “There’s a clever fellow!” The whole incident makes the point in the verse that I have taken as my text, “For the children of this age are in their generation more prudent than the children of light.”
To understand this verse, we need to note that “in their generation” is not the clearest of translations. What the Greek actually means is ‘towards or for their own generation,” or as Moffat rendered it, “for the children of this world look farther ahead in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.” Another rendering could be “for their own ends and purposes”. Who are the more prudent? The “children of this age” or “of this world”—where we think physically of “the world”, the ancients thought temporally of “the age”. [There really is no difference. In our prayers the phrase “World without end” translates in saecula saeculorum, “unto ages of ages.” I am reminded of the CBC broadcast of Pierre Trudeau’s funeral where the voice-over translation given for the French version of this phrase was “for centuries and centuries. But I digress.] Trench explains the phrase well:

The children of this world' are the Psalmist's ‘men of the earth,' those whose portion is here, and who look not beyond; who, born of the world's spirit, order their lives by the world's rule. The phrase occurs only here and at Luke 20.34; 'children of light' he has in common with St John (12.36) and St Paul (1 Thess v.5; Eph v.8) The faithful are called by this rather than any other of the many names of honour which are theirs; for thus are their deeds. which are deeds of light, done in truth and sincerity, even as they are themselves children of the day and of the light, are contrasted with the 'works of darkness.’

What Christ declares in this verse is that the people of this world, make their business with one another more profitable,—obtain more from it,—manage it better for their interests, such as those are, than the children of light manage their business with one another.
Here our Lord does not hold the actions of the steward up as an example to us. But his actions have two aspects: one, his dishonesty, is blameworthy; the other, his prudence is something which should be abundantly, but is only too weakly, found among Christians. The heart of this parable, then, is found in the Lord’s words, “Ecce ego mitto vos sicut oves in medio luporum; estote ergo prudentes sicut serpentes et simplices sicut columbae; Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matt 10.16).
Indeed, this parable sends us to learn from the worldlings. Christ says to us that it is good for us, at least occasionally, to learn from them. For the children of this world rake their ends seriously, and work hard to achieve them. How often do we hear of those who sacrifice themselves, their families, their comfort, their digestions, in order to achieve success. How often do we hear people praised for their drive. We claim, we preach that the ends for which these sacrifices are made will pass away, but that our faith offers us an eternal reward.
It is not just the ordinary worldly folk, who are neither particularly bad or good, who can teach. us. Trench, quoting St Bernard, noted that

deeds of bold bad men have a side, that namely of their boldness and decision, on which they rebuke the doings of the weak and vacillating good. They are the martyrs of the devil, who put to shame the saints of God; and running, as they do, with more alacrity to death than these to life, may be proposed to them for their emulation.

An illustration of this point is found in a story of one of the Egyptian desert fathers:

Chancing to see a dancing girl, he was moved to tears; being asked the reason, he replied, 'That she should be at such pains to please men in her sinful vocation; and we in our holy calling use so little diligence to please God.'

Here we may begin to see why Jesus would tell such a story about a scoundrel, for only such a stark contrast can realty make this point.
The parable goes on, and in the remaining verses the focus is set more sharply on how it is that the children of light must be more prudent in dealing with their own generation. The best interpretations of the parable tell us that just as the Steward used money—and that is all that the expression “mammon of unrighteousness” really means here—to ensure his temporal habitation, we are to use it to ensure the eternal habitation. In short, by almsgiving. However, our time is pretty well up—for the days when a real hour glass guided the preacher are long past—and for today we must rest content with this consideration of the parable of the Unrighteous Steward. But this is enough, for in what we have considered, the Unrighteous Steward says to us in challenge and in rebuke, “I pursued temporal things as if they were eternal, with all the intensity I had: you pursue eternal things as if it were less than the temporal.” Let us look into our hearts to find what answer we can make.

Homily for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity
Preached at The Church of St Bartholomew, Apostle And Martyr,
Regent Park, Toronto
6 July, 2008

Some of the congregation this morning were kind enough to ask me to make this available, and will now find out that the spoken version was probably better than the written one!

One of the advantages of not holding a permanent appointment in the Church is that one has so many more opportunities to be in different Churches and experience their customs and practices. When you're Rector of a parish you never have the same opportunities to Church-hop on a Sunday, or the need to fill in for clergy on vacation. I am glad that at last I have come to be with you here at St Bartholomew’s for the Sundays of July.
Of all the beauties of the Book of Common Prayer some of the finest are the Collects of the Day. But they are so short and said so quickly that perhaps we do not always hear them and appreciate as we might. It doesn’t have to be so, since they are appointed to be said morning and evening (at least) for the whole week, and might well be seeds of contemplation.
Now most of the Prayer Book Collects are translations of the old Latin Collects, but not slavish translations. To examine how the old Collects are given new expression in English shows not only the different genius of each language, but opens the words for deeper contemplation. Consider the original on which today’s Collect is modelled. The genius of the Latin Collects is their terse simplicity; the richer vocabulary of English alows for a greater nuance. To make the point obvious, here is a literal translation of the Collect: In fact I've tried to be so literal that it is actually a bad translation!

God of powers, everything that is best is from you, put into our breasts the love of thy name, and furnish in us the increase of religion, that you may nourish us with the things that are good, and by the zeal of faithfulness guard those that have been nourished.[1]

Or something like that; I’m not quite sure of the last clause. The new Roman Missal has by your constant care protect the good you have given us. But that’s not really the point. Now let us hear again the collect as we prayed it at the beginning of Mass:

Lord of all power and might, who art the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

As T. S. Eliot said of Lancelot Andrewes’ sermons, the English version of the Collect squeezes the last ounce of meaning out of the Latin words. Where the Latin said that all good is, or perhaps comes of God, the English spells it out: He is the author and giver of all good things. They not only come from him but he gives them to his people; he is the author, the one who gives with authority. By considering how the revisers of the liturgy adapted the Collect. we can go more deeply into its meaning Now I can’t be all day talking about the prose style of the Prayer Book, so we will think rather hand allow it to help us to hear today’s Epistle and Gospel with profit.
In the first place, we have acknowledged that all good comes to us from God: He is the author and giver of all good things. The first good thing we pray for is the love of God’s Name, that is, of himself and his power. Look, though at how we pray this; we say, “Graft in our hearts the love of thy name.” The original verb was insere. Now it just so happens that there are two almost identical verbs inserō in Latin; one meaning "to put in, insert," and the other meaning "to implant, or graft." Insere in the original might be either, and it must have been a conscious decision of the revisers to use “graft” rather than “insert” or “fill” as the new Roman translation has it. The use of this image from gardening seems to have been suggested by the the idea of good and evil fruit in the Epistle reading. That idea of course, is found elsewhere in the Gospels, in particular in next Sunday’s gospel where our Lord declares, by their fruits ye shall know them. and in the passage where he declares that he is the vine and we are the branches. It is though our baptism that we are grafted onto him, and that love of God is grafted into our hearts. Through this grafting we are liberated from bondage to sin and enter into the new obedience of righteousness. The contrast St Paul draws between the bondage of sin and the service of Christ is probably the source of the beautiful expression “Whose service is perfect freedom,” in the second Collect at Mattins.
The Collect goes on to pray that God, the giver of all good things, will “nourish us with all goodness,” a graft will wither if it is not nourished. But today’s collect and readings also show us where we are to look for the nourishment we need for our new obedience The words of the Collect should resonate in us as we hear the Gospel account of the Good Shepherd feeding his flock of four thousand with seven loaves and a few small fishes.
There are many interesting questions about this miracle: how it relates to the other miraculous feeding, what the numbers involved might symbolize. But while these are important, the fundamental good news of this miracle is first the abundant love of God who nourishes us with all goodness, then the gracious courtesy of God, who takes the meagre offerings we have for him, and of that produces the abundance. How often is it that we see a need, and recognize our responsibility as Christ’s people, but think our resources are too poor to do any good. At such times we must remember this miracle. Christ took the few loaves and fishes and, giving thanks to God, broke and commanded his disciples to set them before the people, and all ate ande were filled. What else should we do when we look around and say, How can anyone fulfill this need here in the wilderness, but offer what we have to the Lord and then move ahead in faith. Only by doing that can new ever learn to have faith.
We have abundant reason for faith. This Lord Jesus looks on the needs of his people and is stricken to the heart. In our translation he says “I have compassion on the multitude”, and though compassion means “suffering with,” that meaning is no longer a living metaphor; by compassion we mean no little more than “caring”; but the word here translated “have compassion” means to feel in one’s abdomen, to be struck in the heart. We know that feeling. How wonderful that through the Incarnation our Lord God should condescend to feel it, too. If he feels that way for his people, we may be sure he will give the good things needed to help them.
There is much more that can be said. For instance, another link between the Epistle and Gospel comes in the idea of obedience. Obedience runs through the Gospel, where Christ’s command that the people should sit down (though it seemed a mere arbitrary command), was followed by the reward of obedience, His bounty. But it is summer time, and though there is much to be said, there is even more to be said for brevity. So to finish, it is my hope that if you do not already, you will use the Collect every day in your personal prayers, saying it slowly and carefully so that the full meaning enters your mind and heart, and the links to the Epistle and Gospel will return to mind. I hope, too, that (if it is not already your practice) you will read and ponder the Collect and readings for next Sunday as part of your preparation.

[1] Deus virtutum, Cuius est totum quod est optimum; insere pectoribus nostris amorem Tui nominis, et praesta in nobis religionis augmentum, ut quae sunt bona nutrias, ac pietatis studio quae sunt nutrita custodias. Per Dominum. A version of this is the Collect for the XXII Sunday in Ordinary Time in the current Roman Missal.