Stewart Weaver

Today’s reading is a corker.

It’s the story of the dishonest steward from Luke 16.  One might think that Jesus is in fact condoning some disingenuous, underhanded dealing.  What to make of it?

William Barclay, the ever-reliable Scottish commentator, essentially suggests that they are all rascals.  The stewart is a rascal for embezzlement.  The debtors are rascals for allowing themselves to become involved in a scheme that they knew was unjust.  And the master is a rascal because he appreciated the shrewd brains behind all of this wheeling and dealing.

In the Gospel of Luke there are a few endings added to verses 1-8a which suggest that the early compilers and writers weren’t sure what to do with this story.  If we take the nugget of the story it certainly is tricky.  Perhaps, following Barclay, we might suggest that we should perhaps expend as much energy, ingenuity and perhaps shrewdness pursuing faith as we do money or power or fame.

A fellow member of the clergy mentioned that he had preached on this parable some time ago in a special service in one of Scotland’s cathedrals.  He emphasises the enormous amount of goods that are involved: 2000 litres of oil and 20 tonnes of wheat.  The corruption is palpable.  But perhaps Jesus, speaking to his disciples, is making a clear point that those who are spiritual should be as prepared to act, spiritually as well as radically active, as those who are worldly act resolutely when needs require.

Perplexity grows.  The steward is still a rascal or corrupt.

My fellow clergyman mentioned that it is not wise to read all of these parables in a pedestrian, literal sense.  They are simply far too complex and one would not want to use the parable of the labourers in the vineyard as a blueprint for labour relations.

Perplexed, I headed off to a commentary by Kenneth E. Bailey entitled ‘Poet and Peasant’.  Bailey uses his knowledge of the world of peasants in Palestine to provide perhaps a slightly different take on many of the parables of Jesus.  Good stuff.

In summary, Bailey thinks that the image of the absentee landlord is not necessarily accurate, propounded perhaps by Europeans describing the previous Turkish landlords.  Landlords weren’t necessarily so removed, as Barclay assumes, and the mere fact that the landlord discovers the graft suggests a presence in the community.  Moreover, I can’t help but wonder if the cracking pace to the story suggests that the landlord is intimately involved with things.

So, the landlord discovers what happens and immediately requests the accounting books.  Note two things, Bailey observes.  Firstly, the steward is not tossed directly in jail as may well have been expected according to the Mishna, ancient Jewish interpretations of the law.  Secondly, the master does not scold the steward: he simply wants an accounting.  What’s going on here?  Why didn’t the master let rip and do what he could: bellow at thim, fire him on the spot, chuck him in jail.  He seems to be giving the steward some space.

And the steward grasps this chance with both hands.

He realises that he’s not really fit to do much of anything else.  So, realising that the tenants do not know that he is on his way out, he summons them.  He takes their bills and reduces them.  Is there a bit of a nudge and a wink here?  He draws them into his scheme and presumably they are not fully aware of what is happening.  The steward may be suggesting, implicitly, that he has persuaded the master to reduce the rent significantly.  The steward will be appreciated and held in high esteem by the tenants.

The steward returns to the master.  The master understands it all and is thus in a bit of a quandary.  If he reverses the decisions of the steward then those tenants who are celebrating the munificence of the master will most assuredly be disappointed and angry.  Or, can simply praise the steward for his insight and bask in the appreciation of the tenants.

The master takes the latter course.

The steward, who saw that moment of generosity in the master, a master who gave him a chance to respond, gambled all on this generosity.  He threw his dice on his future and he won.

And the master praises the steward for his wisdom.  In these days wisdom wasn’t necessarily an esoteric understanding of things mysterious but could include everyday practicality.  The practicality of survival.  In this sense, the steward was most assuredly a wise man.  And perhaps the master wise in a different sense but no more or less important.

Jesus told this story amongst peasants.  They would have been delighted to see steward and tenant come out for the better.

But Jesus also told this story amongst those who were living in an eschatological worldview.  The end was soon.  Judgment was upon us.  And thus the master who wanted a reckoning from us would undoubtedly find that each one of us, no matter how good our lives, would have or have had some moment of slippage, a time or two when we missed the mark, a shortcut here or there, that could render us excluded.

If we are like the steward, however, we will immediately spring into action.  We will use the wisdom that has been granted to us and our knowledge of God’s grace to persevere and to survive.  We will take that moment of generosity, use that space provided and we will and can use the moments we have in order to indicate to God that we have acted with wisdom.  We will show to God that, through our speedy actions taken with a sense of his presence, his possible judgement, our own wrongdoings, our God-given abilities and God’s generosity, a means of drawing those removed from God into a celebration of God’s generosity.

There was an urgency then, for the steward and for the disicples of Christ, to whom he told this story.

There is an urgency for us, to speed off, use our wisdom, re-evaluate and rectify our mistakes, and return to God.  Who may, with a wry smile, see how very human we remain, how human in our fear and trembling, how human in our ingenuity (does anyone else hear Adam’s ‘she made me do it!’) and how human in an almost childlike desire to please our master.  Out of fear and awe, perhaps, but perhaps out of a recognition of the space to act and the mercy and magnificence to respond.

Are you convinced?

I’m not either.  Not entirely.

And that is the beauty of these parables, isn’t it?

Just when I was beginning to get bored of the parables, mostly because I hadn’t taken the time to think about them or to find enlightening commentaries, I run across something like this.  A real corker.  What’s Jesus on about?  What is God on about?

And because, precisely because we don’t know exactly what Jesus was on about, we are intrigued, we are challenged, we are irritated, we are perplexed.

Thanks be to God.

The moment we become spiritually satisfied, assuming that we know what’s coming next, we’re in trouble.

And that’s the moment that Christ sends to us a reminder that we really don’t understand entirely the mystery of his life nor the mystery of God.

I pray, God, send me another conundrum.

Keep my on my toes.

Amen.