The Parable of the Unjust Steward – God’s Sole Interest (Luke 16:1-15)

The Parable of the Unjust Steward – God’s Sole Interest

 

Luke 16:1-15

 

Today, we are going to think about the parable of the unjust steward, which is one of the parables told by Jesus and is renowned for its difficulty to understand the exact meaning. As we just read, the story of this parable is quite simple. There was a rich man, and he had a steward who was managing the master’s properties. one day, the rich man heard that his manager had been wasting his possessions. So he called the manager and informed that he would be fired soon. The manager, faced with this coming misfortune, made a scheme for the security of his future life after the loss of his job. It was reducing debts for the master’s debtors. He called the debtors one by one, and reduced the amount of their debts by even up to half. With this, he expected that the debtors would welcome him into their houses when he lost his job. Up to here, the story is quite reasonable and, so, understandable. The difficult part is in verse 8. The master praised the unjust steward for what he had done. The manager was accused of wasting the master’s possessions. And, going further, he caused a heavy loss to the master for his own security. Still the master praised him, regarding his act as wise.

 

In order to understand the master’s commendation for the steward’s act, we need to make some points clear. First of all, this parable is not about wealth or properties. It is not about monetary gain or loss. In his application of the parable in verse 9, Jesus says, “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” In this saying, Jesus takes “friends” and “eternal dwellings” for “everlasting ends” and, in contrast, takes “worldly wealth” for “transient means” to be used up. This is even clearer in verse 13 when Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Verse 14 is also counterevidence for this, which says, “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus.” So, we can see clearly that the focus of this parable is not on wealth or money.

 

This parable is not about moral integrity, either. People wonder how the master could praise the manager’s act that had caused a heavy loss to his properties. Even if wealth is not treated as the first concern, still dishonesty is dishonesty. The master also fired the steward for his wasting of properties. Nevertheless, the manager’s wasting of the master’s possessions is not taken as an issue serious enough to contradict the master’s commendation for the manager’s wise act. Even, we can say that the steward’s moral defect provides a fine background that spotlights the true issue of this parable, which is the manager’s wisdom and the master’s appreciation of the wisdom. As I know, surprisingly, moral integrity has never been a serious issue in the Gospels. Rather, we often see the exact opposites. In the famous parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, for example, the prodigal son squandered his wealth in wild living (Luke 15:13). In the story, there was another man who had the same habit. It was his father, who held a great banquet and killed the fatten calf for the useless prodigal son who had returned home after such an immoral life. The older brother was angry, first of all, at his brother who had squandered the father’s property with prostitutes, and he was also angry at his father who killed the fattened calf for such a wretched guy. The older brother was the only man who was able to boast of his moral integrity. He said, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you, and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.” Wow, what a nice man he is! But we know well that Jesus didn’t tell the parable in order to praise the older brother’s goodness. Even in verse 15 of today’s text, Jesus warns the Pharisees by saying, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.”

 

The point of this parable is the manager’s wisdom and the master’s appreciation of the wisdom. Then, in what way was the manager wise? Simply saying, he foresaw his future and prepared for it. This was his wisdom. With this wisdom, he acted wisely and harvested the fruit of his wisdom. In the Bible, wisdom means “the ability to see the future and to prepare for it.” Joseph explained the meaning of Pharaoh’s dreams as the coming of seven years’ abundant harvest followed by seven years’ severe famine. Daniel also interpreted the mysterious dream of King Nebuchadnezzar as future things planned by God. They were all respected highly as men of wisdom and discernment. In contrast, God deplored his people’s lack of wisdom and discernment, saying, “They are a nation without sense, there is no discernment in them. If only they were wise and would understand this and discern what their end will be!” (Deuteronomy 32:28-29). All the teachings of Jesus Christ can be summarized into his opening word at the beginning of his ministry: “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” True wisdom is our knowledge of and preparation for the coming kingdom of God, and Jesus’ gospel is full of such wisdom, telling us what is coming and how we should prepare for that. Jesus didn’t teach us how to live today. Rather, Jesus taught us how to prepare for tomorrow. Wisdom is living the future and seeking eternity at the cost of today.

 

Then how should be our life in preparing for the coming kingdom of God? It is “being faithful.” The main actor of today’s story is a steward. In the ancient times, a steward was in an extremely ambivalent position. The steward in charge of a house was “king” over the household, and at the same time, “slave” to the master. We can find a good example from the stewardship of Joseph in Genesis. Joseph was sold as a slave to Egyptian official Potiphar. Seeing that the Lord God was blessing whatever Joseph was doing, Potiphar put Joseph in charge of his household and all that he owned (Genesis 39:4). He left in Joseph’s care everything he had, and he didn’t concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Although he was still one of the slaves, Joseph was virtually king over Potiphar’s household. The same thing happened when Egyptian King Pharaoh appointed Joseph as his steward, saying, “You shall be in charge of my palace, and all my people are to submit to your orders. only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you…… I am Pharaoh, but without your word no one will lift hand or foot in all Egypt.” How could Joseph, a slave, reach such a high position? It was because he was faithful to the master’s interest even more than the master himself was. In other words, Joseph’s faithfulness to his master’s cause was the base of his ruling authority. I would like to make another quotation from Kierkegaard: “Authority does not mean to be a king, but by a firm and conscious resolution to be willing to sacrifice everything, one’s very life, for a cause.” Yes, a steward’s authority is in his firm and willing commitment to the master’s cause to the point of sacrificing his own life.

 

Man was created as God’s steward who was established as king over the world. To the man he created, God said, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Genesis 1:28). This is even more true to us Christian believers as in a number of Jesus’ teachings, and especially in Luke 12:42-43 saying, “Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his master shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes” (NKJV). Being the master’s steward, we cannot live a life apart from the master’s cause. Rather, our life should be such a firm and willing commitment to the master’s cause to the point of sacrificing our own life. Then, what can be the cause or interest of our master who is God in heaven or our Lord Jesus Christ? We may get a clue from what the unjust manager did. He called the master’s debtors one by one and reduced their debts considerably. In the Bible, a debtor is equivalent to a sinner, and his debts are to sins. If the master is Jesus Christ, what the unjust steward did is quite compatible with the master’s interest. He was dispensing the master’s forgiving grace to the debtors. Actually this is what we the Christian stewards should do in the world. We were put in charge of God’s household in order to feed the household members with heavenly food, which is Jesus Christ. Christian writer Henry Hon said, “Ministering Christ to others so that Jesus might be reproduced and grow in people is the highest service to both God and man.”

 

Living in the world, we have our own interests. What are the most important interests to us? I believe they are economic wealth and moral goodness. These are our foremost causes. If only we can have both!!! What a beautiful and happy life it would be! The Pharisees in Jesus’ days had the same thought. They loved money, and they sought “righteousness,” which was actually hypocritical self-righteousness hated by God. Interestingly, however, the unjust steward’s lifestyle went against the Pharisees’ keen interest in money and moral goodness. He squandered the master’s money unjustly in order to buy the debtors’ favor. By doing so, he defied the Pharisees’ foremost causes. He gave up money and moral integrity in order to buy the debtors’ favor. What a foolish thing! Who cares for debtors’ welfare? Who needs debtors’ favor? From the Pharisees’ viewpoint, the unjust steward was not only unjust but also foolish. But the unjust steward poured everything onto the debtors, expecting their favor. This was his interest, and actually this was God’s interest, God’s sole and foremost interest. God’s sole interest is saving a sinner at the cost of everything, even until sacrificing his own son and making him sin for us (2Corinthians 5:21). This is strikingly “unjust waste.” But God ventured this “unjust waste” in order to save one lost soul. This sole interest of God is even clearer in Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:3-7. When a man had one hundred sheep and lost one of them, he left the ninety nine sheep in the open country and went after the lost sheep until he found it. In order to search for “one lost sheep” the man gave up the other ninety nine sheep in the open field infested with wild beasts. This parable says that “one lost soul” is more important to God than “the sum of everything else,” and therefore in God’s house, saving a soul, however little he is, justifies “unjust waste,” however great it is.

 

We are God’s stewards who are serving God’s sole interest, which is dispensing the forgiving grace of Jesus Christ to one lost soul. God is not interested in our moral integrity. God is not interested in our economic wealth. God is interested in saving a lost soul, and for this, God gave Christ. “Christ” is an inexhaustible fortune. God prepared this great fortune for us. What he needs now is a faithful steward who would like to share God’s sole interest. As long as we are fully and firmly committed to God’s sole interest, we are kings over the world who have the right to squander the fortune. But if we don’t do anything with the fortune for God’s lost souls, we are truly unjust stewards who are wasting the master’s precious properties. When we commit our earthly life to this sole interest, God will reward us with true riches, imperishable eternal riches that are truly ours. May the Lord give us this wisdom, and use us as his faithful stewards in saving his lost souls until we enter the eternal dwellings!