PENTECOST XVIII

• Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 and Psalm 79:1-9 •
• Amos 8:4-7 and Psalm 113 •
• 1 Timothy 2:1-7 •



Frans Hals St Luke (1625(

• Luke 16:1-13

This week’s Gospel parable,commonly known as the Parable of the Unjust Steward, is unique to Luke and one of the most puzzling passages in the New Testament, There is no consensus among Biblical scholars as to just how it should be interpreted.

To save his own skin, a manager under suspicion fraudulently changes the amounts owed to his master in the hope that he can call in a few favors after he is fired. The problem of interpretation arises because Jesus appears to commend, even to praise, the manager’s dishonesty – “I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth”. The difficulty of understanding what he means is increased by what follows. How does the broader lesson– “You cannot serve God and wealth” (or in traditional language, God and Mammon) -- flow from the parable that precedes it?

Mammon G F Watts (1817-1904)

Here is one way of looking at this difficult passage. People often think that they can be worldly wise while remaining true to a noble purpose, that with enough determination they can successfully use material means to spiritual ends. Jesus warns us against this easy assumption. Worldly wisdom has a dynamic of its own, one requiring us to follow a path that, almost without our noticing, quickly becomes a downward spiral. To pursue material benefits energetically and effectively may well mean that we have to embrace purposes and values deeply at odds with the spiritual well being of both ourselves and others.

The truth of this does not necessarily carry the implication that only self-imposed poverty is spiritually safe. As St Paul says elsewhere, it is not money, but the love of money, that is the root of evil. What it does imply is that a time may come when we face a real choice between love of God and love Mammon -- only to find that unwittingly we have already made it.

Something similar can be said about political power. Its pursuit for godly purposes – justice and peace, say -- is not as simple as many Christians have believed. That is why the unfashionable political ‘quietism’ that Paul advocates in this week’s Epistle – just praying for ‘all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life’ deserves more of a hearing than Christian activists usually give it.