PENTECOST XVIII (Proper 20) 2016

St Luke - Frans Hals

• Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 and Psalm 79:1-9  • 
• Amos 8:4-7 and Psalm 113  • 
• 1 Timothy 2:1-7  • 
• 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 from the fact that Jesus appears to commend, even to praise, the manager’s dishonesty – “I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth”. This sits especially ill with the second Old Testament lesson for this week in which the prophet Amos denounces the unscrupulous pursuit of wealth.

 

Head of Plautus, God of Wealth - Prud'hon

The story in itself is troublesome, but the difficulty of understanding what Jesus means by telling it is increased in 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?

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. They suppose 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 in order, say, to feed the hungry, may surreptitiously lead us to embrace purposes and values deeply at odds with the spiritual well being of both ourselves and others.

This hard truth 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, and the poor no less than the rich can love money. What it does imply, though, is that a time may come when we face a real choice between love of God and love of Mammon -- only to find that, unwittingly, we have in fact already made it.