In today’s gospel, Jesus tells the story of the parable of the dishonest steward. The steward had been found out by his master to be squandering his master’s possessions. Knowing that he was going to be fired, the steward made friends with his master’s debtors by forgiving them some money that they owed the master so that they would take the steward in after he was fired. Seeing his prudence, the master commends him. Jesus concludes with a warning that we need to love God more than money.
This is possibly the most confusing parable in the Gospels. It is hard to identify how we should interpret what Jesus is saying. Is it okay to be dishonest as long as we forgive others? Who are we supposed to be in the story? Are we supposed to be shrewd with money, but also not desire it?
I believe we are given the best interpretive key by looking at the dishonest steward as Satan. He was meant to serve God but wasted his gifts in rebellion of God. Because he knows that he is going to experience God’s wrath, he acts shrewdly with us, who are in debt to God. He gives us pleasures that will distract us from God and aid in Satan’s rebellion. Satan does this so that we may welcome him into our lives which seems to delay God’s justice upon him. While God does not approve of Satan’s actions, He does approve of his shrewdness. Satan is concerned about his eternal judgment and it affects his every action. Even though it leads him to do evil, Jesus seems to wish that ‘the children of the light’ would act with the same intensity as Satan, but for the sake of good rather than evil.
This attitude is made manifest when Jesus calls out the Pharisees at the end of the Gospel. He admonishes them not to love money more than God. They love the ‘dishonest wealth’ of material possessions, rather than the true wealth of love and charity. Jesus exhorts them to use their ‘dishonest wealth’ or worldly possessions to make friends with people through charity, rather than use it as a means of causing division through greed. He tells all of us that if we can use our dishonest or worldly possessions well in love, then we can be trusted with eternal wealth. But if we only love earthly possessions for their sake, we cannot love God, even if we claim to as do the Pharisees.
So what Jesus desires from us and for us is to have an intensity in action toward the eternal, rather than the temporal. We are not to fall into lukewarmness, but to shrewdly work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Jesus came to this earth to reorient our hearts and minds on heaven. His every action in his life was done to glorify our eternal Father, and He admonishes us and gives us grace to do the same. Otherwise, we are stuck living a life as slaves trying to acquire mammon.
