“Just Desserts”

Here’s a tough nut to crack this morning in our Gospel! The parable of the unjust steward has confounded most all modern biblical scholars (though, to be honest, that’s not so tough to do, as the modern biblical scholar can be a pretty muddle-headed kind of guy). But it confounds many Christians as well. Because it sounds like Jesus is commending an unjust servant who plays fast and loose with his master’s stuff in order to win favor for himself with his master’s business associates.

And that’s the main rub in this little story for most. Jesus is the Lord and Judge of All. We expect Him to operate according to the highest standards of holiness, morality, and fairness. We like to think that the ultimate court of appeals, the Supreme Court of Heaven, will operate on a standard of justice all can see is just and right. So when Jesus tells little stories where the hero is this shady steward who’s cooking the books, well, we get… squirmy. And who wouldn’t?

First things first though. Let’s make sure we’ve got the details of the story straight just as Jesus tells it. There is a certain rich man, later called “the master”. He has a steward, a servant, basically his business manager—who’s in charge of accounts payable for the oil and wheat business the master runs. These are the two main characters in the story.

One day the rich man, the master, receives an accusation (from some unnamed source) that this steward is “wasting his goods”. We need to be clear about the charge. The Greek word means squandering, throwing away, or wasting. It doesn’t necessarily suggest that the steward is taking the payments from the customers and skimming 10% of the top secretly for himself. He’s not accused of embezzling, in other words. The accusation is simply that the steward is wasteful, slip-shod, no good at his job, not maximizing profits on every transaction, and so serves his master poorly..

The master calls the steward in and says “what’s this I hear about you? Turn over the account books, for you can no longer be steward.” In other words, the master just fires the steward on the basis of this anonymous accusation of wastefulness. He fires him even before the books are examined or the steward has a chance to answer and defend himself against the charges. This is something to keep in mind. We’re not really sure whether the charge was fair or not. But the steward is canned.

So the steward goes “what shall I do? My master is taking the stewardship away from me (the lack of protestations of innocence on the steward’s part here, his ready acceptance of his firing, have made some think the steward knows he’s not that great a business man and that an investigation isn’t going to help him, but that’s an assumption too). Anyway in justly famous words the steward goes “What shall I do? I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg…” Hey, at least the guy is honest with himself! But then he hatches his master plan: “I know! I’ll make some friends on my last day, before word of my firing gets out so that if I’m canned here, I’ll have some pals who will hire me on later!”

So he calls every one of his masters customers, all the ones who owe him money. He asks “how much do you owe?” The first guy says “A hundred measures of oil.” The steward says, “take you bill, quickly (speed is of the essence here) and write 50.” And he keeps doing this. Here 20% off, there 50% off. “We’re having a sale! Crazy low prices! Come down and take advantage of us!”

Now, this is a strange plan of the steward’s. And we have to examine it carefully. What is the steward banking on here? Bribery? Uh, not exactly. See, the master would be well within his legal rights to find out about the unauthorized sale prices, cancel them, collect his money back, and have the steward thrown in prison for a long time. And you would think any master concerned with justice would do exactly that. So it’s not a plan that depends on simple bribery—because the master could prosecute the steward harshly for that. Up till now, the steward has just been wasteful. Here he crosses the line into illegal. The bribes could easily be undone and his last state would be worse than the first.

So what is the steward thinking? Well, he can’t be banking on bribery. He is banking on something else. Mercy—his master’s mercy and kindness. This is the real genius of his plan. The steward thinks he knows the master well enough to know how he will respond to the unauthorized sale at “crazy low prices!”. He figures the master will laugh and go “Hey, good plan! Did it make my friends happy? Well, good job. Come back to work! You’re not as bad as they said you were!” The steward is not trying to bribe clients to get a new job (although, if the plan backfires, he won’t be badly positioned there). He’s really hoping to show that he’s a man after the master’s heart. He’s angling to get his old job back, although he won’t voice that. It’s almost too much to hope for…

But it works! When the master finds out, he does not call the cops and have the guy thrown in prison and hire lawyers to go out and recover the lost money from the customers who got the phony discounts. Nope. He laughs. He goes, “Hey, good job man! That’s sharp thinking. 50% off sales always make people happy and happy people are what I’m all about!” The master commends the unjust steward.

This is important and often missed. Some people say “well, we don’t find out what happened to the steward!” I say, “Yes, we do!” The master commends the steward for being shrewd. The “firing” was a test that the steward passes. He shows himself not wasteful, but generous, just like his master, a man after his own heart. Better still: the steward shows himself faithful. Because he trusted, above all, not in justice but in his master’s mercy. That’s faith! Trusting in the mercy and forgiveness and the essential kindness of the Master. So the steward has an everlasting home—with his old master.

It is an unsettling story though. Because God is clearly the Master and we His stewards. And what does He commend to us? Well, it isn’t justice. It isn’t fairness. It isn’t what we deserve. No, what God commends to us, for us, is mercy. Jesus doesn’t promise justice to us. If you go to God asking your just desserts, you’ll get them—but you won’t like them! Because you deserve nothing but punishment for your sins. But if you go to God banking on crazy low prices, absurd generosity, unconditional acceptance, you’ll get just that. Because that’s what Jesus promises—forgiveness full and free, an everlasting home with Him. So faithful stewards who bet the house, stake their very lives on God being merciful to sinners hit the jackpot with Jesus.

You can’t serve God and money. To serve money, you must follow justice. To serve God, you must give yourself up to mercy. Earth’s treasure, all the material bounty of this world, is not for making a profit. It’s for making friends. God is extravagantly generous with His gifts, so when we too let them pass through our hands, fast and loose, to delight our neighbor, we are children after His own heart.

Don’t be just stewards then—be faithful instead. Trust in forgiveness, not fairness. Look to Jesus not for your just desserts, but for the free Kingdom He’s dying to give. By Word and Sacrament it is given. In the body and blood of Jesus it is given. By faith alone it is received, along with the Peace, that surpasses all understanding, and guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.