"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth" (NRSV).
This past week my husband and I attended a small reception to meet the entering students this year at Princeton Theological Seminary. This was also the first time I was able to see friends and classmates from last year, and as we were catching up on each other’s summers, I mentioned to a friend in homiletics that I was preaching my first sermon on the coming Sunday. He asked what I would be preaching on, and when I answered, "well, the text is the parable of the unjust steward," his reaction was classic—jaw dropped, eyes wide, he said, for your first sermon, you’re doing that parable? I have to admit, to see my own reaction mirrored by a practiced homiletician was a little comforting. Well, sort of. I’ve considered titling this sermon “The Weirdest Story Ever Told.”
This time last summer, Brent and I were teaching summer school. It was the first time I had ever taught theology at a university level. Like all new teachers, I was a little over-ambitious. But I was at least aware of it, and so I attempted to balance my over-ambitious reading assignments with some advice on the first day of class. “Practice ambiguity tolerance,” I said, telling my hapless students that not panicking when they read something difficult is the key. Just keep going. If you keep going, you will gather up enough clues to come to some level of understanding, even if it’s incomplete. (I’m not ashamed to say this is how I get through school.) But I’ve discovered, in the course of reading this parable, that sometimes it’s a lot more difficult to take your own advice than it is to give it. Ambiguity tolerance, indeed.
I mean, this text is full of ambiguity, isn’t it? Is the master good or bad? And what about the steward? Surely he’s a bad guy—he’s labelled unjust, after all. But then why does the master praise him, and why oh why are we instructed to follow his unrighteous example? This is one weird story. I can take it on faith that there’s something to be learned here…but what?
What’s the basic story? A rich man, let’s just call him “the Donald,” shall we?, has a rotten investment banker or stockbroker or something. So he calls the guy in and says, “You’re fired! …Oh, and I want to see all the books for the past year.” So the guy says to himself, “Now what do I do? He’s turning me out on the streets, and no one will hire me to supervise their portfolio now, and I’m too lazy to get a real job and too proud to beg…Got it! I’ll make sure that everyone owes me big, and then I can mooch off them for awhile.” So he fixes the books and reduces the debt of each debtor, intending to call on them to return the favor later. And the boss finds out, of course. But despite the loss he takes, instead of suing him, he shakes his head and says to himself, “well, that was pretty smart, darn it all.”
Let’s stop here. What is it that the boss praises in this guy? The verse says “shrewdness,” a word which is unpleasantly close to “cunning,” which really does sound pretty bad. I like the word “prudence” here best myself. There is something admirable in the way the steward takes stock of his hopeless situation and ingeniously comes out on top. There’s a kind of wisdom here that the boss has to acknowledge and praise, despite the fact that he himself is taken advantage of yet again.
You may have guessed already that I have watched a couple episodes of “The Apprentice.” I find this show both fascinating and repellent at the same time. It holds a kind of sick fascination for me. Here you have 16 or so well-dressed, attractive, successful, intelligent people competing with one another for the respect of Donald Trump, with the ultimate goal of securing a future for themselves. Through all the tasks and teams and boardrooms, these people backstab, badmouth and betray each other as they strategically vie for favor. And the smartest one wins. The smartest one becomes “the Apprentice.” And while the others may not like losing, there’s a grudging admiration of the winner. I love watching the losers in their taxis. I love hearing what they have to say. More often than not, they have something complimentary to say about the person who beat them—after all, if that person was smart enough to outwit them, they must be pretty darn smart, right?
This is the kind of praise the steward earns from his master. This is the kind of prudence the steward possesses—the kind of intelligent self-interest that has as its goal the securing of one’s physical existence and future. The master may have lost this round, but he can tip his hat to the prudence the steward displays in providing for his uncertain future. “For the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”
And what about the “children of light?” It seems that the children of light don’t operate this way—we’re a little less wise in the ways of the world, a little less savvy to the necessity of providing for our futures by strategizing and backstabbing and fixing the books. As it should be, right? Until we read the next verse and encounter the very puzzling instructions there: “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations.” This is where it gets really weird. I mean, surely Jesus isn’t telling us, “buy people off with other people’s money.” Surely Jesus isn’t promoting strategic intelligent self-interest among the children of light?
It all turns on what it means to “make friends” for ourselves “by means of unrighteous mammon.” Are we to “make friends” in the way that the steward did, by means of trickery with someone else’s money, with the purpose of currying favor to ensure our survival? There is an obvious parallel at work here in the story: just as the steward reduces debts in order that people will receive him into their houses, the instruction in verse 9 is to make friends so that we will be received into eternal habitations. But within this parallel there are 2 important contrasts: first, the steward cheats with someone else’s money, whereas the instruction in v 9 is simply an ambiguous “make friends”; second, the steward acts with his own survival in mind, to be received into physical homes, whereas v 9 speaks of “eternal dwellings.”
I can’t help but consider the difference between “making friends” and making people indebted to us for services rendered. The steward has made people indebted to him—a situation which he fully intends to exploit. In his culture, it would be understood that “one good turn deserves another.” The debtors would understand that they would be expected to reciprocate in some way. The same kind of cultural tradition exists in a modern form today in some cultures. My first job out of college was as a “foreign teacher” in Wuhan, China. I was young, dumb, and spectacularly unprepared for the kind of cultural differences involved, and learned everything the hard way—including this concept of gift-giving. I received gifts from students all over the place. I just thought they really liked me…Until the end of the first semester, when a student walked into my classroom for the first time at the next-to-last class meeting, presented me with a nicely wrapped gift, and announced, “I hope that I can pass.” I did not feel befriended. This is the difference: gifts given in expectation of returned favors is not the same as “making friends for yourselves.”
So what can it possibly mean, this curious instruction to “make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon?” Well, taken by itself, without the consideration of motive, the steward’s action can be seen as generous. Reducing large debt is a generous move, a merciful action. Without the expectation of return, this is the kind of act that might indeed lead to friendship.
We find a clue here in the adjective “unrighteous” applied to “mammon,” a thought that is developed further in verses 10-13. We all know that “mammon” is an ancient word meaning “wealth.” Mammon is not always negative in meaning; it can also just be the routine word for money, or possessions. But there may also be a sense of meaning as “that in which you place your trust.” This is why, I think, it is important that the word “unrighteous” describes mammon in these verses. Here, Jesus is describing two competing sources of security: God and mammon. This fits in nicely with his story about the steward, for the steward has obviously chosen mammon as the means to security. His own wit, his own prudence in the ways of the world by means of mammon secures his future.
But Jesus has something to say about the way in which the steward has accomplished this goal. Though the master grudgingly admires the prudence with which the steward has acted, on the contrary Jesus says: “He who is faithful in little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?” The steward has been prudent, but not faithful. The standard expectation of the children of this age may be prudence; but for children of light, it is faithfulness.
This constitutes the difference between the steward’s action and the instruction “make friends for yourselves.” I don’t think Jesus is instructing us to buy people off with other people’s money…rather, Jesus is pointing out stewardship of even “unrighteous mammon” is an area in which the children of light are called to be faithful followers of God, and faithful ministers to others. “So that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal habitations.” The reward for this faithfulness is not financial security—mammon is bound to fail. It is not being set up for life. It is not achieving Donald Trump’s apprenticeship. It is the reward of the faithful. It is eternal dwellings with God.
Jesus ends this parable with a warning. After the ambiguity of the story itself, the warning seems all the more stark and clear. “No servant can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.” What happens when we forget ourselves? When we forget that we are called to be “children of light,” in the midst of a dark age? What happens when the habits of the world kick in and we find ourselves scrambling along with everyone else to look out for #1?
Maybe that’s impossible. Maybe “children of light” are immune to such things. We don’t have relapses. We don’t ever forget who we are and what we should be doing. Well, maybe…but then again, as I think about the words of Amos that were read for us this morning, maybe not. “hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, when will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” Looking out for #1 always means at the same time looking away from others. In this land of opportunity, where we celebrate our uniqueness as a place where everyone can work hard and make good, this so easily slides into a comfortableness with the intelligent self-interest seen in the steward. We too find ourselves appreciating the wisdom of the steward. We find ourselves cheering when someone gets away with something really slick. It’s cool, isn’t it? The steward sticks it to the rich man. This is just the kind of story that we’re conditioned to love. But looking out for #1 means looking away from others. Maybe, for the children of this age, it’s true that “you gotta look out for #1, ‘cause ain’t nobody else gonna do it.” But we aren’t the “children of this age,” not anymore. We aren’t called to look out for #1; instead we’re called to “make friends by means of mammon,” to look out for others. Amos isn’t just preaching to Israel. He’s preaching to us, too, warning us about the consequences of falling back into the trap of looking out for #1. When that happens, the poor are trampled. We worship a God who “raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap;” this God doesn’t ask us to look out for #1. He asks us to look out for the “least of these.” He asks us to devote our lives in their entirety, even our “unrighteous mammon,” to his use. In return, may both we and the friends we’ve made for ourselves along the way may find ourselves in “eternal habitations.”
