[Pearls Episode 137: The Dishonest Steward.]
This Sunday’s Gospel, the Parable of the Dishonest Steward (we’ll pass on the shooting-fish-in-a-barrel reference to the federal government), takes us back to the topic of detachment.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. St. John of the Cross said that if he were to write about all the scripture verses that have to do with detachment from worldly goods, he would never stop writing. Because detachment is one-half of the heart of the gospel – detach from ourselves and the world (“deny yourself, pick up your cross”) … so we can attach to Christ (“and follow Me”).
Thus, the two pillars of spirituality – mysticism (attach to God) and asceticism (detach from self).
So here we are back to detachment – specifically from mammon (is it just us or does it sound like something that would be pretty good between two slices of rye bread?).
We conducted deep research (3 or 4 random web queries) and found that around 70% of lottery winners (perhaps they’ll rebrand mega-millions to mega-mammon) lose all of their winnings within 5 years, and have their lives turned to tatters in the process. Perhaps every lottery winner should be given a copy of the writings of St. John of the Cross.
Pope St. Gregory the Great also knew a thing or two about mammon and declared that none of it is ours anyway – we’re just the middle man: “The rich man is only an administrator of what he possesses; giving what is required to the needy is a task that is to be performed with humility because the goods do not belong to the one who distributes them. He who retains riches only for himself is not innocent; giving to those in need means paying a debt.”
St. John of the Cross was correct – we could go on and on about mammon and detachment. But we’ve already looked quite a bit at detachment over the summer, and there’s more to this Gospel than mammon. So, in our follow up messages (no video this week) we’ll be looking at tangentially related aspects of Sunday’s Gospel reading:
- How it sheds light on the beatitudes
- What it says about ethics – particularly for anyone in a position of any authority
- A very provocative and encouraging statement from Jesus nestled in the midst of the reading
Until tomorrow – blessings on your journey with Christ –
Steve and Karen Smith – Interior Life
Postscript: The Dishonest Servant (Lk 16:1-13)
Jesus said to his disciples, “A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, ‘What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.’
The steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.’
He called in his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’ Then to another the steward said, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘One hundred kors of wheat.’ The steward said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note; write one for eighty.’
And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.
If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours? No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.”