On Single-minded Ingenuity

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.' …”           Luke 16:1-4

Happy Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time!

The Gospel for today is really puzzling: Jesus praises dishonesty! A steward is caught cheating his employer, and before he can be dismissed, which will leave him a beggar, he concocts a scheme to save himself in a final grand cheat by marking down the debt people owe the boss.

And Jesus praises his behavior!!!

I think the confusing thing is that this is in Luke, right along with The Prodigal Son, The Good Samaritan, and Lazarus and the Rich Man. We’re looking for another parable about moral behavior and we get one about the most immoral character in Jesus’ tales!

The key to unraveling this knot is the first line, “Then he also said to his disciples . . .” Most, though not all, of his stories of right behavior are told to Pharisees to chastise them for their arrogance and hypocrisy. Here Jesus is talking to his disciples. This is a parable about discipleship! Jesus praises the dishonest steward not for his dishonesty but for his single-minded application of ingenuity to the task at hand.

We at St Therese are in somewhat the same existential crisis as the steward (well, it seems the whole Church is, which is why the Pope is making radical albeit incremental changes).  We need to grow by appealing to a younger generation or St. T will die with the current cohort of geezers (yours truly included).  We need to bring some single-minded ingenuity to spreading The Good News from St. T! 

(NB: I wish I could say the Spirit sent me this insight during hours of prayer but in truth the Spirit sent me The Forty Parables of Jesus by Gerhard Lohfink, SJ.)