Administrators Only, Not Owners
Gospel: Luke 16:1-13

Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF
Claretian Publications Macau

The gospel presents the story of a dishonest steward. A steward is accused of malpractices before the big landowner. The master has him called and tells him what he heard about him. The facts are so clear. So he does not try to justify himself or mutter an explanation. He was immediately fired. He starts to reflect. He knows only how to supervise; he is neither able to hoe nor to humble himself to beg for alms. Before leaving the job he must put the accounts in order; many debtors have still to deliver the products. I know what I must do, he exclaims.

He calls all the debtors and reduces their debts. In the future, these benefitted debtors will certainly not forget such generosity and they will feel obliged to offer him hospitality in their houses.

The story concludes with the master, as well as Jesus, praising the administrator. He acted with cunning. He’ll be imitated! We are expecting a different conclusion. Jesus should have said to his disciples: “Do not act like this villain; be honest!” Instead, he approves of what he did. The difficulty lies here: how could a dishonest person be offered as a model?

This difficulty does not exist if the parable is interpreted in a different way. We imagine that the owner was cheated again (2,250 liters of oil and 110 quintals of grain are not small stuff). He would have been outraged. If he praises his former administrator it means, in this process, he has not lost anything. We have to presume that the administrators must deliver a certain amount to their owner; whatever extra they could get goes into their pockets and the figures could be higher. It was the technique used by the publicans to enrich themselves when they collected taxes.

What did the administrator of the parable do? Instead of behaving like a loan shark with the debtors, he left them the profit he expected to have. The administrator was shrewd—says the Lord—because he understood on which to bet on: not on goods, products that he was entitled to, that could rot or be stolen, but on friends. He knew how to renounce the first in order to conquer for himself the second. This is the point.

“Use filthy money to make friends for yourselves so that when it fails, these people may welcome you into the eternal homes” (v. 9). This is the most important saying of today’s passage. It synthesizes the whole teaching of the parable. It is curious to note the remark of Jesus on filthy money. There seems to have something filthy with money. In an economy where everyone is supposed to be equal, if one person has more money than one’s fair share, it is filthy; it has been cheated out of someone! Remember in divine economics, the one who works one hour and eight hours earn the same reward.

What Jesus would like us to understand is that the only a shrewd way of using the goods of this world is to use them to help others, to make them friends. They will be the ones to welcome us in life.

In human economics, money buys things exactly proportionate to its value. In divine economics money buys relationship that more than its value though often it appears wasting money on unprofitable pursuits. While he speaks about money, Jesus advocates two ways of using the money, the shrewd way and the wise way. Shrewd way is that of the administrator in this parable which is the minimum Christian growth expected of us. But, the perfect use of it is to give to others without expecting anything in return. Jesus narrates the story of the rich fool who used all his money for his personal pleasures. Giving to people who cannot return us anything is the divine way of using worldly resources. Remember, Jesus teaches us to throw parties to poor people who cannot give us anything in return. We need to grow into wise invesors of our worldly resources.

Jesus concludes his teaching by affirming that no servant can serve two masters… God or money. We would like to please both: But it’s just one you can serve. Serve God by mastering how to use your riches. Serve God and master the other!

Indebted to Fr. Fernando Armellini SCJ for textual analysis

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