A reading of the holy gospel according to Luke. Jesus said to his disciples, there was a rich man who had a steward, and charges were brought against the steward that this man was wasting his master's goods. So he called the steward to him and said, what is this that I hear about you? Turn in an account of your stewardship, or you can no longer be my steward. The steward, hearing all of this, said to himself, what shall I do since my master is taking the stewardship away from me?
I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg. I have decided what I shall do so that when people so that people may receive me into their houses when I am put out of my stewardship. So summoning his master's debtors one by one, the steward said to the first debtor, how much do you owe my master? The man said, a 100 measures of oil. The steward said to him, take your bill, sit down quickly, and write 50.
Then the steward said to another debtor, how much do you owe? The man said, a 100 measures of wheat. The steward said to him, take your bill and write 80. The master, when he learned about it, commended the dishonest steward for his prudence. For the sons of this world are wiser in their own generation than the sons of light.
And notice that that last sentence is our lord's commentary upon his own parable. And I repeat it. The master commended the dishonest steward for his prudence. For the sons of this world, our lord says, are wiser in their own generation than the sons of light. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. This parable of our lord has caused considerable trouble as you can easily see. And there have been any number of explanations of people trying to see how Christ, the son of God, who could not possibly approve evil, seems to approve evil in the unjust steward. Now there have one of the favorite ways of wiggling out of this is to to make certain presuppositions about the kind of a job the steward had and what his authority was. But notice that last sentence.
Our lord explicitly refers to him as dishonest. You can't wiggle out of that. So what Christ is Christ is doing here, let's get this picture and not be afraid of it. It's there. He's commending a man whose dishonesty he admits.
Now some people today find that extremely difficult to swallow. I have had never had any problem with it at all. Never. For example, in my tender years in reading Saint Thomas Aquinas, where Aquinas takes up this matter of prostitutes, and whether a prostitute and I I think it's safe to say that Thomas Aquinas did not approve of prostitution. Where Aquinas asked the question as he does with everything, every single article in the whole sumo begins with a question, not a statement.
So he asked, can a can a prostitute keep the money which he has earned? And he answers, yes. So in my very tender years, I was taught this, to make certain distinctions among things. Where distinctions are real. Now it's one thing it's one thing to say that what what you did was wrong.
You have a you have this famous case, we've had a number of them, where you have a have a a real heist where I'm thinking chiefly in that little adventure up, I think it was in Boston, where a huge sum of money was taken, with an extremely carefully planned robbery, where everybody who got to read it was everyone was amazed at the ingenuity, the intelligence that went into all of that planning which resulted in a very, very large hall. I I think most of you will recall something about it. Now, can you make this distinction between those men who planned it, who executed it, and the fact that what they did was dishonest because it was robbery and thievery. Well, you see, I never had any difficulty making that distinction whatsoever because you can use the best kind of a knife for all kinds of purposes. You can take a a a weapon of any sort and use it for good make for a good end, for a good purpose, to accomplish something worthwhile and availing unto salvation, and you may use the very same instrument which doesn't lose its intrinsic worth for some dastardly deed, such as murder, when murder used to be considered a crime.
In other words, without as I I to me, there's there's no problem here. What our lord is saying, look. To you're a sinner, but you're a smart sinner. And we can all say that. We know plenty of smart sinners.
And there's nothing wrong in saying what you did was highly intelligent. It took brains. Years ago, I read a book called My Nine Convicts or something like that that made a big stir at the time. It was written by a psychologist who had who presented the book as being the result of his years of experience in a jail. Turned out that it was not quite as he presented it.
But one thing that did come through and that was never disputed was the high level of intelligence among some of these prisoners. How they could manipulate and plan and execute a plan. So much so that you say, ye gods, why have these men used that If they just turned their minds to and worked as hard on the outside of the jail doing right as they're working inside the jail doing wrong, they would be in the top of the society level. They would probably be tycoon. So now as I said, I find no problem here at all.
What our lord is saying, look, you had this man who was in a he was in the crunch. He didn't know what to do. Here one day, he's got a beautiful job. He's a manager of a big estate. He's handling funds.
He's talking to people of means and wealth and power. He's great. Now he's nothing. He can't dig dig it. He can't do daily labor, and he won't be a beggar.
Can't do that. So the man says he seems hopeless, but he has an idea. He's smart. He's intelligent. He's using means to end, and that's a sign of prudence.
And if the end is good, it's a virtue. And if the end is evil, it's evil and sinful. It's that simple. So he calls in. Now he probably had the authority to do this as long as he was the steward so that in a sense in a sense, he may not have been acting wrongly.
In the sense that if that he was acting within his authority. Notice, there's nothing here said about the master saying, look, you couldn't do that. You had no authority to do that. The master accepts it. He puts his okay on what the man did.
That doesn't mean he approves it necessarily, but it may mean that the man acted within the within the legal definition of his job. So what he did, we would say today was legal, even though it was not to the best interest of his master. That would have been dishonest, you see. And the master is not approving that part of his deal at all. What he is approving is the man's intelligence, his wisdom, his smartness, his ability to to see what can be done under a very difficult situation, applying means to ends, that's a definition of prudence, and coming up with an answer.
That's what the master approves. He doesn't approve being robbed. Now what is Christ telling us? Because he's telling us to be at least that smart. When you're playing for stakes which are so much more valuable, priceless, beyond all reckoning, That's what Christ is telling us, to use means to end.
Now you there's a one there's a little line in Saint in Saint Paul's statement today to the Philippians when he says, keep your mind on unearthly things. Keep your mind off of them. Don't let your mind be possessed with earthly things. What is Saint Paul saying? What I think he's saying is this, don't let the things you use own you.
You own them, and you use them for your ends. Paul doesn't say don't use the things of this world. Not at all. He says don't let your mind rest in them. See, we're coming back to the same great truth.
What is your priority? Notice I didn't use the plural. There can't be a plural. Oh, there can in fact, and that's the trouble. But I mean theoretically because that's not the way Christ put it.
Christ said you have only one purpose, and I'm it. You see what arrogance Christ had? He asks all of us to put him first. And just remember the reading the other day when Christ dramatically tells us what he means by putting him first, that you hate your mother, your father, your husband, your wife, your cousins, your aunts, and your in laws, and the whole caboodle. That's what Christ said.
Did he mean that we were supposed to go out hating these people? How absurd. What Christ was saying was, you've got to let your mind rest in me. All the rest, secondary. There's one priority.
It is not plural. And I think that what the say Paul is saying here in in that reading today, let your mind not rest upon earthly things. Use them for that means to an end because you have a destiny, and things will have a value in so far as they impel you to your destiny, to your salvation, to your putting the ball over the goal as we say. And that's putting things in their proper place. Just think of that marriage sermon I referred to where the husband and wife in one of the prayers we use or sometimes use and I always use, where they you remind the husband and the wife that they each will be responsible for the other in the for eternity.
They have to contribute. Now this isn't you this is not to reduce human beings to tools and instrumentalities. Not at all. What it does mean is that the things of this earth, including our affections, our loves, our duties, our responsibilities, that all of this must contribute to one thing, not to this fetish of self fulfillment except in the one great authentic meaning of that word self fulfillment, which has only one meaning for the Christian, and that self fulfillment in Jesus Christ. That is the goal.
Everything else takes its worth from that. It's a dramatic, spectacular journey, but our lord, it seems to me, is telling us very simply, look, men and women of this world are smart. They know how to manipulate. You be as smart for eternity. Name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit.
Amen.