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It is always interesting to reflect on the kind of people Jesus hung around with in the Gospels. More often than not, Jesus is found associating with and even dining with what the scribes and Pharisees considered to be socially unacceptable people – public sinners and outcasts. In fact, Jesus usually avoided the “acceptable people” for they had no real use for his message, and clearly resented his influence and ability to connect with the poor, the sinner, and the outcast. Over and over again, it is the “socially acceptable” people who question Jesus’ authority to speak on behalf of God, and even accuse him of being an accomplice of Satan when he healed the sick and forgave sinners. It becomes evident that they are the true “outcasts” for they are on the outside looking in – observing the good that Jesus is doing, but distancing themselves from him.
The evangelist Luke uses Jesus’ parable in today’s Gospel (Luke 16:1-13) to speak to this community. The steward has failed to perform his primary duty of caring for his master’s wealth. Realizing that his own security is not at risk since he is about to be unemployed, he seizes the initiative and reduces the loans of two merchants who were indebted to his master. In doing so, he hopes to endear himself to them so that they might look out for him once he is no longer employed. Perhaps the steward thought that his master might even change his mind and keep him as an employee, since the master was apparently impressed with the steward’s resourcefulness even though it was at the expense of his master.
Jesus uses the image of the steward to teach about the Kingdom of Heaven. He is not praising the dishonesty of the conniving steward. Rather, he is saying that we are to be as cunning in our pursuit of the Kingdom of Heaven. If we can be, as the steward, so resourceful in the pursuit of worldly matters, should we not be even more resourceful in seeking the Kingdom of God?