YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)
Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
Getting back to our discussion on the parables of Jesus we come to the Parable of the Unjust Steward which is stated thus: “And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:1-13).
There has long been confusion regarding this parable and its message; hopefully we can make it clear. This story is told near the end of a long string of parables in the Gospel of Luke though it should not be assumed that He did tell these in one long session. The story is simple and applicable to today; the steward could be a thief or an embezzler or one who just ran the business poorly and he was accused to the rich man by others and asked to give account. Of course he could not and he is fired. The steward thinks on what to do; perhaps this was all he knew and not wanting to work with his hands nor be reduced to begging he hatches a plan to protect himself from ruin. Being steward and aware of the business he approaches his former employers debtors and by changing records does the debtors favor so that they owe less and will be the steward’s ‘friends’ ongoing. So we have a thief or an embezzler or one who just ran the business poorly continuing in his contrary ways to his own benefit much as he had done as steward. This earns the commendation of the rich man who is commending the steward for his craftiness of which the Master tells us “the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light” which is to say that the steward and others of the world like him are better at their craftiness that those who are righteous are at their righteousness. Though the King James Version (KJV) word is wisely, we are using craftiness which seems more appropriate; in a previous post we used devious which may fit the steward only and not fit others learned in the ways of this world. Vincent say this should be shrewdly and he says that Plato says it as cunning****. The gist of the idea should come through here; the steward of himself is wise; to the rich man he is devious; and to us he is shrewd and cunning or as we are saying, he is using his craftiness and this is neither good nor bad but an attitude of mind to get things done as we want.
This same can be seen today; men are brought up and trained in craftiness. It is considered wise to be able to manipulate things for one’s worldly benefit and many are good at it. Men today are schooled for careers of craftiness and to use this talent to ‘get ahead’. Who is there to teach righteousness, real righteousness, and how many are there that are truly proficient at it? This is the point of the Master’s comment then and would likely be His point today as well. Now the Lord here tells us to “Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations” and this too can be seen in the same light as the Master’s comment regarding men like the steward being wiser. He is telling us that we should be comfortable and confident in our worldly pursuits and be in league with our fellow men in this arena so that if something does happen, if we lose our job or our company fails, we have something to fall back on through our smart networking. This may seem an odd thing for Jesus to be telling us and may seem contrary to His other teachings but His perspective becomes clearer as we go.
To this point we should see first the actions of the steward and the result and then the further actions of the steward which cause the Master to tell us that as a worldly fellow the steward has done well and that he, and those like him, are better at what they do than we, as aspiring disciples, are at what we do. As we said in a previous post (In the Words of Jesus part 44): Why is this? Because they have been schooled in and understand the ways of the world. This is as true or truer today as all our customs and educational systems prepare us for life in the world of mammon. Those of us who break out of this world and that are trying to serve the Lord go out alone because for this there is so little real guidance except that which comes from that inner voice when we learn finally how to listen.
The Master now leaves off from the story of the steward and comes to the practicality of His message saying first: “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?“. There is here a notion about the nature of man. If one is faithful to any he is likely faithful to all and of course we should assume here that these be things that are of some importance. And what is faithfulness but loyalty and sense of duty? Jesus is saying here, of the steward actions and of ours, that if we are faithful in our doings of the small things we will be faithful in our doings of the greater things whether they be good or bad. This saying is used much in the churches as saying that if we are loyal to our duty, or take good care of, what we have we can have more but this is not the real intent here. He does say that our faithfulness in the things of the world, in mammon, will result in our faithfulness to God should we seek Him. This is borne out by the next verse and His saying that if we are not faithful in the things of the world and take care to do our duty who will give to us the true riches which we should consider as the things of God.
We need to take a step back here to realize that there is no giver here but ourselves as regards the things of the Lord. The point to be taken is that if we are not loyal to, let us say our spouse, we will, by our very nature, not be loyal to the Lord. Or again, if we are not careful to do the right things in our place and time in the world, we will have the same attitude towards our walk with God. Further it can be said that if our attitude is that we are doing our best but in our hearts we know that we are not but are yielding to every whim, then this same attitude will be prevalent in our spiritual life where we will show the outward signs while in our hearts we are not fully committed. All this is to say that this idea of “If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?” is reference to our attitudes and our behaviors.
We skipped over a part of the Master’s words to complete the thought above and this was: “and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much“. Here is confirmation that what Jesus says about faithful in least and much has no reference to good or bad; here He is saying that if we are unjust, we will be unjust and that is in all things large and small, little and much. By example if are inclined to lie we will lie about all things; if we are inclined to shoplift small things we will be inclined to steal larger things if opportunity presents itself. We are what we are until that change of heart comes by heeding the promptings of the Lord, the Inner Man, the Soul. Jesus then continues on the idea of faithfulness as regards that which is another man’s indicating what we will receive of our own and this saying is most perplexing and unclear. Many take it at face value and, in their assumption of the ways of the Lord, say that if we are entrusted with some thing that belongs to another and we are faithful and take good care of it, we will be rewarded with things of our own. But, as we know this is a parable and the meaning is not likely this surface meaning as this does not seem a subject that the Lord would touch upon here. Vincent gives us this regarding these phrases: on that which is another’s he says that it is in reference to God’s saying riches are not ours but given to us in trust****. We should note the the idea of another man’s is a KJV rendering; literally translated it reads just as another’s which makes the idea of God’s plausible. Vincent goes on to say of the phrase your own that this is equivalent to the true riches. That which forms part of our eternal being–the redeemed self****. Variations of this opinion are echoed by other commentators as well and, though not entirely clear, work better than the purely carnal ideas.
Let us look at this from a different perspective however. We are Spirit and we are the Soul, the Christ Within that gives life to this body and a part of this life is consciousness. For us, this consciousness is what we know and it was what and who the Master was addressing. We live in this world as this conscious personality taking care of the things of the flesh which can be seen as the that which is another’s; it is in reality not who we are. The Master is telling us that if we, as this Earthbound personality are not faithful to it, as it is what we know and believe that we are, that it is not likely that we can progress past this into a truly spiritual life. In spiritual pursuit we, by the nature of things, must take care of the things of the flesh and put them in order before we can bring into that consciousness the true light, the your own from above. In many ways, except for the idea of being unjust, all of these sayings are variations of the same idea. If we can be faithful in mammon we can be faithful in the Lord; If we are not faithful in the things of the world then this same attitude will prevail in the things of the Spirit and, as here, if we are not faithful to what we know in life here and now we will not readily progress into a spiritual life. We must remember that all of the Master’s teachings are related to the how of getting ourselves into the Kingdom and into His Presence and this parable should be seen the same way.
The ending part of this parable: “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” is the larger lesson which we will cover in the next post. Let us leave off today with the thought that nothing above is frozen in place, that is that we are not totally in the world or concentrating on the world and neither are we totally in Spirit; we are, as the Apostle James tells us, double minded.
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.
Leaving the Quote of the Day from the last post as it is unlikely I will get back to change it. It does speak to our subject today from a perspective of faithfulness.
However many holy words you read, however many you speak, What good will they do you If you do not act upon them? Are you a shepherd who counts another man’s sheep, never sharing the way? Read as few words as you like, and speak fewer. But act upon the dharma (law). Give up the old ways – passion, enmity, folly. Know the truth and find peace. Share the way. Dhammapada (on Choices)*◊
Today’s Quote of the Day is from the Dhammapada which is an accumulation of the sayings of the Buddha. The idea here should be clear; reading, speaking and studying the Word are folly if we do not act upon them. The Buddha says that it is not important what you read nor what you speak and study; what matters is how you act.
- *◊ The Dhammapada Translated by Thomas Byrom
- **** Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
