steward

• parable of the ungrateful s.

159:1.4Si­mon Pe­ter was the apos­tle in charge of the work­ers at Hip­pos, and when he heard Je­sus thus speak, he asked: “Lord, how of­ten shall my brother sin against me, and I for­give him? Un­til seven times?” And Je­sus an­swered Pe­ter: “Not only seven times but even to sev­enty times and seven. There­fore may the king­dom of heaven be likened to a cer­tain king who or­dered a fi­nan­cial reck­on­ing with his stew­ards. And when they had be­gun to con­duct this ex­am­i­na­tion of ac­counts, one of his chief re­tain­ers was brought be­fore him con­fess­ing that he owed his king ten thou­sand tal­ents. Now this of­fi­cer of the king’s court pleaded that hard times had come upon him, and that he did not have where­with to pay this obli­ga­tion. And so the king com­manded that his prop­erty be con­fis­cated, and that his chil­dren be sold to pay his debt. When this chief stew­ard heard this stern de­cree, he fell down on his face be­fore the king and im­plored him to have mercy and grant him more time, say­ing, ‘Lord, have a lit­tle more pa­tience with me, and I will pay you all.’ And when the king looked upon this neg­li­gent ser­vant and his fam­ily, he was moved with com­pas­sion. He or­dered that he should be re­leased, and that the loan should be wholly for­given.

159:1.5“And this chief stew­ard, hav­ing thus re­ceived mercy and for­give­ness at the hands of the king, went about his busi­ness, and find­ing one of his sub­or­di­nate stew­ards who owed him a mere hun­dred denarii, he laid hold upon him and, tak­ing him by the throat, said, ‘Pay me all you owe.’ And then did this fel­low stew­ard fall down be­fore the chief stew­ard and, be­seech­ing him, said: ‘Only have pa­tience with me, and I will pres­ently be able to pay you.’ But the chief stew­ard would not show mercy to his fel­low stew­ard but rather had him cast in prison un­til he should pay his debt. When his fel­low ser­vants saw what had hap­pened, they were so dis­tressed that they went and told their lord and mas­ter, the king. When the king heard of the do­ings of his chief stew­ard, he called this un­grate­ful and un­for­giv­ing man be­fore him and said: ‘You are a wicked and un­wor­thy stew­ard. When you sought for com­pas­sion, I freely for­gave you your en­tire debt. Why did you not also show mercy to your fel­low stew­ard, even as I showed mercy to you?’ And the king was so very an­gry that he de­liv­ered his un­grate­ful chief stew­ard to the jail­ers that they might hold him un­til he had paid all that was due. And even so shall my heav­enly Fa­ther show the more abun­dant mercy to those who freely show mercy to their fel­lows. How can you come to God ask­ing con­sid­er­a­tion for your short­com­ings when you are wont to chas­tise your breth­ren for be­ing guilty of these same hu­man frail­ties? I say to all of you: Freely you have re­ceived the good things of the king­dom; there­fore freely give to your fel­lows on earth.”

169:2.1One evening Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, com­ment­ing on one of Je­sus’ state­ments, said: “Mas­ter, what did you mean when you said to­day that many of the chil­dren of the world are wiser in their gen­er­a­tion than are the chil­dren of the king­dom since they are skill­ful in mak­ing friends with the mam­mon of un­righ­teous­ness?” Je­sus an­swered:

169:2.2“Some of you, be­fore you en­tered the king­dom, were very shrewd in deal­ing with your busi­ness as­so­ciates. If you were un­just and of­ten un­fair, you were nonethe­less pru­dent and farsee­ing in that you trans­acted your busi­ness with an eye sin­gle to your pres­ent profit and fu­ture safety. Like­wise should you now so or­der your lives in the king­dom as to pro­vide for your pres­ent joy while you also make cer­tain of your fu­ture en­joy­ment of trea­sures laid up in heaven. If you were so dili­gent in mak­ing gains for your­selves when in the ser­vice of self, why should you show less dili­gence in gain­ing souls for the king­dom since you are now ser­vants of the broth­er­hood of man and stew­ards of God?

169:2.3“You may all learn a les­son from the story of a cer­tain rich man who had a shrewd but un­just stew­ard. This stew­ard had not only op­pressed his mas­ter’s clients for his own self­ish gain, but he had also di­rectly wasted and squan­dered his mas­ter’s funds. When all this fi­nally came to the ears of his mas­ter, he called the stew­ard be­fore him and asked the mean­ing of these ru­mors and re­quired that he should give im­me­di­ate ac­count­ing of his stew­ard­ship and pre­pare to turn his mas­ter’s af­fairs over to an­other.

169:2.4“Now this un­faith­ful stew­ard be­gan to say to him­self: ‘What shall I do since I am about to lose this stew­ard­ship? I have not the strength to dig; to beg I am ashamed. I know what I will do to make cer­tain that, when I am put out of this stew­ard­ship, I will be wel­comed into the houses of all who do busi­ness with my mas­ter.’ And then, call­ing in each of his lord’s debtors, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my mas­ter?’ He an­swered, ‘A hun­dred mea­sures of oil.’ Then said the stew­ard, ‘Take your wax board bond, sit down quickly, and change it to fifty.’ Then he said to an­other debtor, ‘How much do you owe?’ And he replied, ‘A hun­dred mea­sures of wheat.’ Then said the stew­ard, ‘Take your bond and write fourscore.’ And this he did with nu­mer­ous other debtors. And so did this dis­hon­est stew­ard seek to make friends for him­self af­ter he would be dis­charged from his stew­ard­ship. Even his lord and mas­ter, when he sub­se­quently found out about this, was com­pelled to ad­mit that his un­faith­ful stew­ard had at least shown sagac­ity in the man­ner in which he had sought to pro­vide for fu­ture days of want and ad­ver­sity.

169:2.5“And it is in this way that the sons of this world some­times show more wis­dom in their prepa­ra­tion for the fu­ture than do the chil­dren of light. I say to you who pro­fess to be ac­quir­ing trea­sure in heaven: Take lessons from those who make friends with the mam­mon of un­righ­teous­ness, and like­wise so con­duct your lives that you make eter­nal friend­ship with the forces of righ­teous­ness in or­der that, when all things earthly fail, you shall be joy­fully re­ceived into the eter­nal habi­ta­tions.

169:2.6“I af­firm that he who is faith­ful in lit­tle will also be faith­ful in much, while he who is un­righ­teous in lit­tle will also be un­righ­teous in much. If you have not shown fore­sight and in­tegrity in the af­fairs of this world, how can you hope to be faith­ful and pru­dent when you are trusted with the stew­ard­ship of the true riches of the heav­enly king­dom? If you are not good stew­ards and faith­ful bankers, if you have not been faith­ful in that which is an­other’s, who will be fool­ish enough to give you great trea­sure in your own name?

169:2.7“And again I as­sert that no man can serve two mas­ters; ei­ther he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to one while he de­spises the other. You can­not serve God and mam­mon.”

169:2.8When the Phar­isees who were pres­ent heard this, they be­gan to sneer and scoff since they were much given to the ac­quire­ment of riches. These un­friendly hear­ers sought to en­gage Je­sus in un­prof­itable ar­gu­men­ta­tion, but he re­fused to de­bate with his en­e­mies. When the Phar­isees fell to wran­gling among them­selves, their loud speak­ing at­tracted large num­bers of the mul­ti­tude en­camped there­abouts; and when they be­gan to dis­pute with each other, Je­sus with­drew, go­ing to his tent for the night.