It's important to keep in mind that the Old Testament and Gospel readings in the Lectionary on Sundays during Ordinary Time are harmonized. This Sunday our Old Testament reading is from the Book of the Prophet Amos. In true prophetic fashion, Amos's prophecy has little or nothing to do with foretelling the future. What Amos's prophecy is concerned with, as are the prophecies of most of the other prophets, is calling Israel back to fidelity with the Covenant God established with them. It is adherence to this Covenant that makes Israel God's chosen people. The essence of the Covenant is Israel's care for the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, and the poor.
In our first reading Amos rebukes those who "trample" over the poor and reserves particular venom for those who cheat while selling grain, thus making bigger profits from those who already have very little. Being the prophet par excellence, Jesus takes up the prophetic mantle of Amos and the other prophets. Jesus amplifies the message of the prophets, making it universal. The Law was given as a means to the ends of loving God with your entire being and loving your neighbor as you love yourself. Nonetheless, for many the Law is made into something quite antithetical, something complex instead of simple. Christians do the same thing by making the Gospel primarily about individual salvation freely given quite, thus seeking to separate it from how we live our lives. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was quite right to call this "cheap grace."
Our Gospel this week is one that is very easy to misinterpret. How this misinterpretation usually works is by making the assertion that Jesus urges his followers to be like the dishonest steward. Up front, it is important to note that there is no question about the steward's dishonesty. He is identified from the beginning as dishonest, as unrighteous, as a bad steward who takes advantage of his master. He cheats his master from beginning to end. It is not just the steward who is dishonest, however. Jesus calls all "mammon" dishonest. What this likely refers to is that by placing your trust in material possessions and ordering your life to acquiring wealth, being primarily concerned with your own comfort, fostering the illusion of self-reliance, you separate yourself from God and other people in violation of the two great commandments. Especially in the U.S. and other advanced Western societies, this is perhaps the major thing that afflicts the Church.
According to Eric Franklin, the perspective of the story is a worldly one. The steward is not a good steward. He is not a person worthy of the trust placed in him by his master. As a result, his master dismisses him. The steward responds to his dismissal in a vigorous and one might argue creative way. Even though he was defrauded, the master, who himself sees all of this from a worldly perspective (i.e., the master is neither Jesus nor God the Father), commends his fired servant's initiative. Note that the master does not reinstate the steward as a result of the way he settled his accounts with his debtors. It can't be lost on anyone who reads this story that the dismissed steward's settlements were entirely self-serving, aimed at securing future employment at his current employer's expense. In my view, Jesus's words about being trustworthy in small things speaks directly to the dishonest steward's lack of character.
The Parable of the Dishonest Steward, by Marinus van Reymerswaele, ca 1540
Franklin goes on to assert that perhaps Jesus is addressing this parable to his disciples who were tax collectors and sinners. He asserts that Jesus needs to confront them, to provoke them, thus bringing about their repentance. So, he encourages them to use "dishonest wealth" to make friends with the poor. This puts Jesus's teaching in line with our reading from Amos. Rather than profit at the expense of the poor, these followers are to use dishonest wealth, wealth that comes at the expense of others, to help the poor even while eschewing and opposing unjust systems that generate dishonest wealth. In the story of Zacchaeus a few chapters on we see clearly what the repentance Jesus hopes to bring about looks like in reality (Luke 19:1-10).
Returning to Franklin's exposition of the tale of the dishonest steward, it seems the message of the story is that the crisis facing Jesus's hearers is similar to that of the steward's being fired. Like the steward, the crisis posed by the imminence of the age to come portends the loss of all your money, wealth, and luxury. Jesus inaugurates this age, the "already" his followers are to live in the midst of the "not yet." You do this by attending to and caring for the poor and needy, who will be first in God's kingdom.
Hence, you should respond to the looming crisis in an energetic and decisive way. It's important, again, to recognize that far from being a sure sign of God's blessing (a tiresome trope of American Christianity), wealth and material possessions often constitute the biggest obstacles to making yourself fit for the age to come. It is the coming of that age, the realization of God's kingdom, that foments the crisis to which everyone who hears and believes Jesus's message must respond. Refusing to respond is a response. Pope Francis frequently decries our indifference to the suffering of the world's poor.
In the words of a Bob Dylan song: "You Gotta Serve Somebody." Do you serve God or mammon? Do you serve the Lord or the devil? Is your life about making God's kingdom present here and now, bringing the future into the present, which is what it means to be a person of hope, or are you intent on seeking satisfaction in those things that can never provide it, ignoring the needs of others? To end by pointing out the obvious: you serve the Lord by serving your neighbor. Who is your neighbor? The person in need who you are in a position to help whether nearby or far away in this interconnected age.
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