Dishonest steward parable ripe for discussion

I have spent the last two months reviewing some of the stories, which Jesus left with us to ponder. Pondering is my favorite sport. At times my ponderings are mind clearing.

Other times I am left scratching my head. The story of the dishonest steward found in the 16th chapter of the Luke gospel is breeding grounds for people who are trying to figure life out.

It calls for a lot of pondering.

The story has three main characters: a very rich master, a steward of the master, and debtor clients. Each character represented a group in a sharply stratified society. When Jesus told the story, his audience was familiar with the three characters. Every listener was a part of the debtor client population and had dealings with the two groups who were socially and economically above them.

No Jesus story has had a more heated debate about its meaning than the story of the dishonest steward. There are no honorable characters in the story. Every character acts in his own selfish interest and has no regard for the well-being of others.

Interpreters have attempted to turn at least one of the characters into an honorable person. Every attempt has been flawed and has failed. No one understood this better than Jesus’ original audience. It was a story without good guys.

The three-layer society reflects the advanced agrarian society that Galilee had become. The rich had acquired the land and lived in a nearby city. The land was still farmed by former owners who had become peasants.

The rich owner hired retainers who supervised the farming and delivered profits to the city-dwelling landowners. The owners were economic predators whose only interest was the maximizing of profits.

The owner in the story was very rich, as indicated by the large amounts of wheat and oil involved. The steward was not a slave of the owner but rather was a hired enforcer, typically a peasant who was trying to move up the economic ladder.

Even though business was conducted by contracts, the peasants were almost all illiterate and were easy to manipulate and cheat. The retainer/steward cheated on both sides of the transactions. He cheated the peasants and cheated the owners by manipulating contracts and payments.

In this structure, no one trusted anyone. Rich owners did not trust their stewards/retainers, peasants hated the stewards/retainers and saw them as deserters and traitors to their own kin, and stewards regularly cheated both owners and peasants.

Everyone was aware of the realities of the system. The big losers in the system were the peasants, and they became poorer and poorer.

A further complication of the story plot is that all three parties ended up reasonably happy with the result. The peasants settled for less than what their contract called for. The retainer collected and kept large sums of oil and wheat. He collected enough to meet his future needs. The owner got rid of a cheating steward and smiled as he commended the steward for being so adept at his manipulations.

At the end of the story, nothing had really changed. The predator owner was still in charge; a new cheating steward would replace the fired steward; the peasant was not delivered from his inevitable poverty.

In the story as we now have it in the Luke gospel, Jesus leaves his hearers with no proposed resolution. Rather, he leaves his hearers with a needed discussion about the kingdom of God and the practice of justice.

As a child of the church, I was taught that the parables (stories) of Jesus were earthly stories with heavenly meanings. The parable of the unjust steward exposes the lie of that understanding.

Nothing in the story leads me to an understanding of the kingdom of God on Earth or in heaven. It is a story about the realities of our everyday lives on this Earth.

The rich and powerful seek even more power and wealth. There are no shortages of retainers who give their lives in service to the rich and powerful for their own benefit.

The masses of peasants continue to be with us. They do the work, are paid wages that are not livable, and are left poor castaways in their later years. Trust as a virtue has been lost. Common folk live in constant dread and fear of those with wealth and power.

The ministry of Jesus focused on two things: justice and the kingdom of God. He taught us to pray for the establishment of the kingdom of God on Earth (as it is in heaven).

Justice will be achieved when the truest needs of all are fully met. Without justice, the kingdom of God cannot be.

The story of the dishonest steward is our finest example of a story that is intended to start a discussion. In Jesus’ day, a synagogue meeting was a time for discussion, not a time for worship.

Modern church life has become centered in worship and has forsaken the needed discussion of Torah and the will of God. Without the needed discussions, Christians will continue to be simply another type of retainer in an unjust world.