Brief synopsis of the readings: In the Old Testament book of Amos we see Amos railing against wealthy people taking from the poor. “Then by lowering the bushel, raising the shekel, by swindling and tampering with the scales, we can buy up the poor for money and the needy for a pair of sandals.” God then promises not to forget “a single thing you have done.” In Luke’s Gospel Jesus taught a parable about a rich man who had an incompetent employee. The rich man told his employee to give an account of his stewardship as he was planning to fire him. Out of fear of losing his job the steward met with those who owed his boss money and negotiated payment. “The owner then gave his devious employee credit for being enterprising!” Jesus then warned his followers against misusing money to win friends. Finally he said that someone who can be trusted in little things can be trusted in great things. Likewise anyone who cannot be trusted in small things also cannot be trusted in great things. “No servant can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or treat the first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the slave of both God and of money.”

Let’s face it: some readings are easy to understand and some aren’t. Amos, and for the most part the other prophets, are easy. God speaks to them a clear message that we need to follow. The parables of Jesus, well that’s a mixed bag. Today’s parable had me scratching my head for a few days. Is the steward a good guy or a bad guy? Why was the master pleased when he negotiated smaller debts? And did he keep his job?

Clearly Jesus doesn’t want us to emulate the steward as Jesus refers to him as devious. But there’s nothing to indicate that he was devious from the beginning. It could well be that the steward simply wasn’t up to the job. I suspect we can all think of a job that we needed but wasn’t a good fit. When I was a priest I worked with a pastor who was an excellent priest and a miserable administrator. At any given time we had no idea of the parish’s financial health, and within his first few years as pastor nearly everyone knew better than to give him a check as it would go into his backpack and disappear from the earth. I’m not sure if the books were ever balanced.

But back to the steward, his luck ran out when his boss recognized his ineptitude and planned to fire him. At this point he faced a choice: do I deal with this honestly or do I dishonestly try to worm my way out of this? Alas, he chose the second. It’s not entirely clear (at least to me) who he cheated but he clearly played fast and loose with the money in the hopes of keeping his job. His focus was on the money at the expense of honesty.

In some ways the problem was that he succeeded. If you’re not familiar with a Ponzi scheme, it’s where someone creates a scenario where he promises a generous return on investment but pays initial investors with money collected from later investors. It works wonderfully at first but eventually it falls apart as the later investors lose everything.

Today’s Gospel isn’t a Ponzi scheme but the steward does benefit from juggling the funds and he learns a dangerous lesson: cheating works. Perhaps he earns the respect of his master because his master found a kindred spirit and they use that talent to make even more money.

I remember listening to someone speak about love relationships, particularly at the beginning when we’re trying hard to make a good impression on the other person. He commented that the first lie we tell is the hardest. The next one gets a little easier, as does the next one, etc. Pretty soon we recognize two things. We’ve navigated into untenable territory where we are so boxed by our lies that we can barely move. In addition, somewhere along the line we’ve lost sight of the person we say we’re attracted to. Had we been honest from the start the relationship may not have gone the way we wanted and it may not even exist, but at least we’ll know we have no regrets.

Finally, we are a people of reconciliation, a people who have a next chapter. Had the steward been honest he may have lost his job and his next chapter may have been painful. But maybe it would turn into an opportunity to either get better at keeping accounts for another master, or for the steward to find something he was able to do.

Many of us may not know the beginning of the story but during World War I Winston Churchill was the First Lord of the Admiralty (head of the navy). He proposed that England and the Allies cut off Turkey from the Black Sea (now known as Gallipoli) . It failed miserably and Winston was given a good deal of the blame. It was thought at the time that his military and political careers were over. And for a time they were. But in the 1930s he recognized the threat Hitler posed in Europe and by 1940 he became Prime Minister. He is the hero we recognize only because he accepted responsibility and worked at restoring his reputation.

Going back to our devious steward, he was focused on money to the point where it was going rule his life. Money, and even wealth, aren’t bad in themselves but only when we shift their role in our life. Money is good when it allows us to have what we need and ensure that others have what they need. But when money becomes our master, the focus of our energies, we lose sight of our call. Then we become a form of the wealthy televangelists who ask for our money while they fly off in their new private planes.

Let us look on this parable not in celebration of the steward but instead as an object lesson in not allowing money and wealth to rule us.