25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Of all Jesus’ parables, this parable of the crafty steward is perhaps one of the hardest to decipher. We are told that the steward had “squandered” his mater’s property and the word in Greek, diaskorpizo, is the same word used to describe the profligate behavior of the prodigal son, the story that just precedes this one. However, the context here is different and implies that the steward has “scattered” his master’s wealth all over the place. The most likely way that he has done this is through loaning out his master’s wealth in order to collect interest on it. It is highly likely that when deciding on the amount of interest he would charge them, he included a fat commission for himself. When his master realizes how much of his wealth has actually been loaned out, he is stricken by his loss of liquidity and summons his steward to give a full account of his estate.

One suggestion by commentators is that when the steward contacts his master’s debtors and tells them to write down their debts he is merely removing his own commission. This is perhaps why Jesus praises the steward for realizing that money is only a means to an end and not an end in itself. When Jesus warns us at the end of the parable that no-one can be the servant of two masters, he is well aware how quickly money can become an end in itself and we can become enslaved to it. The great attraction of money for us is the power to convert our desires into reality. This is due to the extraordinary capacity of money to be traded. More than any other object, money is tradable, which is why we refer to a person’s or a company’s ability to put their hands on hard cash as their liquidity – liquid can take any shape we want it to. In this way the metaphor of liquidity conveys the power of money to give us unlimited options. We like having unlimited options, and I think this is why money is so alluring for us because, as least in the sense of the power it gives us of having unlimited options, it places us in a position akin to that of God who alone possesses unlimited possibilities. Made in the image of God, we long to be like God, and money offers us a shortcut to achieve this. But it is a shortcut because God did not create us to possess such power or possibilities alone, independently of one another. God created us for community, as the second chapter of Genesis highlights. Men and women were created for each other, the human person was created for relationship and community.

But money takes us in the opposite direction, instead of increasing our interdependence, it increases our independence, giving us the ability to fulfil our needs, without having recourse to the help or opinion of another person. There is a gradation in how much independence we have depending on how “liquid” we are. The highest state of liquidity is hard cash, where I have the money in my pocket and can just whip it out to buy whatever I want, no questions asked. The next step down in liquidity is money in a bank account. There are already limits on how I can spend it, withdrawal limits, and limits on my debit card that need to be negotiated with my bank manager. An even lower level of liquidity is the wealth that I have invested in stocks. Here I am even less independent. I must have a conversation with my broker before I can access the power that this type of wealth gives me. I have to also trust my broker who gives me advice about the best time to sell off stocks in order to access my wealth. I must realize that my decision to sell off my stocks will have an impact on the lives of the workers at the company whose stocks I am selling. The next level of liquidity is that of a loan – this is even more dependent on relationship of trust with another person – presumably there is a legally binding agreement that will compel the person who I have lent money to to return my money, but I need to have a good relationship with that person, and there is always a timeline, I cannot simply access that wealth when I want to – I am dependent on the liquidity of my debtor for my own liquidity. What we see here is that liquidity and human relationship are inversely proportional to one another – the more liquidity I have, the less human relationships I have, the less liquid my wealth is, the more trust and investment I have in human relationships.

Now let us return to the parable and examine it in the light of this short excursus on human relationship and liquidity. The master is stricken by his loss of liquidity and wants the steward to settle his debts so that he will return to a position high liquidity, where he is once more sure of his own wealth and so that it is no longer mediated to him through relationships of trust. The steward on the other hand is going in completely the opposite direction: moving from a position of having a promise of a fat commission that he could have easily converted into hard cash, he is moving into a position of much lower liquidity, which is not even backed by anything legal. The steward could have called in the debts immediately, taken his commission and made off with a little nest-egg that would have ensured his financial security when he was thrown out into the cold by his master. But the steward doesn’t do this and instead chooses to walk away with something far more nebulous: with the knowledge that he has friends who now owe him a good turn, but who cannot be legally compelled into returning his favor. By forgoing his own commission, he has transformed his master’s debtors into his own friends. He has moved to the extreme end of relationship. So we see how wealth lies on a continuum, with liquidity on one extreme, and human relationship on the other extreme. Liquidity on the extreme right offers us maximal security, maximal independence, but also low returns. On the other end of the extreme there is minimal security, high risk, maximal interdependence, and the promise of high returns. This is perhaps why Jesus praises the actions of the steward. The steward walks away without a penny in his pocket, but many friends who now owe him a good turn. He will not have unrestricted access to the fulfilment of his desires and will have to be dependent on these friends for his fulfilment.

If Jesus is putting the steward forward as an example to us, I think he is urging us to live our lives of faith in a similar manner. The steward in a time of crisis acted counter-intuitively and instead of reaching for that which looked on the surface more secure and reliable, hard cash, chooses the far riskier less secure option of human relationship, trusting that this option will yield higher returns. In our own lives of faith Jesus is inviting us to take a risk on him, on relationship with him and with one another – to store up treasure for ourselves in heaven, where we do not know what our balance is, where all we have to hold onto is his promise of friendship and the promise of relationship in the Christian community.

As followers of Christ, we are being invited to realize the lie that undergirds the allure of money. The etymology of the word “mammon” lies in the semantic field of something that you can put your trust in, something reliable, solid. What this parable is inviting us to see is that money is not that reliable after all, at least insofar as procuring our happiness is concerned, because it so easily misleads us to into the illusion of independence of others. Put simply, the advert that we swallow whole when it comes to money is that the more I am able to fulfil my own desires without having to rely on others, the more secure and assured my happiness will be. However reality tells us that this is just not the case.

To take an example, the lie of money tells me that instead of having a friend who has a sail boat, who lets me borrow it from time to time, it is far better to have my own sail boat, so that whenever I want to go sailing, I get to go sailing, without having to factor into the fulfilment of my desires the wants and needs of others. Money thus gives me the most direct and straight line to the fulfilment of my desires, without having to be filtered and perhaps even diverted through the needs and desires of those around me. If I have to ask my friend to borrow his boat, there is a risk that he will say “Great, why don’t we go sailing together” – this is fine if I was looking for company, but what if I wanted to just be alone? Having to depend on others means that I do not get to construct my own perfect life, and it also means that my life can be derailed by others and maybe even taken in a direction that I would not have taken for myself. I have often had an experience where the derailing of my desires by another has led to an unexpected joy in my own life.

I think what this parable invites us to realize is that happiness only really comes from putting ourselves in a position where we have to depend on others. We need to realize that the more we allow our desires and actions to be filtered through the needs of others, the more we allow others to have a claim on our resources, our money and our wealth, the more our “returns” will increase. The more we risk ourselves and our wealth in relationships, the more we will reap dividends of joy and fulfilment in the communities that we are called to live in. The promise of happiness in the limitless possibility that money offers us is illusory, the only real possibilities that will fulfil us are those that are mediated to us through relationship.

Questions for reflection:

1. If money offers me the shortest route to the fulfilment of my desires, what might the longer route look like in my life?
2. Have I ever bought into the lie of money and been disappointed?
3. When was the last time I had my desires derailed or re-routed because of my relationship with another person? How did this make me feel?