More than the other Gospels, Luke places a strong emphasis on the mercy of God in the teaching and ministry of Jesus. This expression of mercy is seen in many distinct ways and is often the unexpressed underlying theme in the parables and sayings of Jesus. This weekend we hear what seems on the surface to be a chafing parable from Jesus where it almost sounds as though he is promoting some underhanded business practices. 

As Jesus often uses agrarian and pasturage imagery in his parables, it also makes sense that he would also invoke images from the financial sector as well. We might not often reflect on the fact that the people, at the time of Jesus, had a developed economy that included all of what we would expect today in the financial sector. 

Jesus tells a parable about a steward who realizes that his financial shenanigans are about to cost him his job. As with any one of us, given this circumstance, he wants to act quickly to insure his own future. He realizes that he lacks a lot of other skills and needs to secure his own future. He sets about to negotiate with the various clients who owe his master money a reduction of their payments to enable two things to occur. On one hand it makes it easier for them to get out of debt, and on the other, recognizing his proactive intervention on their behalf will likely make them well-disposed to him when he is looking for a new position. From a purely pragmatic perspective this is a brilliant move. 
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It seems a strange parable, and the Church has struggled from the beginning to understand why Jesus put this out there. Even more striking why it is St. Luke, who champions the care of the poor and downtrodden, who preserves this parable for the Church. 

This parable follows immediately and in a sense of continuation the parable of the Prodigal Son. The parables of what is finding what is lost lead into the parable of one who stole in order to preserve his livelihood. What comes next is a further condemnation of the Pharisees who, as Luke notes upfront, “love money.”

There is a way to connect the parable of the Prodigal Son to that of the so-called Dishonest Steward. In the prior parable the son chooses to return home not because he had a change of heart regarding his relationship with his family, but because he knew he can get better treatment as a servant there than where he was. His decision was pragmatic. As a result of his father’s overwhelming response and supreme generosity to him, we hope that he experiences a change of heart in relation to his father and his family. His older brother, resistant to his immediate reinstatement in the family, has a more realistic and pragmatic view of the situation than does the father. 

The dishonest steward is likewise acting on his own behalf. He has reduced the debts owed by three men to his master for his own future. His actions cost his master a significant amount, but it also might make it more likely that he will be able to collect on his debts upfront. This saves the master needing to take legal action, and it also laid the groundwork for some good will between the master and those who were indebted to him. He realizes this and commends the servant for his prudence.

We have a lesson here in the sense of how mercy develops in our lives. The prodigal son experienced mercy when he was not seeking it. The dishonest steward was expressing mercy even though he was not aware of it. 

Jesus reminds us to be prudent in how we deal with the world for often the world is more shrewd and merciful than we expect it to be. In a sense, these two weeks of mercy parables challenge us to think and act outside of the box and to perhaps even do the unthinkable in order to extend and then receive mercy in our own lives. While this should not lead us to sin, it does lead us to a deeper awareness of our debts to God and to one another. The Lord desires to slash our debts -- he takes our sins to zero debt if we allow him to -- and we must yet also slash the debts of those whom we believe owe us something.

As usual, Jesus seeks to startle his audience in order to make them think more deeply about what he is saying. The reminder to us in this parable is that there is an interactional and transformational sense of mercy. If we seek mercy from others, we must first be merciful ourselves.

Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.