URC Daily Devotion Thursday 6 March 2025
St Luke 16: 1 – 13
Then Jesus said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.”
Then the manager said to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.”
So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?”
He answered, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.”
He said to him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.”
Then he asked another, “And how much do you owe?”
He replied, “A hundred containers of wheat.”
He said to him, “Take your bill and make it eighty.”
And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
‘‘Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?
No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.’
Reflection
It would be easy to miss that this parable comes right after another one that we often call the parable of the prodigal son. This is a consequence of the absurd way we tend to read the Bible, cut up into disconnected fragments. When we read them together maybe something other than complete perplexity is possible.
The much beloved parable that precedes this one tells of a son who squanders his inheritance and of a father who squanders his own property by letting it fall into the hands of his dissolute youngest. This parable is also about squandering. A manager is accused of squandering his boss’s property, and when he is accused (falsely or truly, we aren’t told), he decides to squander it anyway by cancelling much of the debt owed by various creditors to his accusing boss. ‘How much do you owe?… a hundred? Make it fifty… a hundred? Make it eighty and quits.’ The boss can’t help admiring his (former) manager for his style, even though he might have lost some revenue. (There follow some potential ‘morals of the story’ that don’t quite seem to fit the story, but maybe some wiser readers will work it out one day).
Is this story continuing to unfold Luke’s favourite theme – forgiveness? We still talk today of forgiving debts, and debts still serve in church circles as metaphors for failures that need forgiving. So just maybe, as the father in the previous parable was, with hardly a thought of doing different, generous and lavish with forgiveness, this parable too is about the way that forgiveness comes to us, like a debt wiped out, a surprising release from a burden we carry. The accounts of our lives don’t balance and never could, because God’s style is to squander forbearance and grace. And, like those surprised creditors, we are made friends.
Prayer
God of grace,
your scandalous mercy
matches the scoundrel’s style
as you strike out the debts we owe.
Thank you for outrageous mercy,
incomparable forbearance
and immeasurable love.
Give us the grace,
not to squander what you have given,
but to make friends with mercy,
be generous in our judgements of others
and have the nerve
to write the book differently,
when the chance comes.
Amen.