More than one person has been confused by the parable that we hear today. They wonder how the steward can reduce the debts owed to his master and earn the praise of the master at the same time. The answer to that question can be found in the fact that the steward has been inflating the debts owed to his master. When he tells one to write a note for fifty barrels of olive oil and another for eighty measures of wheat, he is not reducing the amount owed to his master. He is reducing the amount he was stealing for himself. His greed had gotten the better of him, and he had been caught. So his master’s praise is for the fact that he has come to his senses.
The truth of the matter is that the ways of this world are simply not compatible with the ways of God. Stewards were used to making themselves rich by the way they handle their master’s property. The same thing goes on today. Like the steward in the Gospel, many of them are eventually caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
The Christian life truly is not of this world. We want people to see this reality in the way that we live. This is certainly the story of every canonized saint, whose lives inspire us to seek the things of heaven rather than the things of earth.
We belong to Jesus Christ. We are citizens of heaven, strangers and sojourners in this world bound for the next. When we live for heaven, we are set free of earthly anxieties. Like St. Paul we know that there is much that goes on in the world that does not fit into the lifestyle of a Christian. With St. Paul we pray for all those who are caught up in the web of material things.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator