September 18, 2022 - The Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost - God's Justice Can't Be Realized In Man's Justice

This week's Gospel is the Parable of the Unjust (or Dishonest) Manager, or the Parable of the Penitent Steward. Funny. Anytime parables tell stories that run counter to our agreed upon morality, our sense of fair play, or our assumptions of "how the world should work" they are difficult to understand. Funny yet understandable. The language in this title alone is prejudicial. In the beginning of the parable the master is told about the manager but we don't know what he is accused of or what he is "guilty" of, if anything.

The "penitent" steward does not seem to describe his thought process as detailed in the parable. There is no revelation he experiences that causes him to  consider amending his past dealings. There also is nothing that describes these loan amounts as unreasonable.

We fill in the details while the parable refuses to take a consistent moral position. If the manager is participating in an exploitative system that benefits only the wealthy master at the expense of the rest, perhaps ancient hearers of this story would have viewed the manager’s choice and master’s with any empathy but that is not what the parable describes. Who is the master and what does he represent? Same question for the steward.

Jesus brings reasons to be humble. Right now Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is saying Texas migrants he sent to Martha's Vineyard "hit the jackpot." He went on to point out that liberal sanctuaries aren't as welcoming as they say they are and got a standing ovation from GOP voters from Kansas. The residents of Martha's Vineyard did provide humanitarian aid and were criticized because the migrants were shipped off the island to a military base.

Moral truth is hard to achieve and absolute accomplishments are hard to claim.