Can we read of the Unjust Steward in Luke 16 with irony?
Andrew Talbert writes: Perchance the oddest of parables of Jesus (at least in its interpretation), is that of the unjust steward (Luke 16:one–13). Commentators and pastors alike squirm through this parable with virtually the same conclusion: Jesus teaches that there are select occasions in which one can exist dishonest with money. Not only does this interpretation chafe readers of the gospels, but it besides seems completely out of step with the financial concerns that boss the Gospel of Luke. All the same, we see throughout modernistic commentators variations on this theme. Joel Green views this passage as continuing the theme of hospitality from affiliate 15 past focusing on almsgiving and friendship. Situating this in the linguistic communication of patron-client relationships, Jesus offers this parable as challenge to his disciples to apply mammon to brand friends without expectations of reciprocity, so that in that location might be true social solidarity betwixt the rich and the poor, thereby breaking down the patron-client human relationship and meeting one another as "friends" (Joel Dark-green, The Gospel of Luke, 486–89).
Though non couched in the aforementioned language of patronage, Bovon concludes similarly to Light-green "the Lukan Christ invites his readers to make friends for themselves with their material wealth and promises them in return spiritual benefits in the earth to come" (Francois Bovon, Luke ii: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 9:51-xix:27, 450). Yet he goes further than Green in pointing out the perennial difficulties raised by this passage and that "Christian tradition has preserved this parable in spite of the fact that information technology was a source of embarrassment," (Bovon, 453) because of Jesus' seeming divergence from his other teachings about wealth.
Continuing in this trajectory, John Carroll foregrounds the enigmatic and elusive nature of the parable and repeatedly admits "readers can only build coherence by filling gaps in the assumed cultural script" (John Carroll, Luke: A Commentary, 325). He rightly notes that 16:viii–13 are needed to guide the reader's response to the parable, and then suggests a trajectory forward with the passage: Christians must somehow interpret the story of the unjust steward into "the values of God's reign" (Carroll, 327), and that this entails making friends with people who can assist secure one's future "through use of material resources… in ways that are entangled with the 'unrighteousness'… of money and belongings" (Carroll, 327).
A final example from modernistic commentators suggests that internal clues in the text suggest the managing director is falsely defendant, and therefore the condemnatory remarks use primarily to the primary, not the manager. Therefore, the reader tin can readily identify with Jesus' statements nearly making friends with mammon, because the manager has non washed annihilation wrong from the start (Mikeal Parsons, Luke, 244–48).
Each of these interpretations fails, withal, to deal fairly with several glaring difficulties: using mammonto brand friends, though that makes 1 an opponent of God (xvi:13); the identification of the steward every bit "unjust" or "unrighteous" and a "son of darkness" (16:eight); that the master commends the steward for essentially robbing him farther (16:viii); the connections over "squandering" money to be drawn betwixt the prodigal son, Lazarus and the rich human being, and this passage; the illustration that believers are to describe between the unjust steward and themselves based on Jesus' instruction elsewhere regarding wealth; and the fact that the "friends" practice not have "eternal homes" (16:ix) into which they tin welcome others.
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The exception to this trend, nonetheless, may be found tucked away in a volume celebrating Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield, Stanley Porter ("The Parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke xvi:1–xiii): Irony is the Key," in The Bible in 3 Dimensions, 127–53) offers a hitting perspective on this parable that overturns these readings while simultaneously resolving all of the tensions without remainder. As his title suggests, Porter takes irony to be critical to the interpretation of this passage, and his definition clarifies why this tool is apt: "Irony… may be defined as an interpretive state of affairs in which an explainable discrepancy is perceived by the reader between what is said and/or done past the characters in a dramatic story, and what is the established state of affairs in the contextual globe" (Porter, 127). Though the focus here is on the unjust steward, situating it first in its narrative context helps make sense of what is happening in this parable.
But prior to this is perhaps the well-nigh well-known of Jesus' parables: the prodigal son (Luke fifteen:11–32). This story deserves every bit thorough a restoration to its first-century context as possible. The outcome of the prodigal son's life, lived on his ain terms, is terrible enough for most of u.s. to imagine, just it would accept been mortifying at some other level for Jesus' Jewish listeners. The younger son asks for his inheritance (to which he is non entitled) earlier his father has died (read "Dad, I wish you were expressionless") and he squanders his money on reckless living, and then that he ends up in maybe the almost insulting place for a Jew: starving in a hole. Fifty-fifty if this did not technically make him ritually impure, the olfactory property would proceed people from wanting to be around him. This state of affairs is a keen irony: the demand for swell wealth and dependence on information technology has brought this human equally depression every bit he can possibly descend. Then, the son returns with naught and his livelihood is sustained purely by the grace of his father, not coin.
What parable follows the dishonest steward? The story of Lazarus and the Rich Man (sixteen:19–31), which we might summarize as: the rich man uses his money entirely on himself while Lazarus suffers, only in the historic period to come the rich human suffers torment while the fortunes of Lazarus are reversed. Two parables that entail self-interested utilise of wealth environs the parable of our electric current involvement.
Looking back at the unjust steward parable, our involvement is really on the steward'southward determination to employ "unrighteous wealth" (mammon) so that people volition take him in when information technology fails. Within the church this is sanitized, perhaps, to suggest using coin to have intendance of believers so that they will extend yous friendship in your time of need. Information technology becomes an ethic of finances for believers.
Simply it doesn't really brand sense of the passage, because then Jesus would be affirming a person being dishonest to have intendance of his/herself. Secondly, information technology doesn't make sense of why the Pharisees would ridicule him for this teaching afterward. Thirdly, taking the passage as traditionally interpreted doesn't make sense of the logic of the passage. Here's why:
What blazon of manager is this? The crux of the parable describes him every bit dishonest or "unrighteous" (τὸν οἰκονόμον τῆς ἀδικίας; sixteen:8). Notice that his solution to being caught in beingness quack is non to repent or change, it is to further his dishonesty, because he believes that using his master'south money in the way that he does will upshot in friends to accept him into their homes (16:3–7). Recollect the prodigal son. What happened when his wealth ran out? He was forced to have up humiliating work that the manager wants to avoid (xvi:3). Furthermore, whatever "welcome" that the prodigal son may have had among friends only extended merely as long as at that place was money. Furthermore, in the steward's dishonest life, he has not managed to gear up aside whatever money for himself, so it is implied that he has been wasteful with the money he had. Nosotros tin can actually see such a connection made on this indicate by Luke'due south utilise of the same term (διασκορπίζω) in the prodigal son parable and this parable (15:13 and 16:1), which means "wasteful."
Consider how quickly the situation devolves after the steward is institute out: in his internal monologue, he immediately rejects the honest options of earning a living (digging or begging; 16:three). So he stands condemned. Next, the manager involves others in his dishonesty past having them cut their ain substantial debts to his master (16:5–7). Why would further dishonesty solve the problem acquired by dishonesty? And so consider the master's response to discovering his steward robbing him of what he is owed. Is the reader really to believe that "the primary commended the unjust steward" (16:8)? The principal would not merely be commending a villain, he would be commending a failure. What else besides irony could be intended here?
Additionally, Jesus' conclusions following the parable using the eschatological expressions "sons of this world" (i.due east. the unjust steward) and "sons of light" (16:8) are used to "contrast inhabitants of this worldly historic period and those who are either spiritually or in reality inhabitants of the kingdom [of God]" (Porter, 147), with the former believing they are "wise," but they could not be further from the truth, or the reality of the kingdom "every bit the parable of the prodigal son shows with reference to this globe and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus confirms for the age to come up" (Porter, 148). In both of these parables the effect is (in part) over the employ of money.
The irony reaches its peak, however, when Jesus comments on the parable "I tell you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous mammon, then that when it gives out they may welcome you into their eternal homes" (xvi:ix). The irony hither comes across in several points: start, "Jesus is commanding his followers for using worldly wealth in its well-nigh negative sense to secure reward, a clear impossibility for this globe, equally the prodigal learned, and for the world beyond, as the rich homo regretted" (Porter, 148–49). So, the poesy must exist taken ironically. Second, "dishonest wealth cannot exist expected to produce earthly friendship, as the prodigal realizes, but more than than that, this ways of ingratiation cannot be used to buy eternal friends, as the rich man so painfully learns" (Porter, 149). Third, the friends, especially "sons of darkness" do not possess "eternal homes" (xvi:viii). Fourth, Jesus afterwards heightens the irony of 5. 8 past noting that one cannot servemammonand God (16:xiii; in fact, serving mammon makes 1 an enemy of God), but like the steward tries to serve two masters. Lastly, consider the Pharisees' ("who loved money" 16:14) response to Jesus' conclusion: they belittle at him, because they recognize his ironic condemnation of their acquisition of mammon.
Looking again at the broader context, the reader needs to situate this parable in the Gospel of Luke (who e'er links up economic science, the end times, and God's kingdom), the initial alert Jesus levels at tax collectors at the first of this teaching unit (15:1), Jesus' concluding warning most the Pharisees (16:xiv–xviii), and between the eschatological warnings of the employ of mammon in the prodigal son and Lazarus and the rich homo. The but interpretation that accounts for all the information and allows for internal consistency without recourse to the awkward "Well in sure circumstances, Jesus says it is acceptable to exist dishonest with wealth— as long every bit it is for your personal benefit and lets you lot brand friends" reading is one with the eye for irony.
Too a fresh reading, what might Christian readers describe from this interpretation of the unjust steward? At least ii things come to heed immediately. First, as serious readers of scripture, we can read and so "seriously" that nosotros often miss out on humor, irony, sarcasm, and other literary devices nosotros regard as "non serious." Past mode of case, I would look to Thousand. Yard. Chesterton, who rejected the accusation that he was not serious because he attempted to be funny so frequently. Chesterton reminds us, "Funny is the opposite of not funny, and of cypher else." Readers of Jonah oftentimes miss the fact the Nineveh, where Jonah refuses to go, means something like "house of fish," and Jonah is forced to get into a "house of fish"; Paul'due south give-and-take of love in i Cor 13 is a condemnation of the Corinthian church, and follows something of a sarcastic rebuke of the "spiritual" in that customs; despite all the lights being lit and the upper room being so brilliant, Eutyches still brutal comatose (and out the window!) during Paul's preaching. The point of this is simply that we need to exist enlightened and make employ of all of the interpretive tools at our disposal to be good readers of scripture.
Finally, and peradventure uncomfortably, this parable, which may have been the only remaining oasis for justifying certain relationships with wealth among Christians, is no haven at all. It fits with Jesus' concern in Luke'southward Gospel that believers divide themselves from dependence on mammon, and what is at stake is whether or not 1 belongs to God's kingdom. The use of wealth has eternal consequences, because it reflects where our allegiances lie. In the dissipated son, the wayward child at to the lowest degree has the opportunity to render to the father, and then that he realizes his entire being depends on the father's grace.
Andrew Talbert completed his PhD in New Testament interpretation at the University of Nottingham and taught for several years in Indonesia before returning to his native Us.
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