Holy Embezzlement
from Praying in the Rain Hosted by Fr. Michael Gillis
Luke 16 contains one of the most difficult to understand parables of Jesus. It is commonly called the parable of the Unjust Steward. For most of my life the parable offended me. Like the Pharisees in 16:14, I want to deride Jesus for telling a parable that, on the face of it, advocates embezzlement. The servant in the parable gets sacked for “wasting” his master’s goods, so the servant decides to earn favor with his master’s debtors by writing off a large part of the debt they owe the master. And what makes this parable particularly hard to stomach is that the master actually commends his servant for doing this. After sacking the servant for wasting his funds, the master commends him for embezzling them. How does that make sense?
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