The Better Steward
(Free Version) Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost- Jeremiah 8:18-9:1; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13
Find this week’s readings here. This week, in our “Deep Dive,” we include more on the concept of stewardship in the Old Testament and how it has been misunderstood. We engage the work of Walter Brueggemann, Esau McCaulley, Robert Farrar Capon, and Fleming Rutledge; we dig more into the connection between prayer and right-action.
Among many themes in our readings this week is the theme of stewardship and care. From the beginning, the human vocation was one of stewardship, care for the world in congruity with the one true God (Gen. 1:26). This responsibility was later passed on to a specific people, Israel, God’s chosen people who were called to steward a land and to be shaped as a people who have been set free by God.
Our Jeremiah reading (Jeremiah 8:18-9:1) illustrates the grief which comes when we fail to live in this kind of congruity, when we fail to be the stewards we are called to be. The prophet himself grieves for his people, as God grieves. Because Israel has turned away from God, God’s presence is not discernible. This does not mean that God is absent, but that he is is not readily found. Is the Lord not in Zion? (vs. 19). Is healing even available? (vs. 22) This is the cry of God’s people for generation upon generation.
Paul tells Timothy (1 Timothy 2:1-7) to begin everything with prayer (vs. 1), but to specifically pray for leaders (vs. 2). This is subversive. Rather than praying to our leaders, seeing them as gods, as many in the Roman Empire did, we pray for them, to the one true God (vs. 5). How someone cares for the world, for society, for a family or a community is important. God cares about such things. We pray for our leaders, not so that they will enact a “Christian agenda,” but merely that they would steward the environment in such a way that Christians can live peaceful and quiet lives in godliness and holiness (vs. 2).
Jesus’ parable of the unjust steward is perplexing to many. It is a reading (like all readings) that must be wrestled with, and it may lead to manifold interpretations. If we see this reading in the context of God’s command for humans to steward the world and for Israel to care for the land and the people, it helps us to understand that this is about the God who breaks the rules in order to remove burdens. So much of religion feels like the “piling on” of extra cultural baggage. The way of Jesus is quite different. This does not mean that the way of Jesus is easy, or that it requires anything less than the full surrender of our lives. In Jesus, the “extra” that feels impossible, has been removed. All debtors are welcome.
Jesus is the Balm in Gilead, the healing for broken wounds. Jesus is the one mediator between God and man, the image of the one true God himself. And Jesus is the “unjust” steward, offering grace which breaks the rules we have set up, calling us into a life of freedom.