Prepare a full account of your stewardship
Will we be ready when the Lord asks us for an account of all of the gifts, blessings, and talents, with which he has entrusted us? Or do we use those things in such a way that others might rightly report us for squandering the property of the master? A real problem arises when we forget that we are meant to be stewards, when we treat the goods of this world as if they are our own and use them as though we will have them forever. When we use the goods of this world according to our whims and without reference to God we do a disservice to others who have the right to expect from more from us. Hence their complaint about the steward in the parable is in keeping with the demands of justice.
I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg.
We can perhaps respect the desire of the servant to avoid the punishment of manual labor. But what if he was not ashamed to beg? Would the master have then shown mercy? We know that in another parable the man with the unpayable debt found mercy when he asked, though he squandered that mercy. This steward, however, was hamstrung by his pride, made unable to try to work out a solution with the master directly. But maybe this is more relatable than when realize. Perhaps our own attempts at conciliation with the master are half-hearted because we are ashamed to fully reveal to him the corruption in our hearts. If so, this sort of pride isn't doing us any favors. It stems from and leads to a transactional relationship with the master rather than the one he desires with us which is based on mercy and on love.
And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.
The steward cheated the master and it was not for this that he was commended. Rather it was the prudence inherent in the actions of using what he was not going to be able to keep in order to receive that which he could even after the end of his stewardship. We must not follow suit of the steward by cheating others out of that which we rightfully owe. But we should use the things of this world, which we cannot keep, in ways that will avail for us when our stewardship is at an end. We ought to be willing to let of the things of this world in order to win the favor that will avail for us for eternity. Even if we use the things of this world for people in this world who ultimately do not express their thanks in the way that the master's debtors would for the steward, nevertheless God himself will be pleased by our priorities being correctly expressed and will help to bring us safely home.
For the children of this world
are more prudent in dealing with their own generation
than the children of light.
The children of this world seem very capable of letting go of one thing that they can't keep for another that will last longer. But we seem less capable by comparison. What we have on offer is that which will last forever, treasure in heaven, and eternal dwelling places. What we must trade for that is only what we can't keep anyway, what lasts only for a moment or a breath in the grand scheme. May we learn to prudently use the opportunities we have been given here on earth for the sake of a Kingdom that cannot be shaken and which will never be destroyed.
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