I attended mass this morning (September 21st) at my local catholic church. It had been a while since I attended. The two leading priests were American and Nigerian (men). The Homily (as read and explained by the American) was about that of the parable of the Dishonest manager from Luke 16:1. The story is an interesting one because it’s not immediately obvious what the moral of the story was. It sits in contrast to stories such as the time Jesus fed crowds of people with the fish and the loaves of bread. 

I will enclose the full story below for people who don’t know it:

“Jesus told his disciples:

A rich man had a manager who was accused of wasting his possessions. So the master called him in and said, “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.”

The manager thought to himself, “What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg. I know what I’ll do, so that when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.”

So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. To the first he asked, “How much do you owe my master?”
“Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,” he replied.
The manager told him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.”

Then he asked the second, “And how much do you owe?”
“A thousand bushels of wheat,” he replied.
He told him, “Take your bill and make it eight hundred.”

The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.

Jesus added: “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

And he concluded with lessons:

• Whoever can be trusted with little can also be trusted with much.
  
• If you have not been trustworthy with worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?
  
• No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

The story itself’s meaning is even a bit obscure. The manager calls in the debtors of the Master and pays them partially thinking that when he loses his job he will at least be on good terms with the debtors. This was explained to us by the American priest. The puzzling bit is that the manager is clearly acting selfishly and in his own interest by paying the debtors in this way. Puzzling as well is that ‘the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of light.’ It seems in contradiction to what we were told previously. That Heaven is a place where we can enter if we act morally in our lives on Earth. And that is the whole point of our mortal lives (similar to Buddhism’s karma system). However this line is distinguishing between the two groups (people on Earth and the people in Heaven) as being two separate distinct groups with key differences. It’s almost like segregation of two groups as opposed to an idea that anyone can follow and convert to.

Such lines bring to mind that old Protestant saying “God helps those who help themselves.”  I checked just now and found that saying is actually not in the bible.

Unfortunately I feel the priest could have done a better job of simplifying and explaining the meaning of the story today.

After putting the story into Chatgpt and putting in a few queries it returned with:

“The dishonest manager was clever in securing his worldly future, but Jesus contrasts that with what Christians should do—be just as intentional about securing their eternal life.”

So Chatgpt is saying the story is used as a sort of warning about what not to do.

Of course the final line is a well known Christian theme. Give your money to the poor and you will be rewarded in heaven. Do not chase material wealth. A theme of the bible is Jesus’s feeding and generosity to the poor of the land. A commendable idea of course (I’m sure nobody disagrees!).

I called my father and discussed this parable with him in the afternoon and we both compared it to that of the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14). Both times the servant/agent is entrusted with money of the master, with the master being an obvious metaphor for God.

As I left the church I shook hands with the Nigerian priest however I didn’t get a chance to shake hands with the American priest. I then headed home briskly to get my work stuff for my shift.