Be Cunning as Serpents and Innocent as Doves

Upon first reading of today's Gospel from Luke 16:1-8 where he writes of the parable of the dishonest steward, I come away with the conclusion that it pays to steal. It is Jesus himself who throws me for a loop when toward the end of the parable makes the following statement, “An his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly:”

Uh? Isn't there a commandment that says thou shalt not steal? Well how can Jesus commend one for stealing? Let's substitute, Bernie Madoff, a modern day dishonest manager, in the place of the steward in Luke's gospel. Would anyone ever commend him for what he did? I think that if some of the people he bilked millions from ever got near him they would have killed him.

I had to go back and read this Gospel again asking what is Jesus really telling us? I always thought that he loved the sinner and hated the sin and not the other way around. Let's look at what happened. In his total lack of ethics the steward knew exactly what he was doing The criteria of his action are not honesty and justice, nor was he taking care of the master on whom he depended for his survival, but it is his own interest. He finds himself boxed in a corner and is afraid that he will have no one to turn to. He wants to have the guarantee that there will be someone who will employ him in the future.

He knew how to calculate things well and finds a way out, when unexpectedly he finds himself without a job. He had reached a point of survival mode and when someone hits that point they'll do whatever they can to save their bacon.

Jesus points out the dishonest steward's prudence albeit if for the wrong reason to show “the children of light” on what can be done for the right reason “In this way the children of this world know how to be experts in their own things, and in the same way, the children of light should learn from them to be experts in the solution to their problems, using the criteria of the Kingdom and not the criteria of this world.”

In other words He is saying, “Be cunning as serpents and innocent as doves” (Mt 10, 16).