"The Unjust Steward"

"The Unjust Steward"

Richard W. Church

"And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." (St. Luke 16: 8)

"The children of this world:" that is, the people who plainly and entirely live for this world alone and do not care, or profess to care, for anything beyond it. "The children of light:" that is, those whom God's grace and calling has enlightened and drawn to the light of goodness and truth, whose hearts and consciences feel and acknowledge what is right and lovely and of good report, and who in various measures try to follow it--wish to be on the right side and in God's favor, [and] hope in the end to attain by His mercy to the light of His countenance and the blessedness of His kingdom. And the lesson which our Lord means to teach by the remarkable story of the unjust steward (the dishonest servant who did his evil work thoroughly, and, having begun by cheating his master and not being willing to repent and do better, did not stop half-way but carried out his cheating to the last and made the most of it as a provision against the evil day)--the lesson, for the sake of which our Lord is not afraid to represent the master as praising the unjust steward because he had done wisely, is this:

that the men of this world, in the sense which they show and in the thoroughness and consistency with which they live for the world, outstrip and put to shame the men with consciences.

That was the general sight when our Lord was among us. It was never different before He came and has never been different since. The world is served more perfectly, more wisely, more successfully than God [is served]. Men think, and look forward, and take trouble, and even suffer for the world in a way in which they will not think and act and suffer for the sake of the world to come. The children of this world do their work with a whole heart; the children of light do theirs with only half a heart.

"In their generation." With a view to the object for which they choose to live and work, "the children of this world are wiser than the children of light." They are wiser, more prudent and sensible in what they do because they are more in earnest in what they want, and use the proper means to gain it. If the unjust steward wants still to enjoy himself and to have friends to receive him into their houses, he knows that he must think beforehand of the most likely way to gain his end; and when he has thought of the means, he must use them. He knows that he will never reach what he wants by dreaming about it, or wishing it, or talking about it, or beginning and then drawing back. Yet this is the way in which "the children of light" seem to think that they may gain their ends, may fulfill the will of God and please Him in their lives.

There are two points worth noticing in that wisdom of the unjust steward for which his master commended him. One is, that the unjust steward had the sense to look forward. The evil day, he knew, must come--the day when, unless he had something wherewith to meet it, things would go hardly with him. He knew it was no good shutting his eyes and wishing and hoping that it would not come. He did not try weakly and foolishly to escape from what cannot be escaped from. But he knew that he had certain means of preparing for it. He had time still; he had that knowledge of the business of his master's debtors and their affairs that gave him the opportunity of doing something for himself before the evil day came. We are not talking, as the parable does not talk, of the right and wrong of what he did. The point is, that there were certain things to be done and he did them.

In the next place, he went through with what he had begun. Wicked and unscrupulous at first, he was wicked and unscrupulous to the end. A less bad man might have seen his fault and repented of it, and taken the consequences--ruin and beggary--as the just punishment of it. A weaker man would have been frightened, and faltered, and hesitated, and have been afraid to go on in the bold bad path he had entered on. But the unjust steward saw that to save himself at all he must act boldly. Nothing could be gained by being a coward and shrinking from using the opportunity which lay open to him. He had had no scruples about cheating his master before, and he had no difficulty about it now. He was consistent. He would not lose the fruit of his past life by giving way to discouragement or shrinking from the courses which he had followed.

So does wickedness. In the resolute earnestness with which it follows its bad ends, in the trouble it takes about them, in the risks that it is willing to venture for them, in the forethought and patience with which it compasses them, [and] in the thorough and complete mind with which it sticks to them, it rebukes and shames the coldness, the half-heartedness, the cowardice with which most of us serve our Master and follow religion and goodness.

What goes on in the world, what succeeds in the world is a rebuke and condemnation to the "children of light." 

Take the two points which I mentioned in the case of the unjust steward--his looking forward to the day of trial and difficulty, and his steady, unflinching, thorough carrying out of the unscrupulous manner of life which he had chosen. Compare that with the way in which we so often act as regards the claims of God and the next world, as regards our duty and the principles which we profess. As to looking forward, how little does that come into the common ordering of our lives. We know that we have to be prepared. It is the very thing for which we believe that we are on earth. We have to be prepared for trials and temptations which may meet us--sickness, pain, losses; the breaking up of all that makes life happy. We have to be prepared for occasions which may try our principles, whether they are sound or only fair on the outside; our honesty, our tempers, our unselfishness. We have to be prepared for the judgment-seat of God.

Are such things to be met without preparation? Can we really expect that without looking forward, without taking any trouble to be ready when they come, they will cause us no difficulty, they will all come straight of themselves? Can we really think that these things can be safely left to take their chance, to find us as they may? Can we really think that it is safe to let our tempers, our thoughts, our tongues run riot now, and that in the day of temptation we shall be able to keep them in order without difficulty? What trouble do we commonly take by examining ourselves, by finding out what is amiss in us, by passing sentence in our own consciences, on our own evil and perverse ways, to condemn beforehand what God must condemn, to meet His judgment with that deep sense of all that has to be pardoned in us?

And so with the other point. We are not thorough. We have only half a heart in our wish to do right. Else why is it that when we know the sins and temptations which beset us we take so little trouble to escape from them and conquer them? Our conscience makes us see and wish for what is right. We follow it to a certain point. We follow it while it gives us no trouble. Nay, we follow it up to a certain point in spite of difficulties. We follow and keep to it for a certain time, in spite of attempts to lead us wrong. And then, just when we have half gained our victory we give way, we let ourselves be shaken, we slip back again into the mire from which our steps were all but delivered; and all our endeavors, all our progress, all our good resolutions are wasted and thrown away.

The unjust steward ended as he began. He began by cheating and carried his bad ways through. And so he gained what he cheated for--an idle living. We begin well and spoil it all by stopping short, by slackness, by lack of faith, by lack of serious belief that we have to live and work in earnest for God and in the ways of goodness, as much as people work in earnest for the world and its rewards. He went through and faltered not. We do things by halves.

Remember, our Master has warned us. Do not let us think that [just] because we may hope that by His mercy we have been made "children of light" we are freed from that care and trouble which we all see to be so necessary in the world. The world and all that goes on in it--its great movements, its wonderful schemes, its astonishing successes, its endless labors--all witness against us, that with such heavenly and lasting hopes we are so far below those who serve only the world in earnestness and seriousness and consistency.

Village Sermons (condensed)