Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. ² So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

³ “The manager said 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— ⁴ I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

⁵ “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

⁶ “‘Nine hundred gallons^[a] of olive oil,’ he replied.

“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

⁷ “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A thousand bushels^[b] of wheat,’ he replied.

“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

⁸ “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. ⁹ I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

¹⁰ “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much,and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.¹¹ So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? ¹² And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

¹³ “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

¹⁴ The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus.

Luke 16:1-14

Sometimes, the wrong title can mess up the story. Gatsby was not great. “The Never Ending Story” ended. No birds were harmed in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” And The Parable of the Unjust Steward? It’s a theological misfire. He’s accused, not convicted. He’s praised, not condemned. And Jesus ends with wisdom, not judgment. Sometimes, the wrong title can conceal the gospel behind a label. What the parable does do is challenge us to reevaluate the meaning of stewardship, which turns our modern understanding upside down. It echoes the frequent message in Luke to create more just relationships and an economy. Considering our Seasons of Creation theme, it can challenge us to work towards a more ecologically sustainable economy.

The first line of the parable says the steward was accused of mishandling the owner’s estate. Isn’t he innocent until proven guilty? However, sometimes accusations can lead to a rush to judgment. The original word in Luke was the verb form of diabolos. You have likely heard the word diablo, Spanish for “devil.” If you have ever tasted a Diablo sauce, you know it does more harm than good. In Greek, to be “diabolle” was to be slandered or falsely accused. It’s devilish and underhanded, and the man is fired. Slander was illegal in Greek and Hebrew cultures, and could be prosecuted. The 9^th Commandment says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Slander was treated as a form of assault. What is happening to the steward is unjust.

We might first wonder why the steward didn’t fight the falsehoods to save his job. But maybe the perpetrator was anonymous, or he felt the damage was already done. It is hard when you are the small fry fighting “the man.” So, the steward starts rewriting loans to gain an advantage with his boss’s creditors. Maybe that would help land a new job. You might think this would make the boss more furious at the loss of income, instead of praising him for being shrewd. Since managers often added their own fees on top of the bill, it is possible that the manager was going to customers and removing their fee from the bill to gain favor. It’s a smart move because, if he’s fired, he will never get his part of the payment, and now he has won some friends for lowering their bill. Plus, it takes nothing away from the boss.

The devil is in the details, so let’s look at the numbers. One creditor owes 900 gallons of olive oil, but it has been reduced to 450 gallons. Another owes 1000 bushels of wheat, which is cut to 800 bushels. Those are markdowns of 50% and 20%. Today, such markups are routine in retail, at least 100% markups clothes and shoes you buy every day. It’s how the world works.

We are just three chapters away from the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector, who meets Jesus and suddenly gives away half his wealth, and says that if he has defrauded anyone, he will pay back four times as much. These parables sound like anti-price-gauging stories. Just because you legally can make that much doesn’t mean you should. When Jesus says to use wealth to gain friends, I don’t think he is advising us to buy our friends. Remember the passage a few weeks ago, Jesus said to invite people experiencing poverty to dinner, who can’t repay you. Jesus is teaching that wealth has relational implications. Greed hurts your neighbor and weakens the community.

The parable invites us to imagine ourselves in the place of the manager, the steward, and to evaluate how we handle our business, money, household, and investments. It's really a stewardship parable.

The steward is referred to as an oikonomos in Greek. Notice it sounds like our word “economy.” Oikos means household. The word encompasses not just finances, but also farm management, land management, labor, managing the storage of goods, and ensuring everyone is fed. The oikonomos, the steward, had to keep all this functioning for the good of the whole. This work is done on behalf of the true owner. The household is entrusted to the steward.

The study of managing this type of household management is oikologia, where our word ecology originates. Ecologists study how living systems interact and sustain life. You could say they are exploring our interactions with our home, the Earth. In other words, economies must understand ecology. An economy cannot be solely about making the most money; it must also consider how all living things interact and coexist together. Just as greed and overconsumption hurt the community, failing to understand ecology, interrelatedness, and reciprocity of life diminishes all life.

If Jesus challenges us to rethink how we manage our household economy, Robin Wall Kimmerer offers a living parable of what that might look like in the natural world in a household that includes the forest. In “The Serviceberry,” she describes the interactions the tree has with its neighbors. In the Spring, white blossoms become the first source of food for hungry pollinators. Without this lovely nectar, many bee colonies would starve. In return, the bees spread the pollen around, allowing fruit to form on the tree branches. In June, bright, purplish clusters hang like grapes. Its complex flavor is reminiscent of a blueberry and cherry blend, with small edible seeds that lend it an almond-like taste. Birds, deer, bears, squirrels, and humans all come and enjoy this free abundance. It comes at just the right time to feed baby birds. In return, all the animals help propagate the trees by distributing seeds widely. Tasty fruit is nature's gift to entice us to spread its future.

When Fall comes, the Serviceberry turns colors, and the leaves fall to the ground. Leaves are a gift to beetles, fungi, and microbes, who make their home in the leaves and break them down. This creates soil nutrients that feed the roots of the tree during a long winter’s rest. Worms burrow down and aerate the soil, which allows oxygen and water to move freely around the roots. Then Spring returns, and the cycle starts all over again.

If someone cut down all the Serviceberry trees on their land, 40 species of caterpillars lose their homes, and the birds and the bees can’t do their thing. The loss of these trees creates nature’s version of stagflation. Less is produced, and what is needed costs everyone more. Kimmerer suggests that we should take cycles of mutual relatedness and reciprocity seriously in economics. If we accumulate without giving back, the cycle is interrupted. The more damage we inflict on the ecological cycles, the more we undermine the ultimate source of wealth: the generosity of Earth itself.

Much of what we need comes to us for free from nature. What was your oxygen bill last year? We may pay for water, land, and food, but it was extracted. We did not create soil, plants, iron, or oil. We farm, cultivate, mine, and drill, and the Earth does not charge us a dime. We have thrived as a species and built enormous wealth, but now we are in danger of being an invasive species. In nature, invasive species never entirely rule the world, because they die out when they outrun their resources. This cycle is why environmentalism isn’t about saving the planet; it’s really about saving ourselves. It is about reclaiming our true purpose of stewardship, of wise management of the resources of our household.

Sometimes it just takes one small act to shift the whole system. One steward, falsely accused, decides to take less, to cut his profit margin, to restore the relationship and release debt—and somehow, that tiny move echoes a much bigger truth. Jesus tells us that the ones who are faithful in the little things, the hidden things, the hard-to-measure things, are the ones he trusts with more. Because in God's economy, what matters most isn’t the bottom line—it’s the relationships restored, the trust rebuilt, the household made whole again. That’s the kind of stewardship Jesus is pointing toward: not transactional but transformational. An economy rooted in reciprocity, not extraction.

You and I may not run global systems or write economic policy. But we each manage a little corner of God’s household: a few choices, a few relationships, a few dollars. Small acts like recycling and reusing, bring your own bags, buying food from local farmers, and taking a little extra to the Community Fridge are things we can do. Jesus said being faithful with small things is where we start. It creates habits and momentum for bigger things. Maybe your next step is to learn more from lectures at the Botanical Gardens or Bigelow Labs, join our Earth Justice Team next week, or join Climate Action Now and write your legislators.



The invitation is simple: be faithful with your small part. Give what you can. Forgive when you're able. Take less when the system tempts you to take more because the good news is—just like the steward, just like the tree—your little shift can be the seed of salvation.