People of this world, whose whole existence is here below, have a very different perspective on things compared to those who walk in the Spirit. In the previous lesson, Jesus ends His parable by showing the Jewish leaders were all about petty bean-counting. What can such people expect from their dealings in a world where everyone counts beans? Jesus tells the parable of the Unjust Steward to demonstrate.
In ancient times, wealthy men would appoint someone to manage the details of their household while they gave themselves to social and political pursuits. These managers would have something like a power of attorney, and their business decisions were binding on the owner. Since the owner had to present the manager to the court to vest him, it required a similar legal proceeding to divest him. It should surprise no one in a bean-counter world some of these managers would be conniving scoundrels. When the owner suspected fraud, he required the manager to bring all his accounting materials for an audit. This often consisted largely of promissory notes from renters who farmed the owner's property. Each renter would write a promise in his own hand, which the manager would countersign, and it became a legally binding contract.
This particular scoundrel knew he had been caught mismanaging his master's assets. Having a bean counter's mindset, he made a deal with the renters to rewrite the contracts so they would offer him a kickback, probably in the form of skimming off a portion of their reduced rent-in-kind. He would still be in business, but for himself. Because his master was also a bean counter, he noted with some grudging approval the rascal's shrewd dealings. Neither of these men were spiritually minded, so that's just the way things are in their world.
Jesus' audience would have had a good laugh at this story. He noted the people whose whole existence is in this world are much more likely to pull this stunt than spiritual folk. The Sons of Light are stuck in the middle of this bean counter's world, and aren't paying nearly so much attention to shrewd dealing. Their purpose is different, and Kingdom wisdom calls for using the beans of the world, not as an end in itself, but as a mere tool. Wealth can't buy you friends, but you can use it righteously to build relationships with your fellow Kingdom servants. When you get to Heaven, it is they you will meet there, while the world's wealth will perish. Compare that to the shrewd manager, who might gain a reception in the homes of the renters, but they would watch him like a hawk, knowing what sort of man he was.
Faithfulness in the Kingdom is a matter of starting where you are. A spirit which can cheerfully serve faithfully in the small things will find trust for greater things. Faith and trust are more than a two-way street, but a living link to the Lord. He builds trust in us and for us, as we cooperate by holding tightly to that faith and trust. The bean counters can't be faithful even with beans, so what hope have they for eternal things? They worship Mammon, a word originally meaning "trusted things" -- stuff in this world which bean counters treasure and trust. God seeks those who trust Him personally.
It was a common teaching among Pharisees the true mark of God's favor was material wealth. Naturally, they scoffed at Jesus' teaching, rejecting His assertion they didn't serve the Lord. They had a long list of memorized speeches about how this was all according to the Law of Moses. The logic was impeccable, but empty. God knew their hearts, which is what really mattered to Him, a factor of humanity they casually ignored. They had their chance. From Moses until John the Baptist came along, it was their opportunity to find the path to the truth, to absorb the higher meanings of the Law and see it pointing to the spiritual side of things. Not only did they miss it, they got farther and farther away. Their time was past. Now the Son has come, and He is teaching the Way of the Kingdom of God. All the people they had rejected as unworthy were crowding around Jesus, trying to find out how to become a part of this spiritual Kingdom.
The failure of the Jewish leaders was not because of the Law failing. Indeed, they were zealous in nit-picking over punctuation and proper printing of the text of the Law. If anyone should understand the permanence of the Law, it was they. Yet by their relentless pursuit of creature comfort, they had twisted the Law. They treated their wives as mere property. On the most frivolous excuse, they would divorce their wives, not according to the stern restrictions of Moses. He had written she must be found unfaithful. No other provision was made. The Jewish leaders had built themselves a huge pile of exceptions. Jesus nailed it down: Serial monogamy was adultery.
Next, Jesus struck at the very root of Pharisaical falsehood. He told the story as if it were a very real historical case. The one man was fabulously wealthy. By Jewish standards, he was fabulously favored by God. Jesus names the poor man, Lazarus, who also suffered from a repulsive skin condition. In a world where dogs were not pets, but always dangerous and filthy, this man could not keep them from showing the only kindness he received -- the nasty creatures licked his wounds clean. If there could possibly be any picture of man cursed by God, in the Jews' world this was it. The image of luxury is a man so rich he used the flat disks of bread as a napkin, wiping his hands on them and tossing them out. The servants would then feed these torn pieces of bread to beggars, like Lazarus, hanging around in the street outside the outer gate of the rich man's palatial home. The Pharisees would nod approvingly at the proper etiquette of those blessed of God.
So what happened when they died? The accursed poor man, of all things, was escorted to Paradise! He was pictured as dining in luxury as a guest of Abraham, a guest of honor. Abraham was the symbol the Jews clung to: "We are children of Abraham." Worse, the man "favored by God" went to Hell. In his torment, he recognized from afar the nasty beggar he graciously tolerated hanging around his gate. Surely he had earned some small mercy in exchange? The gulf between the spiritual and the worldly was wide in this world, but truly massive and fixed in Eternity. There would be no crossing over, because it was too late.
Well, perhaps Lazarus, blessed as he was, could be sent back to warn the rich man's brothers? No. Abraham noted the Law and Prophets were the starting point, and they had not yet honored that. Would not someone they despised coming back from the dead guarantee they could hear the warning? If they allowed material wealth to blind them to the conditions of their hearts, they had already rejected God's path for them. Their eternal destiny was already fixed.
It would be hard for Jesus to offer a rebuke more blunt than that. For all their shrewdness, the Jewish leaders were utter fools, condemned before God and on the way to Hell. We can be sure, just as the rich man and his brothers, nothing could convince them. When Jesus raised the real Lazarus, a fairly wealthy man, the Jewish leaders simply planned how to kill him again. When Jesus Himself later rose from the dead, they bribed officials to say it was a lie. The truth of all these things was easily discernible when one embraced the Law, not as counting beans, but as the breath of eternity.
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By Ed Hurst
20 September 2008
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