Friday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time

People often struggle with this parable for various reasons, but I think that word, prudent, is a big part of what’s going on here. To hear it in the context of Jesus’ time, we have to remember that the Jewish people were living under Roman oppression. There was a lot of agitation. People wanted to be rid of the Romans and return to governing themselves, without someone else looking over them and taking taxes from them.

In the midst of that agitation, many thought the only answer was war: to overthrow the Romans violently and get them out for good. More and more people were looking in that direction. And ultimately, decades after the crucifixion, some did attempt it. The result was a horrific war and the destruction of Jerusalem. You can read the accounts of that war. Many were killed or forced into exile.

I think, in part, what Jesus is saying is: you need to be prudent. You need to be wise in your dealings with others. You have your minds fixed on a solution to your problem, but that solution may ultimately give you far greater problems if you try it. This just isn’t the time.

He’s calling them to a certain creativity in their relationship with the world, to recognize that you can’t win every fight. But sometimes you can make the situation a little better.

This steward wasn’t going to be able to fix everything he had done. He cannot unsquander the property. But what he can do is make his master look good and generous. Oh, the money wasn’t squandered. He’s relieving debt. He’s helping out his people.

And so, by the time the master gets home, everyone indebted to him thinks he is generous, that this steward was actually doing good work. He wasn’t. No one’s claiming he was. But the master gets to look good, and that saves the situation. The steward can’t fix his problem, but he can make the situation a whole lot better and give himself more time.

And I think that’s what Christ is calling his disciples to do. We see certain problems, and we have solutions in mind. We think, if I could just do this, we would get everything we want. And maybe we would. But maybe trying it right now would bring far greater destruction and harm to everyone.

Sometimes the answer is being creative. It is being prudent. It is using our positions, relationships, and influence to move things in a slightly better direction, in the hope of bringing about greater change in the future.

Someday the steward will have to account for what he squandered. But now he has time to figure that out and perhaps truly fix the problem. By being prudent in his actions, he creates greater possibility for the future.

And we are called to do the same. When we’re faced with something, we can’t simply fixate on what we want. We have to engage with the Holy Spirit and seek that grace of wisdom, that grace of prudence, so that we can make the right judgment. We can make the small moves that begin to turn things in our favor and help bring about what we hope for.

But if we act rashly, if we push too hard, we too could bring about a catastrophe like the destruction of Jerusalem. We could lose far more than we hoped to gain. And that is not what we want.

So in every situation, rather than fixating on our own will and what we desire, we must turn to the Holy Spirit. We must allow him to guide us so that, little by little, we draw closer to our goal. And ultimately, that goal is eternal life.

Whether we gain anything in this world will not matter if we lose that great gift, which is infinite and forever.