Soul Seeds: Confidence Games

Scholars tell us the Hebrew language has some 800 root words, and all the rest are combinations of those few. They also tell us the Hebrew language was very visual, and was used to evoke emotions with that imagery. We have a hard time regarding such an emotive language as normal. It is broadly considered a mark of intellectual shallowness if one converses or writes in heavily loaded language in English. At the same time, we note most modern news media do that, as well as politicians. The difference is, in Hebrew it wouldn’t be considered manipulation because no one pretends language is supposed to be used any other way.
It was then perfectly appropriate to communicate in dramatic terms in Hebrew and its cousins, the Semitic languages, just as it is today. In our parable for this lesson, The Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-13), Luke records a word in Greek which came directly from Aramaic: mammon. It’s almost certain Jesus used that very word as He taught this in His native tongue.
According to James Strong (Strong’s Concordance), it came from the idea of wealth. The word took on the connotation of a person; thus, it meant wealth personified as “great confidence.” This is perhaps a sort of joke on the old Hebrew word shalom. The original meaning of shalom was more than the commonly understood “peace,” but included the idea of prosperity, social order, security, a readiness for bad times. It’s almost a synonym for being blessed. To the Jewish mind in Jesus’ time, the most concrete proof of God’s favor was prosperity, security, and health. However, there was an awful lot of unspoken emphasis on the wealth part.
As time went on, the Jewish elite made much of accumulating wealth, and fought hard to keep from sharing it, contrary to the fundamental purpose God stated for blessing people with possessions. Given the natural tendency of humans to simplify things like that, there was the connotation of mammon meaning the god of greed. To “serve mammon” was to worship at the shrine of acquisition, of getting more stuff, particularly stuff others didn’t have. True servants of mammon would step on anyone to get more.
Since the average Jew was rather poor, with no hope of ever rising above his poverty, you can be sure a little class envy got involved in the mix. However, most of the comfortable middle-class got where they were by ignoring the poor, and the upper-class did so by frankly abusing the poor. A little animosity was generally justified. In fact, anyone well off who was also generous and decent was a remarkable departure from the norm, and became quite famous.
Most of Jesus’ listeners were on the poor side of the economy. They would have relished His use of the term mammon as a picture of wealth gotten by means not entirely righteous. In this parable, Jesus used that term exclusively to emphasize how wealth could not possibly be the primary proof of God’s favor. Wealth in that society was more likely a sign one was a sinner. It wasn’t so much a blessing as it was plunder.
In this context, Jesus spins a tale of a household manager. The truly wealthy and their lifestyle were well-known, because they often put on a show to ensure everyone knew, “I am blessed of God, and you are not.” The master of the house had too many other important things to do, and delegated the management of business affairs to a steward. This particular steward was ordered to stand for an audit, in preparation for losing his position. In the normal process of getting the accounts up to date, he made sure to cook the books. The beneficiaries of this embezzling were obviously going to be thankful. So long as he remained in his position, all the steward’s decisions were legally binding, and the master could not revoke them later.
Nothing in the man’s story is commendable. However, he earned the admiration of his master for being so clever. About to be tossed out with little more than the clothes on his back, he would surely have friends who could afford to host him and support him, perhaps give him a cushy job. The whole way through this story, Jesus is mocking the property-conscious Jewish elite. Notice He did not say the Kingdom of God was like this. The point was this steward knew what mammon was for: making friends. He owned precious little of it; his job was simply to handle it.
The wealthy and powerful Jews were fools for thinking wealth was really theirs. God owned everything, and was about to call them all to account for how they handled everything He had provided. If they had realized the nature of things, they would have known property is just a tool, a means, and not an end in itself. They would then be using property wisely, to build relationships with people, leading them to an understanding of God, to redemption. The human heart is the real arena, the place where God does His real work. They should have been seeking ways to make life better for people, carefully investing in Eternity. Then, when the party’s over, they would be welcomed into Paradise by all those they had blessed.
Rabbis often mentioned the afterlife, and had many terms for it, but treated the concept as a myth. The orthodoxy was not in actually believing in it enough to change your life, but in paying lip service to it. For them, it was a matter of pushing God’s buttons by doing all the correct things — sharply considered from every angle — so God would be compelled by His Covenant Law to reward them with shalom. Theirs was not a prosperity and security of the soul. Their version of Eternity was merely an endless time, instead of outside the limits of time.
If a thieving scoundrel, a man admittedly dishonest and sinful, knew best what to do when given control of mammon, then in that sense he serves as a better example than the Jewish elite, who were so sure they were the cream of God’s crop. Thus, Jesus sets him forth as a model of proper attitude toward wealth.
The Lord ends by stating several epigrams: “He who is faithful in what is least” — meaning mere material wealth — “is faithful also in much” — the things of the Spirit. “Therefore, if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?”
And to ensure there was no misunderstanding about whether the steward did right or wrong, “And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?” It was common to reward honest and productive stewards with a bonus from the wealth saved or created in larger households, but only when the master was sure there would be no conflict of interest, in which the steward would spend too much time building his own personal wealth on the master’s time.
And finally, this brings us to the context for the comment “No servant can serve two masters.” If God is our Master, then we owe it to Him to invest full time and attention in building His Kingdom. The wealth of His Kingdom is in the hearts which have been changed. If you are too busy trying to gather up all the trappings of service, and putting all your effort into the means, you will neglect the reason for those things. It would be like serving another god, like a steward secretly taking bribes from his master’s competitor.
Only, our Master knows all.