Tucked away after after the parable of the shrewd manager, which can be a hard parable to really rap my head around, there is a proverbial statement in Luke 16.10 that Jesus gives to his disciples that may be seen as a gloss on the parable, which I translate as: “The faithful person in insignificant things are also faithful in many things; the unrighteous person in insignificant things are also unrighteous in many things.” What is at the heart of the saying and how can it elucidate our understanding of Jesus’ parable?
I think it is helpful to consider how this parable and saying may be seen as an implicit criticism towards the Pharisees, who are explicitly called lovers in money in Luke 16.14 and scoff as Jesus’ parable. A principle concern in the parable and the explanation that follows is wealth. In Luke’s parallel to the Sermon on the Mount in Luke 6.20ff, an abbreviated version of the beatitudes is contrasted with a series of woes, which starts off with a woe to the rich. As the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew is clearly directed towards the Pharisees and scribes, we can consider the woes of Luke 6.24-26 are direct towards them. Verse 26 is the clearest parallel to Jesus’ excoriation of public piety in Matthew 6. So, when we get the woe regarding the rich in verse 24, we can hear this also being a veiled barb against the Pharisees. We see a similar criticism of the traditions of the Pharisees that are used to exempt themselves from providing material support to their parents based upon the concept of “Corban” as something dedicated to God. In similar manner, we may consider the parable of the Shrewd Manager to be a commentary on the Pharisees.
What is at stake in this criticism? The connection may begin to be made by the cognate terms ἀδικία and ἄδικος. In the parable, the manager is called unrighteous (ἀδικία). However, later Jesus calls wealth unrighteous (ἄδικος) in v. 11. I want to put forward the premise that the the dishonest manager is an example of a person moving towards faithfulness, although by no means arriving, because he is ‘unrighteous’ about ‘unrighteous’ wealth, making the manager moving away from the unrighteousness power that wealth can have on people.1
The “unrighteousness” of the manager is connected to how he uses the master’s wealth to makes friends with others, rather than treating wealth as the highest good for himself. At the beginning of the parable, he was squandering the property at the beginning, presumably for his own benefit. However, with a word of accusation and impending judgment, the manager changes course to use his position and control of wealth to benefit other people, even if it is for his own benefit. Because of a word of judgment, the manager begins the transition from a self-serving usage of wealth to use it to benefit others.
What is happening here? The focus of the manager is moving away from wealth, which had a place of high importance and Jesus highlights this in the warning against worship wealth in 16.16, to focusing on debtors, who as group would have be considered more socially insignificant due to their indebted status. The manager begins to be concerned about the the ‘”insignificant” rather than the significance of wealth. This is where the saying of Luke 16.10 can make sense as a gloss of the parable: the shrewd manager is the example of a person whose priorities transition to those things that are consider insignificant. Then, following the logic of “how much more so,” if this shift of priorities determines how the manager acts shrewdly, how much more important is it for the “righteous” children of light to also act shrewdly with wealth for the right priorities, even in ways that are not self-serving.
The point of this parable and the saying, then, is to focus on what we today might call priorities and purposes. What are those things that you are most diligent to be faithful in? Is it in the things that our significant social network tells us are most important, such as wealth? Or, does one prioritize in the things that are overlooked, deemed insignificant, trifling, and of little immediate benefit? There is a real difference between these two type of people. Those who are faithful in insignificant things are the type of people’s whose hearts are guided by internal convictions, when there isn’t a lot of “pay off” for how they deal with the insignificant things.
Meanwhile, the Pharisees in Jesus time had become externally motivated by those things that had great societal importance, including wealth, but also visual acts of piety. Their motivations are directed towards the actions that would make them “justified” in the sight of others (Luke 16.15).2 What happens when people are motivated only be external, social considerations and not internally motivated? They will use those very things for their own benefit and not for the socially ascribed purposes. This is the like of the manager who squanders the wealth before the risk of impending judgment comes against them.
In the words of Luke 16.10, Jesus gives us a vision for the life of people lived before God: be faithful in the insignificant things. Be faithful in those things that not everyone considers most important and central. It is those people who are faithful in the wide-span of life in various aspects.
Perhaps as a very distant echo is the righteous person of Psalm 1 who meditates on God’s instructions, who loves and is continuously focused on God’s instruction, is the one who prospers in all they do, much as Jesus says those faithful in a little are faithful in many things. A life of continuous meditation and reflection on God’s instruction leads us to block our attention from obsessing on all the things that the world tells us are most important and lets what God says is important come to our mind, forming our sense of perception and understanding of the world so that we will be faithful to God in the things that the world considers insignificant. Jesus’ proverbial saying is describing the type of people that Psalm 1 also describes, albeit describing such a person from a different perspective determined by the different purposes.
This person may alternatively be described as the person who loves the Lord our God with all their heart as mentioned in Deuteronomy 6.5. The heart (לְבָבְ) being the place where people’s intentions and purposes are consider to come from, the Shema calls people to dedicate the wide-ranging purposes of their lives towards the love of God. This is supported by the premise that God’s words were to be before the people at various times and at various places to guide their purposes and conduct in all manners.
However, this understanding contrasts with the often emotive interpretation we give to the ‘heart’ today, thinking it refers to the excess of emotional and affective life. However, as we find the excess of emotions hard to muster unless their is a strong incentive to provoke the heart, the life of excessive emotionality often leaves us susceptible to valuing the things that the world socially validates us for, leaving us overlooking the smaller and insignificant things that do not naturally draw our emotional exuberance and passions.
This is not to commend a Stoic life as if it is inherently more righteous than the emotional life; far from it as the lack of emotion has it own problems in how we treat and regard others. However, the point is that a person who seeks to be faithful even when they are not driven simply by the throes of strong emotion, but even in the things deemed insignificant, they are the type of people who love the Lord with all their heart.
So how do we get there to place where we are faithful in the insignificant things? As Psalm 1 intimates, through a continuous meditation that keeps people away from the influence of the unrighteous. However, in light of the coming of the Son of God, we begin to continuous reflect and seek to put into practice Jesus’ commandments, which as focused on love naturally calls us to our specific attitudes and not to simply do the things that society considers important.
So, are you seeking to be faithful in the insignificant things? To be clear, it isn’t a matter of being perfect, but it is a matter of your own heart and motivation to be faithful in those things that others do not consider important.
- The “double negative” here does not make the manager an example of righteous character, but only that the unrighteousness manager is better off than if he was “righteous” with unrighteousness wealth.
- To be clear, there is a difference between wanting a positive reputation in the eyes of others and acting only based upon receiving a positive reputation. The difference is whether one is faithful even when one does not benefit or if one is only motivated to be faithful when it is deemed important in the eyes of others.