Estate Planning

Levi was puzzled. The last time Jesus told a story about a rich man whose steward was mismanaging the estate while the owner was away, the owner kicked the guy out and brought in a new men. He understood that. It was like God was the rich man and the Pharisees and the priests were the stewards, and Jesus’ followers were the new staff who were going to do everything right, and the Pharisees would be sorry. But here Jesus is talking as if God was going to let him get away with it! He’s talking as if there was some kind of an out for the bad guy. He knew he wasn’t the brightest lamp in the room, but he knew numbers. After all, he’d spent his whole life - until Jesus called him, that is - juggling books for the Romans, and he knew when things just didn’t add up. Finally he couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Jesus, I don’t understand,” he said hesitantly. “Why did the owner give the manager any warning? Why didn’t he come in with a team of accountants and catch this joker red-handed? As it is, he cheated even more! And then he compliments the guy!”

Peter was glad someone else had asked. He was usually the first one, and he was kind of tired of being the singled out for being thick-headed. “That’s right, Jesus,” he chimed in. “It’s very confusing. That manager bilked his boss out of 50 extra jugs of olive oil and 20 containers of wheat. You can’t mean we should pocket a bit of the take for a rainy day, I mean, you’re always telling us not to worry about tomorrow! But it sounds to me like you’re telling us to hedge our bets, you know, have a second string to our bow in case the first plan doesn’t turn out right.”

“Don’t be dense, Peter!” said Andrew, giving him a brotherly thump on the arm. “He just told us yesterday that anyone “who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is [not] fit for the kingdom of God.” [Lk 9:62] If we try to keep a foot on two boats we’ll wind up getting dunked!”

“Well, if you’re so smart, you tell us what it means!” Thomas chimed in.

“Boys, boys,” said Jesus. “I want you to think, not squabble.”

“I’m trying to,” said Levi, “But it doesn’t make any sense to me at all. It may be smart, what he did, but it’s not good. And you keep telling us that it’s more important to be good than to be clever. Well, not in so many words, but you know what I mean.”

“Go back to the beginning,” said Jesus. “What’s the first thing that happens?”

Levi answered him, “The owner hears that the manager is wasting his property.”

“Right,” said Jesus. “Go on.”

Thomas said, “Are we supposed to take that personally? I mean, is this a message for all of us sinners or just the ones with power, the ones God put in charge who’ve blown it - like King Herod or the other rich Jews who cozy up to the Romans?”

“At this point you in the story you can say it applies to everyone,” he answered. “OK, what happens next?”

Levi said slowly, “He’s supposed to account for what he’s done. I mean, he actually is going to have to sit there and listen to the boss point out every underhanded or incompetent deal he ever made. He won’t be able to make excuses or explain anything away.

“That sounds like judgment day to me!” said Peter with a shiver.

“It can’t be,” said Levi, still thinking. “When judgment day comes there won’t be any time to fix things. No, it’s got to be something else.” He glanced up at Jesus, who nodded encouragingly at him. “He knows something bad is coming. He knows he can’t escape it, his life on easy street is over... Oh! I’ve got it! It’s not just life on easy street! It’s life in general! Are you telling us to be prepared for death?”

“Very good, Levi,” said Jesus.

“Wait a minute,” said Peter. “We’re all going to die, whether we’ve been honest or dishonest. So what’s the big deal about how he’s been a good manager or not? And what does it have to do with the bad guys being smarter than the good guys?”

“It’s about how he feels,” said Andrew, getting into the spirit of things. “If he’d been good at his job, he wouldn’t have anything to worry about, he wouldn’t have gone scurrying around like a squirrel collecting nuts for the winter, and there wouldn’t have been a story. He had to be dishonest to put him in the right frame of mind.”