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“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” (Luke 16:8) Really, Jesus? This is the advice you give us in this parable? Are we to commend those who are dishonest? The world does this all the time, but isn’t that wrong? Why would Jesus hold up the cheater as an example?
As Doyt said a couple of weeks ago when preaching on the gospel about hating our family members: “Here at Epiphany, we aren’t afraid to talk about hard things.” And so, once again, we’re going to talk about some hard things today: honesty, shrewdness, God’s grace, and money. Buckle up…
Let’s start with shrewdness. When you think of someone who is shrewd, what comes to mind? Someone who is resourceful, clever, quick to adapt…
Jesus says in this parable: “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” (Luke 16:8) The Greek word translated “shrewd” is phronimos. It also means wise, prudent, thoughtful, strategically savvy. It’s not “sneaky” in a negative sense. It’s clear-eyed, practical wisdom.
And the “children of light” are disciples of Jesus. That’s us.
This same word appears in Matthew 25, in the parable of the wise bridesmaids. The “wise” bridesmaids are called phronimos that same Greek word, because they were prepared with extra oil, while the foolish were left outside. There, it’s translated as wise. Here, it’s shrewd. The word carries both meanings.
So the point Jesus makes is this: if even a dishonest manager can be cunningly creative with the resources of his world, how much more should disciples be wise, shrewd, and savvy for the Kingdom of God?
When I think about shrewdness, I think about my dad. He is a lawyer, first a county prosecutor and later a defense attorney. He often reminded me: “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.” Not the best lesson for a teenager, maybe, but it stuck. I saw my dad navigate this as he worked for both sides of the criminal justice system. But at the heart of his work, was always the desire to do what was ethical and to help people going through a very difficult time. And sometimes, that meant bending the rules, or finding a creative angle to argue in court. Because sometimes rules need to be bent when they’re unjust, unethical, or stacked against the vulnerable. Sometimes you have to be shrewd to stand up against systemic wrongs.
We also have holy breaking of rules in scripture. On more than a few occasions, Jesus breaks the rules of the Sabbath when he heals someone. In Luke 4, Jesus heals a man with an unclean spirit. In Luke 6, Jesus heals a man with a withered hand. And in Luke 14, he heals a man with dropsy. All on the Sabbath. These are only a few examples.
Jesus does this despite the Pharisees’ threats and admonitions not to violate the Sabbath. But why did he persist? He healed these people on the Sabbath because he was being shrewd in the service of mercy.
Our healthcare system is another prime example. How many times has a doctor told you a treatment or medication probably won’t be covered by insurance? But then they add, “If I code it this way, it should get approved.” Technically bending the rules, yes, but in the service of compassion. That kind of shrewdness helps people survive in a tilted world.
That’s what happens in this parable. The dishonest manager uses quick thinking and resourcefulness, not honesty, to create space for mercy.
A few months ago, I read about a school district in Kansas City drowning in student lunch debt, almost a quarter of a million dollars. Families couldn’t pay. Kids were humiliated and sometimes went hungry.
Instead of letting the debt spiral, the district nutrition team got creative. They discovered a federal program, called the Community Eligibility Provision, that allowed schools in high-poverty areas to feed every student for free, no forms, no stigma. They worked the system, not for themselves, but so every child could eat with dignity.
Was it bending the rules? Maybe. But it was also shrewdness in the service of mercy. Clever action that opened a door to grace.
And that’s exactly the paradox Jesus points to: even in a crooked system, shrewdness can become a channel for surprising grace.
On the surface, it seems like Jesus is commending dishonesty. But he isn’t. He’s commending practical wisdom, the ability to read the situation and act decisively.
This parable asks us: if people are savvy for themselves, how much more should disciples be savvy for God’s Kingdom? Jesus calls us not to be gullible, but “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
Another word to notice here is “dishonest,” adikia in Greek. It doesn’t just mean dishonest. It means unrighteous, unjust, out of alignment with God’s justice. In verse 9, Jesus calls wealth itself mammon of adikia, worldly wealth, compromised by the systems it comes from. Jesus is saying that worldly wealth is neither all good nor all bad. It is a tool in this world that can be used for good. It can be used to further God’s Kingdom. The question isn’t whether the money is clean; it isn’t. The question is: how do we use wealth shrewdly for mercy?
Brother Curtis Almquist, an Episcopal monk, writes this: “God is the source and we are the temporary custodians of life’s many treasures… we have a terminal relationship with every thing in this life. Identifying the treasures in our own life invites our humility, not our pomposity.”
That’s the shift Jesus invites here: to see our lives, our resources, even our cleverness, as entrusted to us for a time, to be used in service of God’s mercy and grace.
The truth is, most of us have been given an abundance of blessings. Some are material: money, homes, education, work. Others are relational: friends, mentors, children, partners, chosen family. And still others are spiritual: faith, prayer, wisdom, love.
The question is not if we have treasures, but how we will leverage them. Will we clutch them tightly, pretending they belong to us? Or will we hold them loosely, trusting that God can do more with our abundance than we ever could on our own?
Think of the parable again: the manager used what was in his hands, even compromised resources, to create mercy. What might it look like for us to do the same? To use our blessings strategically for God’s Kingdom?
So maybe that’s the heart of it. We live in a world where money is messy, systems are crooked, and fairness is rarely what it claims to be. But Jesus doesn’t ask us to be naïve. He calls us to be wise. To be resourceful. To be courageous. To take what we’ve been given, our wealth, our influence, our imagination, our abundance, and turn it toward mercy.
This parable reminds us that God works through unlikely people and compromised systems, using even dishonest wealth and broken rules to open doors to grace. If God can do that with unrighteous mammon, imagine what God can do with us.
That is the wisdom Jesus calls shrewd for the Kingdom.