Ryan P.

Tinetti
EN-105
Major project

Friends with Mammon:

An Exegetical Study of Luke 16v1-9

PART 1: TEXT AND TRANSLATION

1 He also1 began saying to the disciples, “A certain man was rich who had a manager,
and this one was accused to him as squandering his possessions.2 2 And calling him, he
said to him, ‘What is this I am hearing about you? Surrender the account3 of your
management, for you are not able to be manager anymore.’ 3 And the manager said to
himself, ‘What will I do, since my master is taking away the management from me? I am
not strong enough to dig; I am ashamed to beg. 4 Aha! I know4 what I’ll do so that when I
am removed from managing they will receive me5 into their homes!’ 5 So after
summoning each one of his master’s debtors, he began saying to the first, ‘How much do
you owe my master?’ 6 And the first debtor said6, ‘One hundred barrels7 of olive oil.’ And
he said to him, ‘Take what you owe8 and quickly sit down9 and write, Fifty.’ 7 Then to
another he said, ‘And you—how much do you owe?’ The man said, ‘A thousand bushels10
of wheat.’ He says11 to him, ‘Take what you owe and write, Eight hundred.’ 8 And the

1
Martin Scharlemann, Proclaiming the Parables (St. Louis: CPH, 1963), 83, notes, “de; kai; is a
favorite transition device of St. Luke…[It] shows that the parable connects to the previous
chapter.”
2
From uJpa;rcw, this form is often used as a substantive, denoting one’s property (e.g., Luke 11v21,
12v33, 14v33; see BDAG, 1029).
3
Kenneth Bailey, Poet and Peasant (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 97, points out that the
definite article with lo;gon precludes the translation “an account.”
4
e[gnwn is an aorist for present action (aka “dramatic aorist”); see Stanley E. Porter, Idioms of the
Greek New Testament (Sheffield: SAP, 1999), 36.
5
The indefinite 3rd person plural verb de;xwntai is a “Semitic substitute for the passive voice”
(Joseph Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke, X-XXIV [AB 28A; New York: Doubleday, 1985],
1100). Cf. v9.
6
Since the Greek oJ de; signals a change of speaker, for the sake of clarity I have made explicit the
speaker.
7
Louw & Nida (Johannes Louw and Eugene Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament
Based on Semantic Domains [2 vols.; New York: UBS, 1988-89], §81.20), noting the potential
symbolic significance of the numeral ‘100,’ suggest 100 barrels as dynamically equivalent to
ba;to~—roughly 9 gallons. D and 1241 read ka;dou~, a significantly smaller amount, probably to
make the parable less fantastic.
8
Literally “your letters,” used as an idiom for “an account,” or—as I have translated, following
Louw & Nida (§33.39)—an account of your debt: “what you owe.”
9
The awkward phrase kaqi;sa~ tace;w~ is omitted in D, but is best explained as a participle of
“attendant circumstance,” “communicating an action that…is coordinate with the finite verb”
(Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996], 640).
10
The Greek ko;ro~, from the Hebrew r/K, amounts to between ten and twenty bushels, and so I
have approximated 1,000 (cf. BDAG).
11
le;gei, a sudden slip into the historic present.
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boss praised12 the manager of unrighteousness13 because he acted shrewdly. For the sons
of this age are shrewder in dealing with their own generation than are the sons of light. 9
And I myself say to you, make friends for yourselves14 by means of unrighteous wealth15,
so that when it fails you will be received16 into the eternal dwellings.”

PART 2: COMMENTARY

I. Introduction

The New Testament has been so doggedly pursued over the last two millennia that

almost no passage has eluded the grasp of commentators and exegetes. Every iota and

keraia has been agonized over; no petra has been left unturned. Which makes the parable

at the beginning of Luke 16 that much more enticing. There are nearly as many

interpretations to it as it has interpreters—each with their own slant on the story that

supposedly wrangles it for good. Kenneth Bailey is typical in calling Luke 16v1-9 “the

most difficult of all the synoptic parables.17” The novice exegete, then, approaches the text

with a certain degree of trepidation.

The parable itself,18 of course, is straight-forward enough: a profligate manager

plays fast and loose with his master’s goods and is subsequently caught—and canned;

with the imminent end of the world as he knows it, the manager needs to cook up a

scheme to ensure a roof over his head; he (someway) cancels a portion of what is owed by

12
Compare the Greek ejpaine;w with ejpaite;w in v3 as a possible wordplay: the steward would
have had to pray, but he ends up being praised.
13
A straightforward objective genitive, contra the attributive (“Hebraic”) genitive favored by most
translations. See commentary below.
14
eJautoi`~, used in the second person, with a dative of advantage.
15
Literally “mammon of unrighteousness,” this is more likely a case of the Hebraic genitive (cf.
n.13).
16
de;xwntai is again the Semitic substitute for the passive; see n.5 above.
17
Bailey, Poet and Peasant, 187.
18
I take the parable proper to be 16v1-8. There is also plenty of debate on this point, of course,
but entering into those discussions is beyond the purview of this paper.

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his master’s debtors; the master commends his shrewdness. So the story goes, without

much dispute.

No, the problem with the parable is its application—provided by Jesus in verse 9:

“Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, in order that when it

gives out they will receive you into the eternal dwellings.” So Robert Farrar Capon points

out, “16:9 is the verse that did all the attracting to begin with and is therefore the crux

interpretum of the whole passage.”19 “Friends with mammon”? Since when, Jesus?

To ease the tension before we get too far, let me briefly lay my cards on the table

right here at the outset. The parable, which I entitle “the shrewd manager,” is what James

Voelz calls a “piety” parable: it instructs disciples of Jesus in their response to the coming

reign of God.20 It has a low degree of correspondence to reality—that is, the author does

not intend it as an allegory, per se, but rather as a story making a single point. Within the

diverse interpretations of details, two main explications of this point prevail: “Some take it

to teach shrewdness in the use of our money; others, prudence in the time of crisis.”21

With Blomberg, though, I do not see these as mutually exclusive. In view of the

eschatological crisis of the coming reign of God, the disciple is exhorted to make shrewd

use of “mammon”—which mammon he will be unavoidably involved with and which, if

he is not careful, will compromise his allegiance to God and so leave him out in the cold

19
Robert Farrar Capon, Parables of Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 145.
20
See James W. Voelz, What Does This Mean? (2nd Ed; St. Louis: CPH, 1995), 301-315.
21
Craig Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1990), 246.

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(heat?), so to speak, on Judgment Day. With this goal in view, let us now broach “the

hardest parable.”22

II. Narrative analysis

Overview of Luke

The Gospel according to Luke is the narrative of the world-upending good news of

Jesus the Messiah. The tone is set thematically in the Magnificat of chapter 1—a song in

praise of “God my savior”:

He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of
their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those
of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has
sent away empty. (Luke 1v51-53)

John the Baptist carries this narrative theme along when he arrives preaching a “baptism of

repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (3v3). The fruits of this repentance are principally

economic in character (3v10-14). Then, Jesus himself identifies his ministry with the

liberating proclamation of Isaiah 61:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good
news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering
of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year
of the Lord's favor. (Luke 4v18)

A kingdom is coming that is not aligned with the ways of the world; it is, if you like, a

“backward” kingdom, in which the lowly are exalted, the poor blessed, and the bound

freed (cf. 6v20-26). Luke’s narrative delineates this kingdom as present in Jesus himself,

God’s eschatological Messiah, who is summoning disciples to follow him—allowing no

worldly attachment to intervene (9v57-62; 14v25-33). The narrative, in short, is of a

22
Capon, Parables of Grace, 145.

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Messiah who turns the world’s economies on their ear, and calls disciples to comply with

this economy, living under his backward kingdom.

In Luke’s narrative, a decisive turn takes place at 9v51: Jesus sets his face for

Jerusalem and the fate awaiting him there. The portion of the narrative that follows, in

which our present text is located, extends through chapter 19, and consists primarily of

Jesus’ teachings as he goes through the villages and towns. In the immediate context of the

narrative, Jesus has responded to the grumbling of the scribes and Pharisees at his

welcoming of tax collectors and sinners (15v1-2) by offering a series of parables to the

effect that God is pursuing all men in the hope that they would repent and trust in him.

Now, in the beginning of chapter 16, his attention turns to his disciples—though verse 14

makes apparent that the prior audience is not out of earshot.

Narrative analysis of Luke 16v1-9

The parable itself consists of five characters and five scenes. (Our passage as a

whole comprises a sixth “scene”: Jesus’ application in verse 9.) Before considering each

section of the parable in greater depth, we offer a brief survey of characters and scenes.

The first character is the “rich man” (plou;sio~) of verse 1, whom I deem to be the

“master” (ku;rio~) of verse 8. Bailey would have us view him as an “upright man”23: “The

wealthy, distant, foreign, ruthless landowner is unknown in the synoptic parables.”24 For

the implied reader, then, the master is a generally positive and trustworthy character. The

second character and protagonist is the “manager”/”steward” (oijkono;mo~). The parable

23
Bailey, Poet and Peasant, 87.
24
Ibid., 90.

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informs the reader from the start that he is disreputable, but as the story unfolds it becomes

clear that he is to be sympathized with. The third and fourth characters are a pair of the

master’s debtors. They are essentially props for the parable and thus are strictly one-

dimensional in characterization. The fifth character, if we are to call him such, is Jesus

himself as the narrator. He is a reliable narrator, and so both his storytelling and his

application are to be trusted—if not immediately understood! The implied reader is thus

bound to accept Jesus’ words at “face value.”

The parable’s opening scene (v1) provides the backstory for the relationship of the

master and the manager, and the precipitating issue: accusations of unfaithful stewardship.

The second scene (v2) presents the crisis: the accused manager is summarily fired. The

third scene (v3-4) is the fired manager’s soliloquy contemplating his future, and makes for

the story’s rising action. In fine dramatic fashion, a resolution is reached but not disclosed,

thereby raising the suspense. In the climactic fourth scene (v5-7), we see the manager’s

plan play out, as he forgives some of what is owed by his master’s debtors. The fifth

scene’s denouement (v8) depicts the manager’s vindication, as the master commends his

shrewdness in the face of crisis. Finally, Jesus—in the sixth scene of the passage (v9)—

provides application and the upshot of the parable: eternal welcome is ensured by

following the manager’s shrewd example.

Now, as best as we can, let us attend to some of the more difficult details of the

parable to substantiate the interpretation here proposed.

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III. Scene analysis

Scene I: Backstory

We are told in the first scene that this story is about a rich man and his manager,

evoking Jesus’ earlier parable in the travel narrative about a master who leaves his

stewards to oversee his estate while he is gone (12v35-48). The thrust of that parable is

end-time judgment and the faithfulness of disciples in the intervening period.25 Similar

themes are rightly to be expected in the present text.

The parable begins with an anonymous tip to a rich man concerning his manager:

he’s being ripped-off. Marshall asserts that, since it “was accused to him” rather than him

discovering on his own, this suggests that the rich man is an “absentee landlord”.26

Following Bailey, however (see above), I do not see this to be the case: concerned

members of the community are simply acting as whistle-blowers to the manager’s ruse.

“His possessions” (ta; uJpa;rconta) is sufficiently vague, and it need not be conjectured just

what possessions the manager has squandered and how; the point is that he has indeed

squandered them.

This initial issue sets the stage for what follows, rather than a supposed disgrace to

the master (though it is no doubt that as well): “It is better to take the story as developing

on the basis of the steward having been ‘found out’ than as turning upon the honor of the

master.”27

25
John Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34 (Word 35B; Dallas: Word, 1993), 705.
26
I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 617.
27
Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34, 797.

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Scene II: Crisis

The rich man wastes no time. Calling the manager in, he keeps the discussion to a

minimum. “What is this I am hearing about you?” has the force, not so much of a genuine

question (which it is at the locutionary Level 1) but of a rebuke: “You have done wrong”

Bailey notes, “The word order is Semitic, idiomatic, and forceful.”28

The master is not asking for the manager to give an explanation (i.e. “Offer me an

account”) but to surrender the paperwork detailing his management. By decrying the

ability of the manager to manage any longer, the master is in fact denying his admission to

do so: he is, in effect, fired. We might further note that this speech act of the master is

performative in nature, for it accomplishes what it says in the very act of saying it.

Bailey supports this contention by calling to our attention that, as far as the master is

concerned, the manager is at this very moment released of all duties: “Legally his authority

as an agent is immediately cancelled.29”

And yet—it is as far as the master is concerned. Until the word spreads to the

community, the fired manager is still able to exercise his authority. This window is what

allows for the action that follows. The function of this scene in the narrative is therefore as

the crisis that brings about the ensuing action. The significance is that the steward is now

facing impending judgment—and for those with ears to hear, we might say that it’s

judgment of eschatological proportions.

28
Bailey, Poet and Peasant, 96. Bailey also considers the apparent silence of the manager
significant, but I think—given the force of the master’s question—no opportunity for a response by
the manager is intended.
29
Ibid., 97.

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Scene III: Rising action

The manager now contemplates his choices in a soliloquy that provides the rising

action for the narrative.30 He is faced with some unseemly choices for a man of his social

stature on account of the inevitable disgrace his dismissal will bring him. We infer from

his exclamation in verse 4 that his goal is to make sure that he keeps a roof over his head.

With such a goal in mind, he mulls over a pair of alternative career paths: digging and

panhandling.

These were not desirable solutions. Nolland notes, “Begging and manual labor

were the steps immediately above slavery in the social scale.”31 The sheer fact that the

manager reckons these as possibilities demonstrates how grievous his situation is since,

Bailey writes, “An educated man in authority is not expected to consider manual

labor…Surprisingly, his only reason is his physical weakness.”32 On the other hand, that

he rejects begging “is to his credit in a society that accepts begging as a legitimate,

although despised, profession.”33

30
Fitzmyer, Gospel According to Luke, 1101, points out the presence of similar monologues in
Luke’s gospel at 12v45, 15v17, 18v4-5, and 20v13.
31
Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34, 798.
32
Bailey, Poet and Peasant, 98.
33
Ibid. Nestle-Aland suggests that there may be an echo here of an oracle concerning Jerusalem in
Isaiah 22:

15 Thus says the Lord God of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the
household, and say to him: 16 What have you to do here, and whom have you here, that
you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve
a dwelling for yourself in the rock? 17 Behold, the Lord will hurl you away violently, O
you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you 18 and whirl you around and around, and
throw you like a ball into a wide land. There you shall die, and there shall be your glorious
chariots, you shame of your master's house. 19 I will thrust you from your office, and you
will be pulled down from your station.

No commenter consulted, though, picks up on this, and any proposed significance is dubious.

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Then, in verse 4, we have the Eureka! moment. The grammar (see note __)

reinforces the drama of the moment, as the manager has an epiphany that, we are led to

believe, will solve his predicament. The goal, as we noted above, is to ensure shelter. The

scene fades, and we as the reader/listener await to witness the unfolding of his plan.

Scene IV: Climax

Now we arrive at the parable’s climax and the resolution of the crisis depicted in

Scene II. In few other places in Luke’s gospel is the interpreter so keenly aware of the gulf

separating him from Luke’s first century, Near Eastern context than here. A host of

questions about the cultural setting are apropos to what follows—and commentators, to

varying degrees of satisfaction, have answered them. In the present analysis we can only

briefly touch on a couple of these questions.

First, with respect to the debtors whom the steward summons: are these simple

peasants, or more wealthy entrepreneurs? Nolland, judging from the large amounts owed

by the debtors, writes, “The master is dealing with large-scale business associates here, not

with ordinary people and ordinary economic levels.”34 These are movers and shakers from

the community.

Second, and more importantly, what exactly is the manager doing when he enjoins

the debtors to mark down what they owe? Specifically, is the manager indulging in further

squandering of his master’s estate,35 or is he relinquishing some of his own income—either

commission or kickback? Nolland favors the former, stating, “If the steward has been

34
Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34, 799.
35
Marshall (Gospel of Luke, 614) calls this the “obvious” interpretation of the story.

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pocketing the difference, then this present act would simply be to expose his own

corruption to those he has formerly cheated and only now for the first time treats squarely.

There is nothing here to serve as a basis for expecting a major investment of hospitality in

return.”36 Bailey likewise disagrees with the notion that the manager subtracts his “cut.”37

Marshall concedes, however, in light of Jesus’ application, the possibility of the latter

interpretation: “This interpretation gives a closer link to the interpretation (16:9) that the

steward was making use of his own money, and the disciples are called to act wisely with

their own money."38

I favor this latter interpretation, that the manager is relinquishing some of his own

cut. Given Nolland’s caveat that “there is finally no adequate basis for drawing into the

parable the complexities of the first-century loan market,”39 I rest on what makes the most

sense of the narrative. As we will see, only this interpretation accounts for the subsequent

action of the story—namely, the master’s commendation.

The resolution that the manager settled on, then, is to use his mammon to “make

friends” (cf. v9). He forfeits some of his own wages—earned or not—to mark down the

accounts of the master’s debtors. In other words, he takes the fall for the sake of the

debtors (of course, he doesn’t do it altruistically, but in order to secure future shelter now

that his mammon has given out).40 Nolland directs us to the key social phenomenon that

the manager is exploiting here:

36
Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34, 799.
37
Bailey, Poet and Peasant, 88.
38
Marshall, Gospel of Luke, 615.
39
Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34, 800.
40
If the reader picks up on possibilities for preaching here he is not far off; see Appendix.

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The ancient world ran on the basis of a reciprocity ethic: good turns given and
returned. The steward’s move gave him a claim upon his master’s debtors that was
much more secure than any contract. Public honor required that they make some
appropriate return to their benefactor.41

With this cultural background, we are able to fill in the blanks of the manager’s plan. He

has secured a home by “making friends” with mammon. The outcome is assured. The

camera zooms in on the manager’s pained smirk while his mammon is subtracted from

the debtor’s bill, and fades to black.

Scene V: Denouement

We turn finally to the denouement of the parable, the tying together of what loose

strands remain. We are back where we started, with a showdown between manager and

master.

Or are we? There has been some debate in the past over the identity of oJ ku;rio~ in

verse 8, whether it is Jesus or the master speaking. Marshall, however, writes, “There is no

evidence that demands that ho kyrios be taken to mean Jesus, and it is probable that v. 8a

is an original part of the parable.”42 Furthermore, among contemporary commentators,

Bailey writes, “It is almost universally conceded that Luke understood the master of verse

8 to be the rich man of verse 1.”43

So, then, the master/rich man “praised” the “manager of unrighteousness” on

account of his shrewdness. But why? Before answering that question, we need to address

the translation of to;n oijkono;mon th`~ ajdiki;a~, for the way the interpreter takes this phrase

41
Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34, 803.
42
Marshall, Gospel of Luke, 620.
43
Bailey, Poet and Peasant, 104-105.

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will impinge greatly on his interpretation of the parable as a whole. If, as most translations

take it, the phrase means “unjust steward” or “dishonest manager” (so in the KJV, ESV,

NIV, etc.), then we are seemingly bound to read back into the manager’s actions ajdiki;a;

in other words, he must have been doing something inappropriate there to retain this

title.44 On the other hand, if it is translated “manager of unrighteousness,” which is the

natural way to take the genitive construction and befits the external entailment of

oijkono;mo~ (viz., oijkonome;w), then another exegetical possibility arises.

In verse 9 and again in verse 11, mammon is called “unrighteous”.45 Given the

antipathy toward wealth and money throughout Luke’s narrative (discussed in the

narrative analysis above), and these immediate contextual clues, I think that it is

reasonable to assert that ajdiki;a is metonymy here for mammon itself. Nature and nurture,

character and environment, are not sharply distinguished in Luke’s gospel: we are sinful

people living in a sinful world. Jesus’ forgiveness enables and summons the disciple to live

faithfully in that sinful world. Returning to the story: the manager, himself unquestionably

unrighteous, was also mired in an unrighteous system—and in turning from his

44
I do not think that this is a necessary conclusion from that translation. If we recognize in this
scene—as I think we should—shades of the eschatological courtroom, the point could also be that
the manager, though he is unrighteous, is finally vindicated because, at the time of crisis, he
repented. His past notwithstanding, he is justified in the eyes of the Master—sola gratia, if you like.
I offer this (perhaps too creative) interpretation by way of concession to the conventional
translation; no commentators, to my knowledge, posit such exegesis.

45
I grant that in verse 9 there is a parallel construction to here in verse 8, with ajdiki;a as the
genitive object. In response, I would say: i) Not every genitive need to be the same—for instance,
the preceding verse has both possessive and objective genitives; and ii) There is a textual variant
that reads a[dikou mammw`na~, suggesting a straight-forward adjectival sense. It is not, in other
words, a cut and dried case.

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unrighteous ways in the face of crisis, he illustrates how would-be disciples should

respond, faced with analogous circumstances.46

So, then, why does the master praise the manager’s shrewdness? If we accept the

interpretation put forth to this point, the manager’s reaction in verse 8 is utterly

unsurprising for the implied reader—and moreover, it fits with the application that Jesus

himself gives in verse 9. The fired manager divested himself of the mammon he would

have received as his cut from his master’s debtors, decreasing their balance, and ensuring

shelter in the process due to the reciprocity ethic of his society. The apparently

magnanimous master is subsequently celebrated by the community, and at no cost to

himself. The only one who has taken a hit is the manager himself. The master therefore

praises his former employee for his shrewdness because he found a way to use mammon

to benefit all parties involved (especially himself) when he was faced with a grave crisis.

The alternative is, essentially, to make the master out to be rather capricious—

something of an “aficionado of shrewdness.”47 So Nolland writes, “The unlikelihood that a

master who has just been swindled would consider his swindler praiseworthy…has led to

theories of mistranslation, as well as to the suggestion that there is heavy irony in the

master’s praise.”48 He concludes, “However grudgingly given, a recognition of the

cleverness of this fellow is not out of place.”49 From this perspective, the master’s reaction

would have to be surprising to the implied reader, an unexpected turn in the flow of the

46
Bailey (Poet and Peasant, 106) grants that this interpretation is strengthened in that it “would
further indicate the eschatological thrust of the parable.”
47
Objective genitive.
48
Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34, 800-801.
49
Ibid.

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story.50 We would thus accordingly expect this to be the upshot of the parable—e.g., “God

commends all those who cast all their hopes on his mercy.”51 This is not, however, the

direction Jesus goes; instead he points us to the manager’s use of mammon in the face of

crisis.

Scene VI: Application

In conclusion, we consider the apparently cryptic application of the parable offered

by Jesus that, in my estimation, is considerably elucidated by our interpretation of the

parable. To “make friends by means of unrighteous mammon” means, more or less, what

the manager does in the parable: give it away in order to curry favor. The significance of

this action, however, is that you will not serve mammon, but God (cf. 16v13). Mammon,

as the manager learned, inevitably gives out; eternal dwellings do not. Jesus therefore is

exhorting his disciples to make faithful use of mammon, guarding against the manifold

unrighteous uses available in this sinful world, by making friends through generosity and

so not becoming idolatrously attached to it. Then, on the Last Day, “they”52 will welcome

you into those eternal dwellings.

We may therefore summarize the message of the passage as a whole thus. In this

world you will have unrighteous mammon. Divine judgment is imminent on all

unrighteousness—not least because of covetousness. In light of this judgment, act

shrewdly with your mammon. Acting shrewdly as a disciple with respect to mammon

50
The Message paraphrase of 16v8 betrays this: “Now here's a surprise: The master praised the
crooked manager!” This simply does not comport with Jesus’ unapologetic abruptness in the scene
change between verses seven and eight.
51
This is essentially Bailey’s interpretation; see Poet and Peasant, 107.
52
Angels? The Church triumphant? Jesus himself? The text gives no indication—probably because
it’s beside the point, which is that you will be welcomed.

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means being detached from it (an attitude cultivated through generosity), rather than

serving it. If you practice this as an expression of your faith, you will not fail to serve/be

enslaved to Christ and so receive vindication on Judgment Day.53

APPENDIX: HOMILETIC APPLICATION54

There’s a lot that you can do with mammon. Eugene knew that full well. Perhaps more
than anything else, this was his problem. He worked as manager of the von Himmel
estate, monitoring the appetizing flow of mammon that passed between debtor and
creditor, marveling at all the delicious things it could buy. But Eugene was no mere
voyeur; he was more a conoisseur of mammon, you could say, and bristled when
barbarians irreverently called it “money.”

Eugene was von Himmel’s right-hand man, if anyone cared to know, and the thorn in the
side to all the landlord’s debtors. Theo von Himmel held vast property—”More than he
could reasonably maintain,” Eugene would demur—and he let it out to the well-to-do
entrepreneurs of the community. Someone had to oversee all the subsequent transactions,
and this was Eugene’s job. He kept tabs on the rich olive farmers and rich vinedressers
and rich wheat farmers, all borrowing from his even richer master. And he worked hard.
Hard enough, he thought, that all these rich folk could afford for Eugene to keep more
than just tabs. He was no mere accountant, after all; he was the “numbers man” par
excellence. So for Eugene, as for so many accountants, he could only count so many
beans before he started hungering after a burrito of his own.

Von Himmel himself didn’t luck into his present fortune. He worked hard, and
appreciated not only the summit but the climb. Now he wears a 10-gallon hat and smokes
big cigars and plays roulette for the thrill. He often says that he has earned the right to
invest in the more refined pursuits of real estate and making a name for one’s self.
Anyway, these pursuits demand much less of a man’s time. Which is not to say that he
disregards his estate; only he has all but removed himself from the minutiae of his
operation—entrusting it instead to his manager, Eugene.

Which is why he was finding out from some two-bit narc and not his own careful
oversight that Eugene, the manager and overseer of his entire estate, was receiving more
kickback than from a shotgun blast. Von Himmel was unsurprised. Eugene had been
trotting around in velour jump-suits lately, and he knew he didn’t pay more than a
polyester-blend wage. At any rate, he had long since lost track of actual dollars and cents,
having ascended to that stratum of wealth where your net worth is compared with small

53
For a homiletic appropriation of this text for the edification of the Church, see the Appendix.
54
The sermon is entitled “Friends with mammon.” It was originally prepared for P-438.

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 Tinetti

nations rather than individuals. It wasn’t the money that bothered him; it was the lack of
respect.

***

Eugene was deciding between his Gucci and Versace loafers when he got a call from the
master’s secretary.

“Boss wants to see you right now, Eugene.” He quick pulled out his Boisenberry PDA and
consulted his schedule. His quarterly meeting with von Himmel was two months away.

“Any idea what it’s, uh, about?”

“He’s not happy, Eugene.”

He set down the receiver and climbed atop his feather bed to lay down. Gazing up, as if
peering into heaven itself, he said to himself, “I need this.”

***

Eugene opted for the Hush Puppies. One did not approach the master with head raised
high. He put on his best look of puzzled concern, with his lips shoved together, and his
eyebrow compressed to form a bell curve. He breezed past the secretary and tapped on
von Himmel’s half-open door.

“Who darkens my door without understanding?” The voice boomed from the rear of the
office, veritably sending shockwaves through the threshold. Von Himmel chortled as
Eugene slithered into the room. There, the master sat majestically atop his throne, flanked
by statuettes and paper-weights and picture frames, all paying homage atop his desk. “Ah,
Eugene, I should have known! Come in, have a seat.” Eugene huddled into the armchair.

“Listen, Eugene—I’ve heard things. Not good, Eugene; things about you and your
managing of my estate. Would you know anything about these things?” Eugene feigned
bemusement and remained silent. He could tell it wasn’t working; a word not spoken was
as good as a confession, but he was hoping not to incriminate himself any more than he
needed to.

Von Himmel narrowed his eyes as he stared at his employee, his tongue probing the
inside of his cheek while he awaited a reply; none came. He cleared his throat and leaned
forward on his elbows. “That’s what I thought. I am a good man, Eugene, a generous man,
and I don’t need my name being dragged all over town, folks thinking I’m some bumpkin
who lucked into his fortune. I have a reputation to uphold!” The boss was talking himself
into it now. He stood up behind the desk, dominating Eugene’s modest frame.

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 Tinetti

“Do you think you’re the only decent accountant in this town?” Von Himmel pressed.
Eugene wanted to interject that he was no mere accountant, but the moment was not yet
propitious. “You’ve got until 3 this afternoon to clear out your desk and hand in your
accounts. God help me, if you’re not gone by then, it’ll be weeping and gnashing of teeth!
You hear?”

***

The disgraced manager slipped away to his office, already pondering his fate. His
prudence didn’t extend to a savings account, and so losing this job would pull the roof
right off his head, too. He had no back-up plan. A chill ran up his spine as he imagined
cold nights on park benches and cold shoulders from passersby. A man couldn’t live
without sanctuary; he’d rather be a doorkeeper in his master’s house than be out on the
streets! Alas, no such severance was offered.

Eugene began pacing around his office, muttering to himself. “This is fantastic, just great. I
guess I’m out of this line of work; what landlord wants to hire the guy who plunders his
coffers? And I don’t exactly have a lot of marketable skills. I have the strength of a starved
gerbil, so manual labor’s out. The only trade I ever learned was with baseball cards, so
that’s no good. And I’ll sell my right arm before I beg. So—what?”

Scanning his office for ideas, he saw all von Himmel’s mammon had bought him: the
Persian rug, the marble chess set, the calfskin couch. He turned his eyes upon his
glockenspiel, with the pirouetting Germans announcing mittag, the noon hour. Eugene felt
a pit in his stomach; he had lost his appetite.

He may not be good at much, but one thing was certain: he was good at indulging in
mammon. But where had it gotten him? He knew all too well all that it could buy. Then
suddenly a thought arose that occurred to him as deliciously contrary: if mammon got him
into this mess, it would someway also have to get him out.

A stack of papers filled the corner of his desk: the debt records of all von Himmel’s clients.
The single sheets of paper held the fortunes of countless men in the community—and
Eugene’s, too. He looked wonderingly at the stack and thought, No. He knew a lot of
things you could do with mammon, but not that. He began kneading his hands together
and cried, “God help me, come 3 o’clock, if I have to plunder hell itself, I am going to
prepare a place.”

***

By and large they were not stupid men. You don’t reach their level of society by lacking
wits. Yet some of von Himmel’s debtors were decidedly simpler than others; behind
closed doors the boss, unimpressed by such men, called them “suckers and scalawags.”

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 Tinetti

Let it be known that Eugene did not despise these men; in fact, he knew them to be the
most honorable of von Himmel’s clients, which is why he called on them first. They
thought it strange, being urgently summoned like this, but the unpromising harvest may
have caused their landlord some concern over their ability to keep their end of the
bargain. So an urgent call from Eugene did not exactly lift their spirits; he had a habit of
leaving them with lighter pockets.

Sam Creighton was the first to be summoned, and, letting himself in, he eagerly strode
across the room to shake Eugene’s hand. He owned a three-bedroom colonial, with a
vacant guesthouse out back. “I got down here as quick as I could. If this is about my
business covering our loan, I can assure you, Eugene, that our humble operation is going
to do everything it can to meet costs. We won’t—” Eugene waved him off, and bid him sit
down.

“Mr. Creighton, say no more. Mr. von Himmel and I understand your situation.”

Creighton breathed a sigh of relief, then furrowed his brow. “So, then, what is this about?
Is Mr. von Himmel funding another orphanage and in need of more assistance?” He
leaned in and gently set a hand on the desk.

“Heh, uh, no, no—that’s not it. I don’t think there will be any such projects for awhile,
actually…” He trailed off, before retrieving his composure. “Look, Mr. Creighton, I’ll get
right to it. As you know, von Himmel is a very generous—albeit hard—man.”
“No question about that.”

“It is indeed going to be a tough season, isn’t it, Mr. Creighton?”

“I hope not, but it looks that way.”

“So you could use a break in your rent.”

“I wouldn’t—I mean, of course, but…”

“Mr. Creighton, say no more. I have beheld your plight, and pleaded with von Himmel to
reduce your debt. Now, he is a generous man, as you said, but hard, and he needed
persuading. Oh, I went to bat for you, Mr. Creighton. I begged. I said, ‘Mr. von Himmel,
where would we be if not for our faithful, honorable tenants like Mr. Creighton?’ “

“You didn’t!” Creighton gripped his armrests, rapt, as if watching some cosmic courtroom
scene unfold.

“Ah, but I did, my friend. I know you would do the same for me. So I told him, ‘If we
aren’t the kind of outfit that looks out for its clients, I’m not sure I can work here
anymore.’“

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 Tinetti

“Oh, Eugene, I—I don’t know what to say. I’m honored!”

“You need not say anything, Sam—may I call you Sam? With all due respect to my master,
it is men like you who not only keep our economy going but, if I may say so, keep the
moral foundation of our community strong.” Creighton blushed. Eugene noted the
enjoyment he felt feeding these lines to the client. “Now, exactly how much is it you owe
Mr. von Himmel?”

“Why, ten thousand dollars.” Eugene was reviewing Creighton’s account very officially.

“Yes, I see that right here. Mr. Creighton, I want you to take this here slip and cross out the
‘10,000’ and write ‘5,000’.”

“But I couldn’t!”

“You can—and you must. It would be an insult to von Himmel’s generosity to not!”

Mr. Creighton stifled nascent tears as his shaking hands grasped the bill. His eyes seized
the manager’s. “Mr. von Himmel may be a good man, but I know who I really have to
thank. I won’t soon forget this, Eugene.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Eugene retorted, stretching his arms wide, his legs crossed. “It’s only
money, right?” And as soon as he said it, he knew that it was true.

***

His new friends gone, Eugene finally set to boxing up his things. With only the hours of
noon to three and some savvy dealing, he had managed to ensure not only a roof over his
head, but also goodwill from those who’d lacked any reason to sympathize with him. Not
a bad afternoon.

Eugene had known a lot of things you could do with mammon; making friends wasn’t one
of them. It was a lesson worth pondering. But for him, the lesson came at a cost—quite
literally. He had endured a kind of dying, and it was a death that left neither himself nor
his clients the same.

The phone, sitting contentedly on the floor, rang. It was the secretary.

“Boss wants to see you right now, Eugene.”

***

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 Tinetti

The hallway sprawled before him as Eugene shuffled toward von Himmel’s office. After
exchanging pleasantries with the secretary, he came to the master’s door. Taking a deep
breath, he knocked firmly. An affirmative grunt, and Eugene sheepishly crept in, taking a
seat off to von Himmel’s right.

The boss was in a strange mood. When he first caught wind of his discharged manager’s
latest, shenanigans, you can imagine how he felt. It wasn’t about the mammon, which he
had more than enough of; it was about respect. But that’s also why, when the word spread
that an impromptu holiday had been declared in his honor, and that families were
dancing in the street, he started to change his tune. Now, as his fired manager inched in,
von Himmel’s fury was met by a measure of admiration. Maybe this guy wasn’t a mere
bean counter, after all.

“I didn’t expect to have another talk with you, Eugene,” the boss began. Eugene looked at
the floor, silent. “You know better than anyone how important my mammon is to me. Any
man in his right mind would show you the door, and I have to say, I am such a man.
Many would show you the back of their hand, too.”

Eugene, still looking at the floor, sensed von Himmel’s hand approaching and braced for
impact. Instead, he felt a great big paw patting him on the shoulder. He ventured to look
up.

“I’ve got to hand it to you, Eugene. Maybe the only thing I can appreciate more than
mammon itself is a man who knows how to use it. You’re one shrewd kid. Giving away
mammon? Good Lord! Who in God’s name, being rich, becomes poor for the sake of
suckers and scalawags?”

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