On Mercy to Our Debtors

[Sermon delivered at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 21, 2025. For the readings assigned for this Mass please see https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/proper-20c/]

✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in Essence and Undivided. Amen.

My dear family in Christ, once again we have come to that point in the lectionary cycle where we are confronted with the phrase, “…Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth...”[1] This is, by far, one of my least favourite Sundays on which to preach. I could have ignored this Gospel instead to preach on the Old Testament or Epistle lessons, but in all responsibility, I could not just let it lie. After all, the statement seems so antithetical to everything Our Lord preached and taught. I am also not alone in my opinion. Three years ago when I preached on the same subject, I shared this particular rant from St. Augustine of Hippo and will share it again:

WHY did the Lord Jesus Christ present this parable to us? He SURELY did not approve of that cheat of a servant who cheated his master, stole from him, and did not make it up from his own pocket! On top of that, he also did some extra pilfering. He caused his master further loss, in order to prepare a little nest of quiet and security for himself after he lost his job. WHY did the Lord set this before us?[2]

Thank you for that exegesis, Your Excellency.

So, what do we make of this parable and of this lesson Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has gifted us?

I am deliberately going to divert our attention to the Old Testament lesson for today. The passage seems straightforward; the prophet Amos condemns the wealthy who go to great lengths to extort and cheat extra wealth out of those with no extra wealth to spare. He makes a scathing critique, pointing out their unethical approach toward regulations designed to protect the less fortunate, the limit of days of commerce, the establishment of just costing, the standardization of weights and measures which today we could consider standards of monetary exchange. The purpose for this ethical failing is none other than the unjust accumulation of resources for the sake of accumulation of resources. Amos is very clear that it is not just him venting his own philosophical opposition to unbridled laissez-faire capitalism but that these attitudes are clearly counter to the will of God and displeasing to Him, made clear by the warning, “The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will not forget any of their deeds.”[3] There is nothing out of character here with any of Amos’ other writings.

So, what does this have to do with today’s parable? Amos’ picture of these business moguls does not appear to match the picture of the unworthy (dare I say incompetent) manager. In Amos’ depiction those with money, who manage money, who engage in business to make money, have the common goal of creating much money out of as little money as possible. The thought of just pricing, let alone merciful commerce, is the furthest thing from their minds. They would not have been in the position of the incompetent manager because they would have already fleeced their customers with the prime goal of accumulating as much wealth for themselves and in turn for their patrons (or shareholders, let the reader understand) as possible. In contrast, the incompetent manager, already not being the shrewd and grasping businessman, suddenly has a flash of insight in his distress to provide mercy to his master’s clients and customers. I also would like to point out that none of that mercy entered his pockets, in fact, he was taking a gamble that they would even remember him once he was let go, but I assure you he had a better chance of having the goodwill of his master’s clients than if he had modelled his behaviour on Amos’ target audience. St. John Chrysostom put it this way:

“What excuse will we have if we heedlessly lock our money behind doors and barricades, and we prefer to leave it lying idle? Instead, we should make it available to the needy now, so that in the future we may count on support from them. Remember that Scripture says, ‘Make friends with ill-gotten gains so that, when you go down in the world, they may welcome you into their eternal dwellings.’”[4]

This translation of St. John’s homily is fortuitous. If we look at the Greek of this parable dishonest wealth is better rendered as profiteering through injustice, or less awkwardly ill-gotten gains.[5] Let us review it again in context: the incompetent manager took what were probably steep markups, price gouging, and usury and counter to what we read in Amos’ complaint, he either eliminated it or significantly reduced it, easing an at worst unrighteous or at best heavy burden on his master’s clients. Here, the incompetent manager is not scrounging pennies and compounding interest to secure his future, but banking instead on the intangible assets of mercy and goodwill using the questionably acquired material wealth at his disposal, whether it was his to dispose of or not.

That brings me to this point that not only did the manager in this parable secure his place in the hearts of others by lessening an unrighteous burden, but he did so by using funds put in his trust. This may seem a stretch, but I am not the first to make the inference that the funds given him in trust have a direct allegorical correlation to the resources given to us by God in trust. “All things come of Thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given Thee,”[6] is a passage well known to us and underlines the fact that everything we have, absolutely every thing, has ultimately come from God and that we are not true owners of it but stewards only. Likewise, the manager had nothing of his own to give, only what was entrusted to him. And here is the kicker: this action met with his master’s approval.

This is a parable, friends. Please engage some suspension of disbelief, Our Lord was making a point.

Our Lord offered His listeners, and us, this parable as an illustration of the reality around us. First, anything we have is a loan, resources that God has put into our hands in trust that we would do good with them. Second, there are many around us for whatever reason who do not have enough resources to meet their needs. Third, while we have opportunity and means, we should use those opportunities and means to alleviate the suffering of others as outlined in the second point of the illustration. Our Lord here teaches us that if we all adhere to this ethos, if one is provident for others in their time of need, then others will provide in one’s time of need as well. More importantly, Our Lord informs us that God expects us to be faithful, to be trusting and trustworthy with what we are given by providing for others, which in turn will lay up treasures in the age to come, “Where neither moth nor rust consumes, nor thieves break in and steal.”[7] Our Lord then hammers this home by telling us, “If you have not been faithful with dishonest wealth, [8] who will entrust to you the true riches?”[9] At last He is clear, all the treasures here on earth are “ill-gotten gains,” tainted with the corruption and impermanence of this age, unlike the riches of the age to come, incorrupt and permanent assets such as mercy, forebearance, forgiveness, and love.

Whether or not it is realistic that the manager’s master approved of his less-than-stellar employee’s tactics, we should not miss the inference made by Our Lord that these tactics performed with what God has given us actually does meet with God’s approval. If you have any doubts, let us consider the prayer which Jesus taught us, particularly this petition:

“Forgive us our debts, / As we forgive our debtors.”[10]

It matters not whether you translate the Greek words[11] as debts/debtors, trespasses/them that trespass against us, or sins/those who sin against us, the meaning ultimately does not differ. Like the manager, we are enjoined to forgive what is owed to us or better yet owed to our Master out of what He has given us to manage, and so we ask Him the same in regard to us. The petition can read like this: We, though fallen, have shown mercy; we, though fallen, have shown love to our enemies; we, though fallen, have forsaken vengeance, payback, and retribution; we, though fallen, ask the same of God. Note that it is not a cause/effect but a parallel prayer, that the forgivenesses occur simultaneously and not one based on the mere promise of the other. Gone is, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”[12] A new command is before us, to love our neighbours as ourselves,[13] and who knows, in turn they may love us.

✠ Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, Holy Dominic, and all the saints, Saviour save us. Amen.

[1] Lk. 16.9a

[2] St. Augustine, “Sermon 359A”, Rotelle, J.E., ed. The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the Twenty-First Century, Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 1990, Part 3, Volume 10, p.216, emphases mine.

[3] Amos 8.7

[4] St. John Chrysostom, “Homilies on Genesis,” 3.21, Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1947, vol.74, pp. 49-50

[5] The actual Greek phrase is not, as the NRSV translation would have you believe, ἐκ τοῦ μαμωνᾶ τοῦ ἀδίκου, “unrighteous (sc. dishonest) wealth), it is ἐκ τοῦ μαμωνᾶ τῆς ἀδικίας, “the wealth of unrighteousness.”

[6] 1 Chron. 29.14, f

[7] Mt. 6.20

[8] Again, better translated ill-gotten gains.

[9] Lk. 16.11

[10] Mt. 6.12

[11] τὰ ὀφειλήματα/τοῖς ὀφειλέταις

[12] Ex. 21.24

[13] Mt. 22.39. Cf. Jn. 13.34