The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite our seeking conversation with philosophers, evangelists, and mystics to plumb the depths of meaning that may be hidden in a cursory examination.
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| Planning to seek wisdom |
The reading from the Letter to the Romans sheds light on Paul’s reason for writing so boldly as the Apostle to the Gentiles.
* [15:21] The citation from Is 52:15 concerns the Servant of the Lord. According to Isaiah, the Servant is first of all Israel, which was to bring the knowledge of Yahweh to the nations. In Rom 9–11 Paul showed how Israel failed in this mission. Therefore, he himself undertakes almost singlehandedly Israel’s responsibility as the Servant and moves as quickly as possible with the gospel through the Roman empire.1
Psalm 98 praises God as the Judge of the World.
* [98:1] Marvelous deeds and victory: the conquest of all threats to the peaceful existence of Israel, depicted in the Psalms variously as a cosmic force such as sea, or nations bent on Israel’s destruction, or evildoers seemingly triumphant. His right hand and holy arm: God is pictured as a powerful warrior.2
The interpretation of the Parable of the Dishonest Manager and its application to Christian life are questions arising from the Gospel of Luke, in whose writing there is arguably some influence from Stoicism.
* [16:1–8a] The parable of the dishonest steward has to be understood in the light of the Palestinian custom of agents acting on behalf of their masters and the usurious practices common to such agents. The dishonesty of the steward consisted in the squandering of his master’s property (Lk 16:1) and not in any subsequent graft. The master commends the dishonest steward who has forgone his own usurious commission on the business transaction by having the debtors write new notes that reflected only the real amount owed the master (i.e., minus the steward’s profit). The dishonest steward acts in this way in order to ingratiate himself with the debtors because he knows he is being dismissed from his position (Lk 16:3). The parable, then, teaches the prudent use of one’s material goods in light of an imminent crisis.3
Massimo Pigliucci thinks C. Kavin Rowe , whose most recent book is One True Life: the Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions (Yale University Press, 2016), becomes a bit too rigid in casting Stoicism and Christianity as incommensurable.
For one thing, his version of Christianity — based as it is on the early writings of Paul, Luke and Justin Martyr — is indeed arguably incompatible, or at the very least much more difficult to reconcile — with the late Roman Stoa as instantiated in the writings of Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus. But Christianity has evolved in a myriad directions over the intervening two millennia. The Protestant Reformation, for instance, maintains that salvation is neither a matter of faith nor of good works, but depends entirely on the grace of God, which he provides of His own accord and for His own reasons. There is also the famous bit in James 2:26: “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.” The interpretation of this, its (alleged) contradiction of Paul’s writings, and the extent to which “good works” are necessary for salvation (as distinct from, and in addition to, faith) has been widely debated.
I’m not a theologian, but it seems to me that one could be a Stoic who interprets the Logos as the Christian God, and then do good works through the practice of the virtues. Indeed, something like this has been proposed before, for instance by Justus Lipsius and his attempt at synthesizing Christianity and Stoicism in what is known as neo-Stoicism.4
Carol Zuegner prays the prayer of Teilhard de Chardin, to ask for the grace to take that leap of faith, when we don’t quite understand the meaning of the Gospel.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability— and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually—let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.5
Don Schwager considers the necessity of prudent foresight as he quotes “Jesus recommends the foresight, prudence, and ingenuity of the steward, by Augustine of Hippo,” 354-430 A.D.
"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? It is not because that servant cheated but because he exercised foresight for the future. When even a cheat is praised for his ingenuity, Christians who make no such provision blush. I mean, this is what he added, 'Behold, the children of this age are more prudent than the children of light.' They perpetrate frauds in order to secure their future. In what life, after all, did that steward insure himself like that? What one was he going to quit when he bowed to his master's decision? He was insuring himself for a life that was going to end. Would you not insure yourself for eternal life?" (excerpt from 359A.10.)6
Raymond J. Devettere discusses prudence and Stoic determinism.
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 16:1-8 comments that the dishonest money manager in Jesus’ parable had learned the lesson that we attract more people with honey than with vinegar.
What this dishonest steward did for selfish reasons we can do for godly reasons. Showing mercy is always a good strategy, particularly in our parishes. The church you attend is your Catholic “home,” the place where your brothers and sisters in Christ gather to celebrate a family meal. It can be easy to think of Mass simply as “my time” with Jesus, but Jesus doesn’t just dwell in the tabernacle. He dwells in everyone gathering with you. That includes the cantor who sings off-key, the family with unruly children, and the guy racing out of the parking lot in front of you. How you treat your fellow parishioners is an important indicator of your relationship with God.7
Friar Jude Winkler connects the admonishment in Romans to the urgency of Paul to bring the Good News to as many as possible before the end of the world. The Vatican II understanding of anonymous Christians was not part of the spiritual understanding in Paul’s time. Friar Jude reminds us how we are often clever in earthly things and not in spiritual things.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments on the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, to underline the beautiful symbiotic relationship that exists between science and faith.
For too long science and faith fell into the “sin of certainty,” each claiming Truth only for themselves and ignoring the beautifully symbiotic relationship that exists between them. Scientists like Robin Wall Kimmerer are an essential part of the Great Turning, dissolving the artificial binaries that have walled them off from one another. May we all have minds and hearts open enough to integrate the wisdom of our spiritual elders.8
Syncretism is the term used to cast our exploration of philosophy, science, and traditional elders and nature knowledge into a category of concern even as we are aware of the field of the Holy Spirit encompassing a universe of Creation that reveals God to people.
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