Jesus Wants You to be a Dishonest Steward!

Jesus praises a dishonest steward and most of us immediately feel the tension. Why would Christ commend a man who looks like he’s gaming the system? We dig into Luke 16 and argue that the discomfort is a signal: the parable is not describing an earthly financial trick, but a spiritual reality where mercy, purification, and eternity are the real stakes.  

I’m joined by Father Matthew Keller to walk step by step through the story as a “purgatorial parable.” We talk about what it means to be called to account before God, why purgatory is best understood as purification for those already saved, and how penance functions as healing and gratitude rather than a way to earn forgiveness. Then we connect the steward’s debt reduction to indulgences, especially the practical, concrete elements of obtaining a plenary indulgence and applying it to a soul who cannot “pay down” reparation after death.  

From there, the conversation opens into the communion of saints and the exchange of spiritual goods: prayers for the dead, intercession from heaven, and the surprising idea that helping a soul reach “eternal dwellings” can create real spiritual friendship. We also explore how Church practice developed over time from public penance to later expressions of indulgences, and why that historical development matters for understanding the text today. If Luke 16 has ever sounded confusing or even morally backwards, this will give you a clearer, more coherent Catholic interpretation.  

Subscribe, share this with a friend who wrestles with purgatory or indulgences, and leave a review with your biggest question about this parable.

Transcript

Opening And Prayer

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It really shows that we're a living, breathing church. Yeah, that's no, but that's what's that's what I was thinking. Clearly teaching that you can do this even when the church didn't understand its ability. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome back to Chris SteroCast. I'm your host, Patrick Mason, and I'm again joined uh by Father Matthew Keller of the Sacred Art Cathedral. Father, could you start us off with a prayer? Certainly.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Most Holy Trinity, I adore you. My God, my God, I love you in the most blessed sacrament. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Amen. Amen.

Why This Parable Feels Wrong

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Thank you, Father. So we're running through your greatest hits of homilies that I've heard from you over the years. And I think that the one that has stuck with me the most is, and I've never heard anybody say this before until I heard you say it. And I think some theologians that I know have picked up on it since then and started going with it. I think you're the first one I ever heard it from. And it's the explanation of the parable of the dishonest steward. And I think for most of us, when we hear the homilies on it, they never quite sit well. But you have an interesting take on it. So I'm going to read through uh the the part of this homily. And this comes from Luke chapter 16, verse one. Then he said to his disciples, A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you no longer can be my steward. The steward said to himself, What shall I do now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do, that no that when I am removed from my stewardship, they may welcome me in their homes. He called in his master's debtors one by one. To the first he said, How much do you owe the master? He replied, One hundred measures of olive oil. He said to him, Here is your promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty. Then to another he said, And how much do you owe? He replied, One hundred cores of wheat. He said to him, Here is your promissory note, write one for eighty.

Purgatory And The Debt Of Reparation

SPEAKER_01 2:14

And the master commended that dishonored Stuart for acting prudently.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

All right, so um I think I I can't be the first person who who thought of this, but uh I I don't believe I was uh taught this. I believe it came to me in prayer uh one time back when I was assigned in San Rafael, and it was during November, the month of uh when we pray for the poor souls, and uh this reading comes up uh every year in that time period. Uh and it struck me that this was a uh a parable about indulgences and uh and this practice that the church has of uh of helping those who have passed from this life, right, uh who are in the state of grace, but owe God some reparation, either for um venial sins that were never confessed or or things that were not, you know, repentance that wasn't done at all or well enough, you know, for sins that had been forgiven, but that had not no reparation had been made. So, right, this is the idea that purgatory, right, is that uh process or place, whatever it is, right, of um of making reparation for sins already forgiven by Jesus Christ, right? He's suffering death on the cross, um, us being in union with that, but but owing some reparation for sins we have not made proper uh reparation to God uh for, showing our sorrow, doing the penance, right, that Jesus uh says that we will uh will do, right? Uh even after we repent, we have to do penance uh to show our first of all for purification of our soul, but uh to show our our true sorrow for sins. Um right, our penance doesn't earn forgiveness, but it shows our gratitude for the forgiveness of sins, right? And and it makes uh you know working on ourselves to purify ourselves from the uh the attachments and so forth that um that caused us to sin in the first place. So um but think about and the the thing that about this uh um parable, it's a purgatorial parable. And there are a few of the uh the the parables that talk about uh this experience. And in this one, uh we see something that can't be accounted for otherwise, which is Jesus praising somebody who's stealing from his master, right, uh to make his own life better. That can't that that does not make sense in practical terms.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Jesus teaches steal from the master.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

That's right. I can't steal your money and give it to the poor uh to please God, because I'm stealing from you to start with, right? Can't be that.

Indulgences As The Missing Key

SPEAKER_00 5:00

So uh what we uh we look at in this uh passage is first of all, the steward is being uh called to account. And so what will you and I experience at the end of our life? We're gonna be called to account. We're gonna have to make an account of ourselves to God, the master, right? Okay, so we are his uh stewards in this life. He's entrusted us with so many things, uh, you know, and and as well as being baptized Christians, right? We're responsible to spread the gospel, to you know, share it with others. We have so many responsibilities to God. And we're gonna give it, we're going to give God an accounting for this, right? And so that day's gonna come when he says, You can no longer be my uh steward here on earth, right? Right. Um give me an account of your dealings, all right. So this guy realizes um I'm not in a good spot here.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

So my account is overdrawn.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

That's right. So what he comes up with is this idea, well, I'll reduce the debt that other people owe to my master. Right. And then they'll be uh then they will uh help me out, right? Intercede for me. Okay, so the one place where this all makes perfect sense and is perfectly just and uh ethical is if what I'm doing is in the spiritual realm, um if I'm obtaining indulgences for other people uh to reduce their debt to my master, which is exactly what I do if I go and obtain a plenary indulgence by doing penance myself, going to confession, receiving holy communion, praying for the Pope's intentions, obtaining a plenary indulgence, right, by doing one of the indulgence uh works and applying it to the soul of somebody who is indebted to God in purgatory. Right. Their sins are forgiven, but they owe God a debt that they cannot pay. You can't do penance in purgatory. It's Paul passive, right? Uh it is penitential, but you you don't get to initiate that the way you can on earth. You can't say, Oh, I'm gonna give up, you know, sweets for the next week. You can't do that because you're not eating anyhow. You don't have a body, you don't have a body in purgatory either, right? So you can't do bodily penance, you can't do any of the things that we uh associate with penance. Uh you just have to passively be purified and and wait for the mercy of the church praying for you on earth or people interceding for you. Otherwise, right, you're there till you're purified, then you go to heaven. Yeah, so what we can do though is help those souls, right, uh pay down their debt to God, uh hopefully fully. So we intercede for them, we obtain uh indulgences, and what that does, we're taking their promissory note, we're marking it down, and we're not stealing from anybody really except the we're stealing from the master. It's his mercy. It's his mercy. He wants us to do this. That's why he praises the unjust steward. So what he does is he obtains plenary indulgences, he applies them to the souls. And it even says in the passage there that they will be welcomed into eternal dwelling places. That's the key to the that whole parable. That uh they're not gonna be uh he's not gonna be welcomed into earthly dwelling places because it's not an earthly, right? This is not an earthly economy we're looking at, right? This is uh supernatural economy of uh of the afterlife. And so um, and then what happens? If I obtain a plenary indulgence for somebody, and that's what gets them into heaven, they go to heaven, imagine what they're gonna do for me, right? They're gonna be interceding for me constantly on earth while I'm on earth, right, to help me because I help them. And that's the right, this is the the communion of saints, they're right, the exchange of spiritual goods between the church triumphant that's in heaven, the church suffering in purgatory, and the and the church militant here on earth. So we that's the communion of saints, right? The economy of spiritual goods that we can help others with our prayers. You can pray for me now, you can pray for me when I die, please do. Uh, and if you try to pray for me, I'm already in heaven, right? It'll bounce back and help you in some other way. God will not let those prayers go to waste. But uh, so that insight just solved all the problems that I ever had in understanding that uh It really is good.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

And you're right, I I I didn't read the last verse there. It says, For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth so that when it fails, you will become welcomed into eternal dwellings. Eternal dwellings, not earn dwellings. So make so make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

It's like it's dishonest wealth, meaning I didn't earn it, right? Jesus earned it. Of course, I'm stealing his gray, his, you know, his merit.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

If that's not the command, if that's not a command to pray for the souls in purgatory, then that's it. It's exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

It's a purgatorial parable, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Yeah, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

So, anyhow, that helped me a lot in understanding that. And I shared that around.

Communion Of Saints And Intercession

SPEAKER_00 10:01

One time I asked a biblical scholar, I said, if this is so, uh it seems to be uh indisputable. Why isn't this in the early church fathers? How come I've never seen you know St. Jerome or somebody talk about? And he said, the development of um the doctrine of purgatory, right, there from the beginning, but it develops. Um, but the church's practice of granting indulgences um is a is a is a relatively later development, right? It it took several hundred years for that to develop. And so the church fathers, um, right, there's nothing. The church wasn't telling them, right, you know, and our more recent understanding of indulgences has changed a bit as well. It used to be that you would see um indulgences and it would say like a 30-day indulgence for doing such and such. Okay. But in the period of time when the church did um uh uh didn't have private confession, for example, um, penances were uh were private. And so, for example, if you committed a serious sin, um and uh your penance would have been, you know, you know, four months of praying outside the church while everybody else is at mass. Oh, like you were like you were basically yeah, you were not you were not allowed into this into the church even, yeah, right, or certainly to the sacraments until you had done your penance publicly. Yeah. Okay. And so the when the church said 30-day indulgence, you jump on that because it's 30 days off of my public, you know, uh humiliation here. Um and but they started granting, you know, plenary indulgences for you know going to the Holy Land or you know, the crusades or something like that, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Plenary just means like a full indulgence.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Complete, yeah, full indulgence. If you did that, you got to come back to the sacraments, right? Or you didn't have to be so when we started doing private confession and private penance, our theology uh uh and our practice, I don't say our theology, our practice of indulgences changed because we weren't doing public, uh it didn't take time off of public penance, right? Right. It took time, we started applying it to, oh, you know what? Um the church has the keys to the kingdom of heaven, right? Yeah. And so if we can forgive sins, we can also reduce uh the church has the authority to give you a plundering adultery, to take away all the reparation that you owe to God. Yeah, it's a lesser, that's a lesser power than to forgive sins. Right, right. Do you see what I'm saying? Like uh penance that's given to you at the end of your confession, right? Is not even the the source of the

How Indulgences Developed Over Time

SPEAKER_00 12:46

it's nothing like the key that that unlocked for you forgiveness of that sin, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Which is the problem that everybody has with only God can forgive sins, but I could give you a penance.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

That's right. But and but Jesus gave the church authority, right? Who sends you forgive or forgive in there, who sends you uh whole, you know, uh held bound or held bound. The church has the authority both to forgive sins, right, or to intervene in order to encourage people in good practices, like praying the rosary or the stations, or reading the scriptures, or praying for the Holy Father's intentions. The church does all that to incentivize us doing the right things that are going to lead us to eternal salvation. And that's why all the practices that I do to obtain a plenary indulgence for someone else are benefiting me because I'm doing the things that God wants me to do.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Well, and actually, after I heard first heard you preach this ever since then, whenever there's a plenary indulgence, I try to, I I ask for I ask for a soul. And imagine the friends you have in heaven. Yeah, because and it's just like you said, they're they're they're with God now, interceding on my behalf. Like, what more? I need help now. That's right. It's like the steward needed help now. He needed a place to live. Like yeah. No, that's that's that's really great, Father. And I think it's also um, I mean, who knows whether you were the first one to develop it or not, but it is interesting the development of even the church's understanding of its own

Closing Thoughts And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 14:09

teachings, of its own powers, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Our Lord says the Holy Spirit will lead you to all truths, right? And so these things develop in the life of the church, development of doctrine and understand deeper and deeper, deeper understanding of things that Jesus did for us. It really shows that we're living, breathing, Jesus taught it before we were practicing it. Yeah, that's me. No, well that's what's that's what I was thinking. Clearly teaching that you can do this even when the church didn't understand its ability.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Well, and I think and I think that that also reminds me of the road to Emmaus. I think Pope Benedict in his book Jesus of Nazareth said, Um, all scriptures, he showed how all scriptures related to himself.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

And and Benedict says, he doesn't say how some scriptures, how all scriptures. And so we may not understand an aspect of the scripture at one point or the other, but at some point the church will expose that for us in its relationship to God. Sure. Yeah. Well, that's awesome, Father. Thank you. That's that's like I said, one of my favorite ones I've uh ever heard you preach. So thanks for coming back for that.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Thank you for watching this episode of Christerocast. For more information on the Christeros or to join the movement, check out our website at theCristeros.org. That's the Christeros with an S.org. There you could find our daily reflection series as well as many of our publications and articles. Thank you for watching, and viva Christore.