Lessons in stewardship from both faithful and unjust servants

Responsible and morally attuned parents recognize the critical importance of forming their children to do what is right not only when or because they are being observed, but because they know and desire it due to habitual correction and guidance from an early age. This sense of obligation tied to stewardship is likewise tied to a sense of gratitude and thanksgiving to the One who has found us worthy to entrust to us His talents.
 
Both Matthew and Luke’s Gospels provide us with varied dimensions of stewardship. If we compare the two parables of the faithful steward, we have strikingly similar accounts from both negative and positive perspectives.
 
Considering also the related parable of the unjust steward, all three parables are stories about fidelity, and likewise gratitude and ingratitude: the master of a household entrusts his possessions to a head servant. The faithful servant fulfills the trust placed in him, while the unfaithful servant takes advantage of the situation and indulges in some egregious action: gluttony and pride, or downright and cunning exploitation of the master’s property. One is grateful, and the other couldn’t care less. In his drunkenness and physical abuse of the other servants, we see three common behaviors of people who imagine themselves unaccountable: They devour wealth, abuse others, and manifest intemperance.
 
The generous master is the embodiment of the moral law. Yet, many people go about their lives with their immediate attention on the micro-realities confronting them without pondering for a moment from where their gifts and responsibilities come; some seem to think that they may never be held to account at all. Reality, however, is a stubborn thing, and it will not be ignored. Each one of us will be found out. A moment will come when we must give an account of our faithfulness and our gratitude.
 
Gratitude for what has been entrusted to us is an antidote for abusive, corrupting, and coercive power which only imagines itself to be unaccountable to any higher authority.
 
Thanksgiving, the ground of faithfulness, is the glue to all positive relationships, including commercial life — which is simply an extended network of relationships. Trust, along with gratitude, holds businesses together and makes possible the relationships between debtors and borrowers, renters and owners, workers and proprietors, benefactors and recipients, management and stockholders. All of these relationships demand a great deal of trust that others will carry out their end of the bargain, be responsible and honest, follow through with their commitments, and behave uprightly.
 
The faithful steward in Matthew and Luke fulfills the trust of his benefactor by taking good care of the property while the owner is away, even when he does not know the date of his return. He feels a sense of responsibility whether he is being observed or not. He can be depended upon to take care of what is entrusted to him and to abide the master’s expectations. This is the kind of person who thrives in every area of life. In the contemporary context, he is most likely to have good credit, advance in businesses, and be a trusted friend and colleague.
 
The sins of unjust stewards, corporate managers, and public officials are only examples of a larger problem. Having neither invented nor created ourselves, we are only stewards of what we have been given, including time, created goods, and even our own bodies. We must care for and cherish all the things entrusted to our care preeminently for the benefit of the supreme good: our souls. We need to exercise these virtues habitually, even when we think no one is looking – and to be motivated in our good stewardship – by gratitude.

FATHER ROBERT A. SIRICO is president emeritus and co-founder of the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, MI. His latest book is The Economics of the Parables (Regnery Publishing).