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Connecting The Dots The Sons of This World
One of the more baffling of Jesus’ sayings is the Parable of the Dishonest Steward: We all remember the parable.
BY Mark Shea
April 22-28, 2007 Issue |
Posted 4/17/07 at 7:00 AM
One of the more baffling of Jesus’ sayings is the
Parable of the Dishonest Steward: We all remember the parable.
It’s
the one where the steward is about to get canned from his job, so he goes to
various people who owe goods to his master and urges them to falsify their
bill. The master gets cheated, but the debtors get a break and are therefore
(the steward hopes) grateful enough to support him once he’s out of a job.
I
still mostly cannot make head or tail of this parable. I suspect it has to do
with the fact that I do not live in a tribal culture that is rather easygoing
when it comes to bribes and loose financial dealing. In particular, I find it
astounding that the master is pleased with the steward for his shady financial
dealings. But I am struck by one of the curious morals Jesus draws:
The
master commended the dishonest steward for his shrewdness; “for the sons of
this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons
of light” (Luke 16:8).
The
force of this curious saying came home to me in an odd way about a year ago
when I was down in Hollywood for a panel discussion on The Da Vinci Code. On the shuttle back to the airport after the conference, we picked up
a guy named “Scott.”
He
was the consummate Hollywood Indie filmmaker type. Goatee, earring, studied
casual look that was the result of clothes which cost him a fortune, cell phone
glued to the ear, meticulously styled hair, tan, shades. He got in the van,
talking on his cell:
“No.
We are going to have to revise Act One. And tell Bernie I will not settle for a
penny less than 10% of the gross. Now get Tiffany on the phone and tell her I
want to do lunch ASAP!”
The
conversation went on in this vein for several minutes, full of the rock-solid,
commonsense business acumen of an adult in full charge of his faculties. He
juggled multiple calls, handled a host of different financial and business
issues with the grace of an acrobat, and generally came off as a highly
intelligent, totally competent player who was fully prepared to navigate the
ruthless and complex world of Hollywood filmmaking.
Finally,
he shut off his cell phone, turned to me — he was a very gregarious fellow —
and said, “Hi! Name’s Scott” and shook my hand. We exchanged pleasantries and
he asked what I did.
Long
experience in travel has taught me: If I don’t want to be disturbed, I answer
that question with, “I’m a Catholic writer.” Usually people will retreat into
awkward silence and I can get on with my work. However, if I do feel like
chatting, I reply, “I’m the author of a book about The Da Vinci Code.”
Invariably,
eyes light up and pulses quicken: “The Da Vinci Code!” comes the breathless response.
In
this case, I was feeling chatty, so I gave Answer No. 2.
Instantly,
Scott was fully engaged. He was not only a big fan of The Da Vinci Code, but he was also reading a 12-volume set of books based, he said, on
Sanskrit manuscripts, translated Mayan hieroglyphics, “the latest science,”
esoteric Kaballah writings, “books that didn’t get included in the Bible” and
various other outré sources.
He
enthusiastically related to me how extraterrestrials had landed on earth
thousands of years ago to conduct genetic engineering experiments on primates
in order to manufacture the first homo sapiens. This was, he explained, the
source of all the world religions …
Here,
his phone rang and he took the call. Instantly, he was all solid business sense
again, wheeling and dealing, barking orders, talking high finance and the
technical details of film production — smoothly schmoozing like an old
operator. However, he cut the call short because “he was doing something
important right now.”
The
“something important,” it turned out, was his eager desire to return to his
breathless discussion of how humanity and all earth’s religions and myths were
rooted in the vast extraterrestrial genetic engineering experiment that was
somehow verified by the Great Pyramids and Stonehenge.
It
was a dazzling farrago of crazy nonsense that kept me spellbound all the way to
the airport.
But
it got me thinking about that quote from Jesus. Scott was not stupid. Nor was
he crazy.
He
was simply what Jesus called a “son of this world.” In his own sphere, he was
brilliant and gifted. But when it came to the things of heaven he was a living
embodiment of the old saw that people who refuse to believe in God (Scott
informed me he was an ex-Catholic) will believe in anything.
Mark Shea is senior content editor
for CatholicExchange.com.
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