Post-feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God; Our Holy Fathers Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium (4th c.) and Gregory, Bishop of Agrigentum (7th c.).
Nativity Fast.
1 Timothy 3:1-13; Luke 16:1-9.
Read Luke 16:1-9
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Jesus gives us the parable of the “Unjust Steward”. In the parable, the steward apparently cheats his master out of what is owed to him, by modifying the bills of his debtors. For those of us with a strict sense of justice, it can be unsettling to read that Our Lord appears to commend the steward’s dishonest actions: “The master commended the dishonest steward for his shrewdness”.
This parable challenges our human understanding of justice and perhaps asks us to consider a divine economy where mercy and love blend with accountability. The steward, anticipating judgment, acts not to escape justice, but to secure a future beyond his current situation. Similarly, God’s justice is not merely about restitution; rather it is about restoration.
The early Church writer Origen writes, “[The steward] says to the debtor, “Take your bill, sit down, and write eighty,”…It is evident from this that the documents of sin are ours, but God writes documents of justice.” We are all the debtor, weighed down as we are by the debt of our sins, which according to strict justice we can never repay. But, just as the unjust steward dishonestly secures his future, Christ our God unjustly strikes out the debt of our sins and transforms our bill into a means of eternal security. As Origen continues, “ Notice that at any time when you have approached the cross of Christ and the grace of baptism, your handwriting is fastened to the cross and blotted out in the fountain of baptism. Do not rewrite later what has been blotted out or repair what has been destroyed (Homily 13 on Genesis).
This is not justice, strictly speaking. Such justice would demand exact restitution. But that is not the justice of God. The justice of God is manifest and revealed in the Cross of Christ, an instrument of injustice. On the cross, the only sinless One, was nailed and mocked, then buried in a borrowed tomb. Beyond this, He descended into Hades, where no one without sin had gone before. The Cross is itself transformed, becoming, not the instrument of injustice and death, but the weapon of resurrection and life. The resurrection does what no amount of restitution, punishment, or retribution could ever do. It makes that which was evil to be good.
In this narrative then, we are led to understand a profound truth: God’s justice, mysterious and transformative, does not fit neatly into human juridical structures. It encourages us to embrace paradoxes and recognize that in what seems unjust, God’s plan for redemption might be at work, weaving a story of mercy and restoration beyond our understanding.
Bible References