The essential meaning of the parable of the Unjust Steward is that if a person fails in their highest purpose, they must return to what they can know and understand.
“The Parable of the Unjust Steward is about a man who fails but who acts in a way that is commended. This parable is always regarded as the most complicated and confusing parable in the Gospels.” Maurice Nicoll, The Mark, p156.
The Parable of the Unjust Steward:
There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? Give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward.
Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. So he called every one of his lord’s debtor’s unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.
And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Luke xvi.1-13 A.V.
“A man must learn all he can learn from life and know all he can know of the knowledge and truth belonging to life before he can safely go on to higher truth and higher knowledge. This is the essential meaning of the parable and the comments, which were directed especially towards the disciples. If a man fails in his highest purpose he must turn to what he can know and understand.” Maurice Nicoll, The Mark, p159
“The steward can no longer remain a child of the light. He can no longer be a steward of the true riches, of the truth which Christ spoke of. He has come up against a barrier and cannot go on. If he had ceased to be able to progress along the path of return which he had followed, it still remained open to him to make the most of what lay behind him. But he had to readjust his ideas and also his attitude; this is shown in the action he takes. This is the plan that he resolves upon: he makes the world seem to be better than it is in order to return to it and gain from it what he can, in order to live – but still as a steward. He becomes a steward of unrighteousness, of the world and its knowledge, while retaining all that he, as a steward of the true riches, has learned, and, by applying what he knows already to all that he can learn from the knowledge existing in the world, he can keep alive in himself. He decided to be faithful in the least, (έυ έλαχιστω) and for this he is commended, and not only so, but it is implied that by being faithful to the mammon of unrighteousness – that is, to the least, and to what is not his own – a man prepares himself to be faithful to what are the true riches and what is his own. But in doing this, the steward does not serve mammon but ‘makes friends to himself out of mammon’ (φίλους έκ του µαµωνα της αδικίας) – that is, he makes use of mammon. To serve mammon is one thing; and Christ says no man can serve God and mammon. But to make use of mammon, to make use of the world and its discoveries and its knowledge, which are its riches, is not the same as being of mammon and serving the world and its truth, in the sense of taking it all as the only truth and knowledge. Christ’s advice to his disciples in this connection has puzzled many readers because of the misleading translation.
“The general sense of the verse therefore is not contradictory as would appear from the customary translation, but means that the steward makes use of his time-period and is able to make a place for himself in it and use its truth and all that belongs to it. It is impossible to pass from worldly truth and science to the truth of which Christ spoke, because what is lower in scale cannot comprehend what is above it. But higher truth can comprehend lower truth and use it – so that the steward’s action is understandable.
“The steward cannot cancel the debts of his lord’s debtors for that would mean to pretend that the world is righteous and owes nothing and is the same as the Kingdom of Heaven. But he writes them down for himself – in his own mind. He remits part of what they owe – that is, he makes it appear that they, the debtors, namely, life, owe less than they do. In this way he bridges the gulf between the true riches of knowledge and the world. He is not shaken by his apparent dismissal nor is his attitude to the true riches changed. There is still an opportunity for him and he uses it. He remains a faithful steward, but now he turns his knowledge towards the world — the unrighteous world — and so becomes a steward of unrighteousness. And to do this he deliberately sees life as owing less than it does — that is, as better than it is – and people as better than they are, and he uses the knowledge existing in the world in the light of his own knowledge gained as a steward of the righteous world or the true riches.
“The steward in the parable does the right things from the standpoint of Christ, and from the standpoint of all that he has been taught and is following. Seen in this light, the parable transforms itself into a wonderful parable of mercy and intelligence, a parable concerning a man who, meeting with what everyone must meet with under the circumstances, acts in the right way, and, without attempting to justify himself, takes thought and at once does what he clearly sees is the only thing left to him to do, if he acts rightly.” The Mark, p160-164.
“The plan [the Unjust Steward] resolves upon is a right plan and Christ remarks that unless a man is faithful in the least, he cannot be faithful in what is greater and so cannot receive the true riches. The plan that the steward carried out towards the least – that is, the unrighteous Mammon, and so the debtors – is therefore connected, by Christ’s comments on the parable, with the idea of being faithful. And the plan is that the steward resolves to forgive some of the debts owed by the sons of the world by telling them and giving them his authority to write down their debts by so much. And the extraordinarily deep meaning here contains the sense also that he takes on himself something of what they owe. He makes himself responsible for part of their shortcomings and in this way makes everything more possible for them. This is being faithful in the least, for the idea of faith in the Gospels is often connected with the power of making all that belongs to the world less than it is. In the Gospels by the power of faith is always meant a transforming power. The steward is faithful in the least, therefore, because he transforms the situation of some of the debtors.” The Mark, p165.
“The parable is about a man at a certain stage of development – that is, about a man who has gone a certain distance along the path of return so clearly shown in the parable of the prodigal son — who reaches a point where he is told he must go back to life, and the issue of the parable under discussion is how he goes back to life, and the parable shows how such a man in such difficult circumstances goes back in the right way.” The Mark, p166.
“It basically means to live in World 48, in the body of World 48, but under the laws of World 24, which are lighter, more independent, penetrating, less boundaried, and far more powerful in the energies that they convey and transmit and the quality of aliveness and awakeness. And we do that because it’s necessary. It allows us to fully stand in the role that we’re called to, to be the great mediators between the visible and the invisible, the material and the spiritual, the imaginal and this lower world.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Holding Our Planet 2024, 20:00 08 Monday pm Teaching.
“In Eye of the Heart I was saying if you really want to take this on and to really transform rapidly, the way is to live according to the laws of world 24 while still in world 48.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Stonington 2022 2nd Body, 4:00 Eastertide Challenge with Cynthia Bourgeault – Q & A part2.
“To live here in World 48 under the laws of World 24, under the sway of imaginal causality, would make sense of Jesus’ admonition to be in this world but not of it.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Eye of the Heart, p56.
[To my ears, this all sounds very much like living from Good. Here I am, living in the earthly world 48 realm. I’ve never been a steward of the true riches, but I am in a similar situation as the so-called Unjust Steward, yearning and learning to live from the teachings coming to me from the higher realm. WB]
Logion 47
Yeshua says...
No one can mount two horses,
or draw two bows, at once,
and you cannot serve two masters
at the same time.
If you honor one, the other will be offended.
No one drinks a vintage wine
and immediately wants to taste wine freshly bottled.
New wine is not put into old containers
lest it be ruined,
nor is aged wine put into new barrels lest it spoil.
Also, old cloth is not sewn onto new garments
Read more Impressions on the Parables of Jesus.
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll’s The Mark refer to Thomas Nelson & Sons, New York, 1954
Cynthia Bourgeault, Eye of the Heart, Shambhala Publications, 2020
Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)
Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.
For me, your quote from The Mark, page 165. For the idea of faith in the Gospels is often connected with the power of making all that belongs to the world less than it is. If you read in The New Man under faith, part two. Such a man has power because,through his possession of faith, all things no longer have their own power and so become possible to him. So the steward, by his faith, by his knowing of the higher being above the lower was able to cancel the debt. Or as Cynthia is saying, being connected to World24, while living in World48, makes less World48 laws applicable to us.