NOTES for Luk 16:1-9
Today Christ tells His disciples an astonishing parable. He compares the relationship between God and the human being with the relationship between a master and an unfaithful steward. Facing the inevitable threat of dismissal, this steward decided, perhaps for the first time, to show mercy to the Master's poor debtors. In the same way, before elections, increases in salaries, pensions, and benefits are regularly announced. In essence, the steward does this at the Master's expense, but the Lord does not condemn him. He only makes an ironic comment about the shrewdness of the sons of this age.
Far more important is that those who have benefited at the Master's expense receive the steward not merely into their own houses. Here the Lord goes beyond the limits of the parable and speaks of eternal dwellings. Thus mercy shown to people turns into a completely undeserved but real opportunity to enter the eternal dwellings of the Lord Himself.
And it is also striking that it is not the master who admits the steward there, but those whom the steward had pitied. That is why it is so important for us to be grateful and to pray for those who have helped us in one way or another.