Of all foods salt is indeed a wholesome seasoning, if the measure be not lacking; otherwise, without measure, it too perishes and ruins what it has salted; for excess embitters what measure could have seasoned. So too the understanding that is in us, if it keeps measure, gives savor, begets insight, generates prudence, enlarges the heart, increases the wit, ripens what is to be said, composes what is to be heard, and becomes sweet to itself, becomes to those who taste it the whole fullness of sweetness; and plainly that understanding will be honeyed which brings forth nothing bitter from the mouth. This we have set forth first, that in the meanings of the Gospel a measure must be imposed upon our own understanding: so that it may not violate the vital food, the divine sustenance, the heavenly savor, but may guard it for us with most cautious sobriety, according to that saying of the Apostle:
Not to be wise beyond what one ought to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety (Romans 12). But now let us hear what the Lord said: A certain man was rich (Luke 16). And what was this man, if not Christ? Who was rich, if not he himself, who in our poverty possessed all the riches of creation? A certain man was rich. This he often impressed upon the Jews, that they might understand that a wealthy Godhead dwelt in him whose was a human poverty. He was rich. He was rich in his own majesty, who to the eyes of the Jews was poor. And how was he not rich, whom the angels served, whom the powers obeyed, whom the elements served, and at whose command things that were not came to be, and, being called, came forth? A certain man was rich, and had a steward.
Whom else but man, to whom the whole possession had been committed for the tilling of the world? A certain man was rich, and had a steward; and this steward was accused before him. As though he had not foreknown, as though he had not foreseen — he to whom hidden things are known, before whose eyes even those things are naked that are covered. And this one was accused before him. Did he then believe rumor? Did he come to know it by the report of rumor? Far from it. But those things which he knew, which in his kindness he veiled, he then began to inquire into when the earth accused: The voice of your brother's blood cries out from the earth (Genesis 4); the earth cried out, heaven cried out, the angels grieved, when now the whole report of the age was speaking. And this one was accused before him of having squandered his substance.
The younger son was read of before as having squandered this man's substance; now the steward himself is declared to have squandered his master's goods. Just as Christ is the same God and man, the same head of the household and father, so it is established that this same one is both steward and son: here is a diversity of circumstances, here is a change of names, but there is no variety of persons. And he was accused before him of having squandered his goods, and he called him. He called him through the Gospel. And he said to him. And what does he not accomplish through the Gospel, by which he reproves morals, lays bare hidden things, opens the conscience, chastises the deeds committed, enumerates evils, and threatens punishment to one persisting in them, though he promises pardon to the one converted? And he called him, and said to him: What is this that I hear of you?
He imputes what is known as though it were heard, because he does not wish to hasten sentence against the accused; and one convicted in his own sight he arraigns as though merely accused, being one who longs thus to forestall judgment with pardon. What is this that I hear of you? Give an account of your stewardship, for now you shall no longer be steward. Why does he join things so severe to things so kindly? Why does he remove him from the stewardship before he acknowledges the account? Give an account, for now you shall no longer be steward. Now, after the manner of a man, he demands an account; now, as God, he announces things imminent and to come. Give an account, for now you shall no longer be steward. He asks an account, not that he may exact it, but that he may relax it; he asks, that he may be asked; he asks here, that he may not ask of you; he asks in this age, that he may not ask at the judgment;
he asks it quickly, lest the time of punishment shut out the time of satisfaction. Give an account of your stewardship, for now you shall no longer be steward. Why? Because the end of life has come, the time of death? Now the summons from on high constrains you, now judgment calls. Hasten therefore, lest you lose the time of satisfaction, you who have lost the time of work. Give an account. This is to say: settle your account, settle what is yours, do not render mine; and you will settle it if you now cease to squander. Your prior debts I took upon myself when I took you up; I paid them when I absolved you; I, your advocate, stood on your behalf to be heard before the Judge; I, the judge, entered into judgment; I, being your own, was made guilty; from the condemned I took upon myself their punishments, from the damned I did not refuse the sentence; I, the destroyer of death, received death;
I, the destroyer of hell, penetrated the lower regions, that through these things I might not only rescue you from your own punishment, but also make you a partaker of my own dignity. Act then, so that the perpetuity of my condemnation may not shut in you whom the time of your stewardship has shut out. But let us now examine what the steward answered. He said within himself: What shall I do? What shall I do now? Ever does a man desire to do good things at that time when death has taken away the time of doing them. He said within himself. He seeks counsel within himself, who outwardly had no source from which to help himself now. He said within himself. He pricks his own heart, goads his own mind, and troubles all his inward parts, that he may wring from himself the repentance which he can offer on his own behalf. To dig I am not able.
It was not that strength failed you, but the times had run short for the labor. To dig I am not able; to beg I am ashamed. He greatly dreads the confusion of the judgment to come, in which there is now no time for repenting but for punishments, and where the guilty blushes more for his conscience than for the burning of Gehenna. To beg I am ashamed. And who is not ashamed to beg in the heavenly places? The wretch whom temporality held rich, eternity shall possess as a beggar; and Tartarus shall have him naked whom heaven could have received wealthy and held fast. The present figure tends toward the people, but good it is for us, exceedingly good, if we apply these things to ourselves each one, if we refer these things to ourselves, we who on earth ought to feel ourselves stewards and not to think ourselves lords;
who ought to feel that we have undertaken the ministry of a temporary allowance, not found a perpetual right of possessing; that we should beware lest the report of a ruined substance run ahead of us to the head of the household, according to that saying of the Apostle: The sins of some men are manifest, going before them to judgment; but those of some men follow after (1 Timothy 5). He who loses the time of his stewardship does not reach the appointed term of life — he who is heard to have squandered what was entrusted to him. Hence, hence is the untimely departure, hence is death before the day, hence is the bitter summons, hence is the restitution more grievous than itself, as the prophet laments, crying out: Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days (Psalm 54).
But would that, when sickness reminds us of our summons, when fever harshly bars us from our stewardship, when the force of pain compels us to hasten to render an account of that stewardship, we might follow the deed and the good sense of the steward in the parable; would that we might turn to the counsel of the soul, to compunction of heart, to repentance of mind, to the aid of mercy, to the protection of piety, to the pleading of confession! Surely then we would ask for the bonds of the Lord's debtors; and if not the whole, then at least the half, as that steward did, we would settle toward our own pardon, so that we who by squandering the goods entrusted to us are called stewards of iniquity might, at the very last, by a holy stratagem win the praise of the Judge himself. 'And he praised,' it says, 'the steward of iniquity.'
And because the deed of the steward in the Gospel raises no small question—since one guilty of many things is read to have pleased by a single act of fraud—why he thus pleased, and who this steward is, we shall unfold more fully, God willing, in the sermon that follows.