Do we need sarcasm emojis to grasp the parable of the shrewd manager?
First published in Sught Magazine, 10 October 2025
https://sightmagazine.com.au/open-book/open-book-do-we-need-sarcasm-emojis-to-grasp-the-parable-of-the-shrewd-manager/
Read Luke 16:1-15 (NIV)
The ‘paradoxical’ Parable of the Shrewd Manager has always confounded and divided Christians. Why would the master “commend the dishonest manager”? How are “people of this world” shrewder than “people of the light”? Why would Jesus encourage us to “use worldly wealth to gain friends” so we are “welcomed into eternal dwellings”?
A cultural torch may help crack open this nut: the Levant languages are renowned for their colourful lexicon and hyperbole. I know that from my Lebanese upbringing, when my relatives sought to sharpen their point. If I visited my aunt after a long absence, she responded sarcastically: “So you remembered where we live!”
When our angry Lord spoke “out of a storm” to Job and his friends, He sarcastically quizzed them about his mysterious creation: “Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!” (Job 38:21).
Jesus was a master of rich language: “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away” (Matthew 5:29).
When His opponents plotted to stone him for blasphemy, He deployed sarcasm: “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” (John 10:32).
But there were no sarcasm emojis and exclamation marks 2000 years ago when Luke recorded this parable!
Within this cultural context, a re-reading of the shrewd manager parable does not contradict the surrounding parables about the prodigal son and Lazarus in the “bosom of Abraham“. Both of these parables juxtapose the ‘way of the world’ (rich man; selfish son) with the way of the ‘light’ (Lazarus; repentant son).
Surely, Jesus was sarcastic when He suggested that using worldly wealth to gain friends would lead to eternal dwellings. There is only one eternal dwelling: “in my Father’s house” (John 14:2). Moreover, Jesus tells us “do not store up for yourselves treasures on Earth” (Matthew 5:19).
At the end of His parable, Jesus pivots His focus to the sneering Pharisees: “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts”. He knew that they “loved money” and became “people of this world” when they should have been “people of the light”.
Jesus concludes: “no-one can serve two masters”. The shrewd manager knew exactly how to navigate the way of the world so that “people would welcome me in their houses”. Like the shrewd manager, the Pharisees knew the rule book when “dealing with their own kind”.
After the sarcasm has landed on the sneering Pharisees, Jesus leaves us with a serious challenge: do we who ostensibly serve the true master know the rule book of ‘our own kind’ to shrewdly navigate our way to eternal life?
The shrewd manager knew the way to the heart of the master he serves. He hastily concocted a win-win-win situation for “people of this world”. The debtors received an instant discount and closure. The master would be hailed a hero for his unwitting charity. The manager set up a contingency plan to be welcomed among these debtors “when I lose my job here”.
In the honour-shame culture of this world, the manager spared himself from the public shame of begging, and bestowed public honour on his master.
As ‘people of the light’, how well do we know the way to the heart of the master we serve?
What is unspoken by Jesus in this short parable may have been culturally odd to his Levant audience.
The master declares, “you cannot be manager any longer”, but does not ask the manager to balance the books first.
The master does not reveal who informed him of the mismanagement.
The master does not send the manager to prison or slavery for “wasting his possessions”.
The manager, meanwhile, does not defend himself, demand witnesses or plead by hand-kissing.
Unlike the prodigal son, he does not offer himself as a “hired servant” (Luke 15:19).
The wasteful manager does not know what each debtor owes, so he asks them.
He does not call for an urgent group meeting with debtors, perhaps because ‘people of this world’ (unlike people of the light) protect themselves by scheming privately, behind closed doors.
He does not evoke a long (family) history and loyalty of working for the master.
The debtors do not know that the manager has already been fired.
The manager’s eye was set on his earthly prize: retaining ‘my job.’
As people of the light, we have a different set of rules to reach the eternal dwelling place in the heavenly kingdom.
When we understand the sarcastic speech and the cultural context, this parable is not paradoxical. It is consistent with all that Jesus teaches: we are people in this world, but not of this world (John 17:16-18).