When I was young, I often tried to get out of practicing the piano. I had been taking lessons for a while and was slipping by each week with minimal practice time. My mother, trying to somehow nudge me into a better daily commitment, said more than once, “If this is what you can do without practicing, imagine what you could do if you did!” Unfortunately, her valiant entreaty did not work at the time. A few years later, however, I grew to love playing so much that the constant noise in the house drove her to move the piano from the living room into the lower level! Her words, though they didn’t provoke an initial purpose, served as an underlying kernel of confidence.

The lesson Jesus teaches in Luke 16 at first seems confusing. Why is he praising the unlawful manager, we often say? He actual…