There are not only good men and bad men, but there are bad good men and good bad men.
Rebecca West wrote these paradoxical words in her classic Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, an account of three trips she took in the 1930s to the former Yugoslavia. A bad good man follows all the rules, but as West writes, “his whole life describes a pattern that cannot be pleasing to God.” The good bad man, on the other hand, may have many faults, and might even commit crimes, “but at bottom he lets nothing come before the duty of subjecting experience to the highest laws.” These words were written about King Alexander, who despite despotic actions, kept Yugoslavia united and at peace. However, they have a broader application with important theological implications.
The good bad man is the underlying theme of my soon-to-be-published historical novel, The Codex Conspiracy, where it is often necessary for flawed individuals, acting in gray areas, to implement the will of God. In this case, ensuring that the Gospel of Mark survives the siege and burning of Jerusalem in 70 CE. However, rather than pitching my new book, I would like to show how this concept applies to two of my favorite parables, both appearing in the Gospel of Luke.
The first concerns a bad good man. Jesus’s story of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus in Luke has an intensely vivid cinematic quality. Lazarus is carried to the gate of the rich man’s palace each day to eat the crumbs from his table. The dogs show pity by licking his sores. After both men die, the beggar lands in the bosom of Abraham while the rich man is tormented in Hell. When he receives no mercy and begs that his brothers be warned of their fate, Abraham replies: “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.”
Obviously, the rich man is being punished for his greed and lack of compassion. But if we dig deeper, the parable becomes even more meaningful, with important messages not just for our personal lives, but for our life together. Jewish law was unique in the ancient world. It reflected a level of humanity not found anywhere else. Unwanted infants, for example, couldn’t be abandoned and left to die—a common expectation now, but rare at the time. Jewish law also stipulated that the poor not be allowed to starve. By providing the scraps off his table, therefore, the rich man was following the letter of the law, but he went no further, providing only the bare minimum necessary to sustain mere survival. He was following the rules, of course. He probably also would have given generous sacrifices at the temple and read the Torah at his Synagogue. His friends and neighbors doubtlessly considered him a good man because he kept the Law.
However, Jesus expected much more. He expected the rich man to see Lazarus, to feel empathy, and to do what he could to help. This is social criticism of the highest order, aimed at the established elites, the people with power and wealth. It is the essence of the law, espoused by Moses and the prophets, that mattered, not mere technicalities. True intent trumps self-serving accommodation all the time. The rich man is not a good man. He is not “subjecting experience to the highest law,” as Rebecca West would say.
Conversely, the idea of a good bad man allows us to explain the inexplicable: the parable of the unjust steward. A rich man fires his steward for “wasting his processions,” what we would term embezzlement. He’s flabbergasted. The man’s too lazy to do manual labor and too proud to beg. However, he finds an elegant solution. He’ll lower—or in modern parlance, restructure—the debts of his master’s tenants, making them honor-bound to support him after he’s fired. On learning this, the landlord summons the steward, but rather than chastising his duplicitous employee, he congratulates him for his shrewdness, excusing his blatant dishonesty. In order to understand this shocking denouement of the story, we need to put ourselves in the mindset of first century Judeans and Galileans.
This parable is all about the evils of rural debt. The shrinking size of landholdings, caused by the laws of inheritance, where all the sons received a share, forced peasant farmers to borrow from rich entrepreneurs after a bad harvest. The Torah stipulated that loans were forgiven every seven years, making it virtually impossible to borrow money, but around the time of Jesus, a legal loophole, called a “prozbul,” was invented to get around this barrier. The borrower agreed to waive his right to forgiveness of debts. However, if he failed to pay back the loan, the land was forfeit. The creditor didn’t care about the interest payments. He desired default so he could seize the land. Best case scenario: the previous owners stayed on as tenant farmers. The worst case? They were kicked off and forced into day labor, begging, or brigandage. The esteemed historian Martin Goodman argues that this was a major factor in the social unrest that led to the revolt against Rome.
The parable of the unjust steward graphically illustrates this social dislocation in the countryside at the time that provides the key for unlocking its meaning. Without knowing it, the steward was doing good, albeit with questionable motives. The landlord, representing God, sanctioned the lowering of the debts, saving the tenants from destruction, which was a not-so-subtle message to the elites of the day. A righteous man should emulate the landlord in the parable and strive to ease the tensions in society. Not exacerbate them.
Admittedly, the steward is not the ideal prototype of the good bad man. I don’t think he consciously thought through the moral or ethical implications of his actions. He did good almost by accident. He needed the guidance of God. But ultimately, don’t we all need divine help? Nevertheless, this parable and the one about Lazarus and the rich man highlight the moral ambiguity present not only in 1930s Yugoslavia, but also in the world of Jesus. We must never forget that there was and is only one good, good man, and that’s Jesus.