Sermon

The dishonest manager

Scripture Text:

Luke 16:1-13

Sermon:

The parable we heard from Luke today is one of the trickiest in the gospels. Jesus seems to be telling us to be like a vindictive accounts manager, cheating the boss, or an Illinois politician, giving his wealthy constituents kickbacks.  The dishonest manager makes himself sound even worse when we hear him thinking aloud about how he’ll support himself in his unemployment:  What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. So, because of his weak biceps and his pride, he decides to turn to his clients for mercy.

These clients aren’t ordinary people – they have big loans with his boss: a hundred jugs of oil and a hundred measures of wheat weren’t small potatoes.  These were commercial clients, not the widow next door. So, he tells them to rewrite their bills to cheat the master, hoping that they might be grateful to them and help him out when he’s put out on the street.

And here’s where it gets confusing – the master and Jesus both seem to commend him for being so tricky and dishonest. And they seem to criticize the followers of Jesus for being naïve. Should Christians be more like Bernie Madoff? Is Jesus a secret admirer of Rod Blagojevich? Could corruption really be a Christian value?  Jesus says to the disciples in Matthew, “Be wise as serpents,” (Mt. 10:16) but as I read the Bible, he doesn’t tell them to be shrewd, or to be cheats, or to “look out for number-one,” even if it furthers God’s kingdom.

Now, it could be that God wants us, the children of light, to be a little more savvy in our dealings with the world around us. Christians, churches, and charities need to deal with money just like the rest of the world does, and we shouldn’t be afraid of talking about it or spending it or investing it to do God’s work.  Christians shouldn’t hide from the world of corruption and cheating and pretend as though it doesn’t exist.

But if we think about where this passage falls in the gospel of Luke, it may help us a bit.  You know, every week we read snippets of the Bible and so we miss their wider context. We miss seeing how a parable or a healing is part of the trajectory of Jesus’ travels and ministry, or how a certain lament of Jeremiah is related to an invasion of Jerusalem.  Sometimes it helps to look before and after a reading to understand it better. In the Gospel of Luke, this parable falls in the middle of a series of parables that tell about Jesus spending time with sinners and his preaching about wealth and money. Right after this parable, he tells the Pharisees, who Luke calls “lovers of money”: You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God. And he tells the parable of the Rich Man and Poor Lazarus, where the corrupt Rich Man goes down to hell and the beggar Lazarus goes to heaven.  We’ll hear that one next week.

So, Jesus is working on a theme here: wealth corrupts.  This is one of Luke’s favorite themes, too.  And yet, this story is kind of the inverse of a parable like the Prodigal Son, where someone loses everything only to rediscover what’s most important to him.   Could Jesus really telling us to be like the wealthy steward?  That being dishonest can help us find eternal life?  It doesn’t quite make sense.

There’s one word in this parable that makes me wonder if Jesus is being ironic or sarcastic: in English, it’s translated as “home” or “dwelling.”  The dishonest manager is giving his clients kickbacks because he hopes that when he’s unemployed, as he says, people may welcome me into their homes.   The Greek word Luke uses for home in this sentence is the word for physical home or estate.  But when Jesus says, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes or dwellings, Luke isn’t using that same word.  He’s using the word for “tent” or “hut.”[1] So listen to the sentence now: make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal tents.

As if to say, dishonest wealth is not going to get you anywhere.    And Jesus goes on to say exactly that: If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? and a verse you’ve probably heard before: No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

So, what if Jesus, by telling this parable so pointedly to the Pharisees, is being a bit of a smart ass?  “So, you think you can cheat God and still get eternal life?” “You think you can abuse your power and still get in good with the Master, huh?” What if Jesus is sort of telling an “un-parable”?

In these economic times, when the wealthy seem to be getting wealthier, Wall Street is all growth and success, while the poor and unemployed seem only to be continuing to face the same narrow circumstances that we’ve seen these past three years, we should remember the consistent teaching of Jesus that the ultimate security is not wealth or material means.

“True riches” are different – it’s people, our sense of connection to God, our ability to love and serve, and to pray.  Those things are almost impossible to take away from anyone.  These are things we can’t lose.  Our eternal home is not just a tent, but a place in the heart of God, that we keep not through our own efforts, or tricks, or secret knowledge, but because of God’s mercy and love.  Because of grace.  And because as Christians, we are always looking to Jesus to help us see the kingdom of God, instead of wealth, or knowledge, or control, or security.

So, unlike the dishonest manager:

Let us be honest, because we have nothing to lose.

Let us be generous, because we have been given everything.

Let us feel secure, because God has already made a place for us.

Let us not worry about money, because God will give us everything we need.

Let us seek the true riches, and not what is false.

Amen.

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[1] Scott Bader-Saye, Feasting on the Word (Year C, v. 4), p. 96.

Uploaded on October 3, 2010 in by RevHeidi

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