Pentecost 18
Luke 16:1-13
It
seems like Luke has handed us a lot of difficult passages in row, hasn’t he?
Today we get perhaps Jesus’ most challenging parable of all: the dishonest
manager, sometimes called the shrewd manager. Scholars, preachers, and
theologians have spent centuries trying to figure this one out, but it just
doesn’t sit very well, does it? It starts off with a situation not entirely
unfamiliar to us today – a rich man had put a manager, or steward, in charge of
his property and finances, and that steward got involved in some sort of
scandal, embezzlement or the like. Today people go to jail big time for
missteps like this, so it is no surprise when the rich man calls in the steward
and says, “Give me the books, and get out. I don’t want you to be my steward
any more. You’re fired.”
Well what is a well-educated man who’s never done a
lick of manual labor in his life supposed to do now? And his new reputation
doesn’t help – surely no one will hire him as a manager again, knowing of his
dishonest past. He is too weak to do manual labor, and he is too prideful to
beg. What other option does he have?
He is desperate, and I think that is an important thing
to notice. So often we don’t realize or understand what must be done to turn
our lives around until we simply have no other option. We often call this “rock
bottom.” I was just reading a memoir of a woman who is a drug addict and
alcoholic and eventually turns her life around and becomes a pastor. In the
book, she reflects on waking up one Christmas morning, having drunk since 10am
the day before, beside someone she did not know, and what horrified her the
most about this scenario was that none of this horrified her anymore. She went
to AA to try to prove to herself and her friends that she wasn’t an alcoholic, but instead, she recognized there her
need for help, her need for grace. Turns out, she was desperate, even more than
she realized.
Have you ever felt desperate? Like you’ve tried
everything, but you are so burnt out and tired that you can’t give any more
energy and don’t have any more ideas? This week I spent a few days at a
gathering for the clergy of the Upstate New York Synod – a time of retreat,
worship, and continuing education. The theme of our time together was “Vital
Congregations,” and we talked a lot about rekindling a sense of mission in our
churches. A lot of churches have felt that desperate feeling – this church is
thankfully no longer one of them, but it was not all that long ago! Can’t pay
the bills, fewer and fewer people coming to church, can’t afford a pastor,
leaders are over-extended, not sure if we can keep the doors open. So what is a
church to do?
Let’s turn back to the parable – what does the shrewd
steward do? First, he recognizes that while he was in a privileged position
with a good job and steady income, his money was ultimately unable to assure
him the security he needed. The job fell through, and he was left with nothing.
So he turned to other resources: human resources. He turned away from the money and its broken promise of
security, and he turned toward relationships. If he could bring himself into
people’s good graces by treating them kindly and generously, then surely they
would return the kindness and charity and welcome him into their homes when he
was dismissed as steward. He would be taken care of; he would not be homeless.
And so one by one, he calls in the debtors, those who owed his boss, and
slashed their debts – 50% off here, 20% off there. Wow! I’m imagining Family
First Credit Union calling me to say, “By the way, we just took $50,000 off
your mortgage. Have a nice day!” I’d be stunned, and thrilled! And you better
believe, if that person then came to my door in need of help, I would be glad
to offer it.
But even this dramatic burst of generosity by the
steward rubs us the wrong way, doesn’t it? Because in his forgiving the debts
of these debtors, he is continuing to steal from his boss! Those were goods
owed to someone else, so who is he to forgive them on his boss’s behalf? So
surely when the rich man finds out, he will be in a rage, and the dishonest
steward will be in even bigger trouble.
But to everyone’s shock, the opposite happens. No
yelling, no punishment – instead the rich man commends the dishonest steward for acting so wisely with the
money! It goes against every reasonable bone in our bodies. This is not just,
this is not fair, this is not the way to teach a lesson to the scoundrels of
society.
Why
does Jesus tell us this messy parable? If he wanted to teach us to forgive,
could he not have said, “There was a guy who had a lot of people who owed him
money. But he didn’t make them pay – he just said, ‘Hey you guys are off the
hook,’ and everyone lived happily ever after.” It certainly would have been
simpler and more straightforward. But it wouldn’t have been very honest or
helpful, because our lives aren’t that simple or straightforward. They are
complicated and messy and confusing. Just think of your relationships with
people you love dearly, but how those relationships get so tangled up and
broken that you can’t even remember anymore what the original problem was. Or
those times when you have been between a rock and a hard place, knowing that
whatever you decide, someone you care about gets hurt. Or those times when
compromising your integrity would be the easiest way out of a situation – and
that seems a small price to pay to get you out of this mess! That’s our lives:
full of messiness and complications and ethical dilemmas.
So
it’s a good thing Jesus tells us this parable, with all its confusions, because
we can certainly relate. In the midst of all the messiness of life, God calls
us to do just what the manager did: act wisely and generously with our
resources, reach out to build relationships with people, and offer and receive
forgiveness.
Does
it take our desperation to do this? Must we be desperate before we will reach
out to others for help, before we will try to build new relationships, before
we will seek or offer forgiveness? I think it is noteworthy that when this
church was looking for a way to survive, it did so by seeking a relationship, a
covenant, that offered new hope. It was seeking to forgive and be forgiven. It
was praying regularly, “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Being generous and
wise with resources, reaching out in relationship, and seeking to give and
receive forgiveness: this is how God calls us toward life.
Because
that, you see, is the way our God operates. God had tried many ways to
communicate and show love to God’s people, but finally went ahead and slipped
on some skin and came to walk among us so that God could build relationships
with us, treating the needy with grace and love. Jesus made
wild, offensive gestures and claims of forgiveness, forgiving people who
do not deserve to be forgiven – like prostitutes and tax collectors, and
scribes and Pharisees, and drug addicts turned pastors, and even you and
me.
Divine grace is a strange, startling, and
even frustrating thing sometimes. It doesn’t behave the way we think it should.
It is offered to the desperate, the confused, and the liars and cheaters. It is
offered to the unrighteous, the righteous, the honest and dishonest, the saints
and the sinners, even to me, and even to all of you. Thanks be to God for such
undiscerning grace!
Let us pray. Gracious and merciful God:
we are, every one of us, unworthy of receiving your grace and forgiveness. We
make wrong turns all the time, we lie and cheat, and we wait until we have no
other option before we turn to you. We give you thanks for your relentless
grace, and pray that we will know how to use your gifts wisely. In the name of
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment