Pentecost
15C
September
22, 2019
Luke
16:1-13
INTRODUCTION
The section of Luke we hear from today and next week are
both concerned with how we manage our money – a good lead-in to October, during
which we will focus on stewardship. Today, both Luke and Amos will give us a
chance to reflect on one of the prevailing sins in our world: greed. In Amos,
the prophet rails against those who can’t wait to get past the sabbath so they
can start making money again, and not just making money, but doing so in a way
that takes advantage of the poor by messing with the standard currencies. Amos
warns us that the Lord will not forget this deceitfulness!
But Luke will give us a different view, in one of Jesus’
more challenging but incredibly gracious parables: the dishonest, or shrewd,
manager. In this parable, the manager, or steward, of a rich man’s property
will squander that property, and then try to salvage his reputation by even
more dishonest means… only to then be commended by the rich man! The difference
in Amos and Luke is that in one, the poor are taken advantage of, and in the
other, they are helped.
One more comment about our readings, about Timothy. I have
heard some comments from people both in the positive and in the negative about
the fact that we pray aloud each week for our president. Though I won’t be
preaching on it, the passage we will hear today from Timothy is the reason we
do that. I’m happy to talk more about that if you’d like.
Ok, as you listen: both Amos and Luke deal with the
messiness of human relationships and emotions, especially in relation to wealth,
so as you listen, think about your own relationship with money, and how that
affects your relationships with people, those you know and those you don’t
know. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The sort of scandal that starts Jesus’ parable is not
unfamiliar to us – in fact, it happens all the time, in businesses and even in
churches! A rich man had put a manager, or steward, in charge of his property
and finances, and that steward gets involved in some sort of scandal,
embezzlement or the like. Not surprisingly, 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
anymore. You’re fired.”
Well,
what is a well-educated man who’s never done a lick of manual labor supposed to
do now? His new reputation won’t help him – 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 stop for a moment and notice,
because desperation is something we are all familiar with, isn’t it? And though
it is no fun, it is sometimes a necessary stop along the way! 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 read a memoir
of a woman who was a drug addict and alcoholic and eventually turned her life
around and became a pastor. In the book, she reflects on waking up one
Christmas morning, having been drunk since 10am the day before, beside someone
she did not know. 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? Maybe not in quite the same way as that woman, but individuals,
businesses, even churches may feel desperate for any number of other reasons –
certainly financial, but also emotional. Like, you’ve tried everything, and you
are so burnt out and tired that you can’t give any more energy and don’t have
any more ideas. Or maybe you were already bearing a lot, but then you got the
dreaded diagnosis, or you lost someone important to you, or your partner left
you, or your car got totaled. You’re embarrassed for being in this situation,
whether it was your fault or not, and you don’t know where to turn.
That’s
how this steward felt! 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. He’s been a bit of a scoundrel, so he likely
doesn’t have too many people ready to extend a hand. Now his job has fallen
through, and he is left with nothing – no money, and no people. Without money (and
its broken promise of security) to lean on to get himself out of this mess, he
turns instead 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 is
dismissed from his job.
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, isn’t he
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 rational
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.
It is certainly messy. 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… and
a whole lot easier to preach! 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 even the 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 confusion, 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, serve those in need, reach out to build
relationships with people, and offer and receive forgiveness.
Does it take our desperation to be able 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? Well, desperation
certainly gives us a kick in the pants! People are not keen to change, after
all, unless we perceive a need for change. But we can also do it before
we get desperate: by looking first into our hearts at the ways we lean on the
false promises of our wealth, the ways our greed wins over our compassion, the
ways we seek our safety in our money over our God… and then by looking out at
the world around us and seeing where there is pain, where we can use our
resources, whatever God has given us, to ease that pain, and build
relationships with God’s broken yet still beautiful people.
Because that, you see, is the way our God operates: God 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 dishonest managers, 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.
That dishonest manager should definitely not have been forgiven, and certainly
not commended! But I’m sure glad he was, because it means there is also a
chance for me to be forgiven, and you, for all the ways we have
been irresponsible or unfaithful with the resources God has given us, for the
ways we have looked out for ourselves over the poor, for the ways we have put
our trust in money, rather than in God. What a gift that God’s grace is offered
to the desperate, the confused, and the liars and the cheaters; to the
unrighteous, the righteous, the honest and dishonest, the saints and the
sinners, even to me, and even to 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.
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