Pentecost 15C
September 21, 2025
Luke 16:1-13
INTRODUCTION
The section of Luke we hear from today and next week are both concerned with our relationship with money or wealth. Amos addresses it, too – 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 what is probably Jesus’ most challenging parable: the dishonest, or shrewd, manager. In this parable, the manager of a rich man’s property will squander that property, and then try to salvage his reputation by 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. You have probably noticed that we often pray aloud in the prayers of intercession 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 God and 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.
This week I heard someone say, “God’s word is black and white.” Hm. One need only to read today’s parable to see that the Bible is, at times, far from that clear! Every single commentary I read or listened to this week (and I’m talking maybe 10 different ones) started with something to the tune of, “This parable is hard,” or, “This one has baffled interpreters for centuries,” or even, “Oh no, not this one…” It seems to leave us with more questions than answers.
But then I listened to a sermon from Pastor Brian McLaren, in which he described some of the cultural and historical context behind this parable, and things became a lot clearer. So journey with me, if you would, back to first century Palestine, which is at this time under Roman occupation. As occupiers, the Romans exploited natural resources as well as the labor of the people. This was primarily done through taxation: they developed a system in which the poor were heavily taxed, and the very wealthy got off without paying much or any tax at all. (Hard to imagine such a system, I know.)
Here’s how they did it. The Romans and the wealthiest Jews lived in the south, in Judea, near the Capitol, Jerusalem. The small farmers (a.k.a. the poor) lived more in the north, in Galilee, where much of Jesus’ ministry centered. Now, the poor farmers had something the Romans wanted: namely, olive oil and wheat. Seems like a great opportunity for the farmers to make bank, right? But no, instead, the Romans taxed the small farmers more than they could afford to pay. So, then the rich people – even some fellow Jews – would come up north and say, “Hey, we see you’re in a tough spot. How about we will pay your taxes for you, and you give us the deed for your property? Everyone wins! But don’t worry, you can still live on the property and tend to it as tenant farmers. All this for the low, low price of giving us a percentage each year of your wheat and olive oil.” These wheat and oil taxes would then be sold for events serving the Romans, turning a profit, and thereby making the rich guys in the south even richer, and the poor farmers in the north even poorer, and the cycle continued. For this reason, the farmers understandably hated the rich landowners. And so, when it came time to collect the taxes, the landowners wouldn’t want to go collect it themselves and face the anger of the farmers, so they would send a steward or manager to do their dirty work.
So now we have met the two characters in the parable – the rich southern landowner and the manager. And we understand the background of what their roles were and why.
Now, hear this story again: a rich, southern landowner owned some farms up north, and had a manager who would collect taxes from the tenant farmers. But it comes to the rich man’s attention that this manager has been squandering “his” property – that is, he is not squeezing the farmers for every penny they have, and not getting as much return as the rich man wants. So the rich landowner decides to fire the manager. “Get the books and give me an account. Why am I not richer than this?” Now remember, the manager doesn’t have much wealth or power here. He’s a middle-class guy who is just trying to get by, caught in the middle between rich and poor. And he’s having a bit of a reckoning as he realizes, “Man, I have aligned myself with the rich all these years and done their bidding, and it turns out I’m expendable to them! He’s throwing me out! What am I going to do now?”
So this “dishonest” manager decides it is time to switch sides, to align himself instead with the poor. He makes friends with the poor (a phrase in Greek that indicates putting himself on the same level) by cutting their taxes. He still gets some return that he can pass back to his boss, but he is also giving a break to the poor – which, as we can see in Amos this morning and in other Old Testament texts, caring for the poor was kind of a central tenet of Jewish faith. So he’s being dishonest in regard to the Roman expectation of him, but he’s aligned himself with God’s expectation. It’s a bit of civil disobedience, in order to realign the economic system.
Make more sense? Here’s what we need to see here: the so-called “dishonest manager” is not evil and terrible. Rather, he has seen through the injustice of the economic system, and he makes the decision to work for the poor, not the rich. The dishonest manager – but let’s call him now “shrewd” or clever, as some other translations do – the shrewd manager is using what power he has, small though it may be, to bring justice to the poor, to overturn this unjust system, to care for the needy and give people (or let them keep) what is due to them. Sure, it may benefit him by making him some friends, but he is also losing and risking a lot by his actions. Sure, it is dishonest by Roman law. But it is just by God’s law. He has put God’s law and relationships with God’s people above money and his personal security.
With this in mind, Jesus’ next words make more sense. “Make friends for yourself by means of dishonest wealth” – that is, prioritize a commitment to right and just relationship with God’s people over money, even if it means you have to break a civil law to do it. Money, Jesus is saying, isn’t the ultimate measure of all things. Use that money instead in service of relationship with God and neighbor. Because “you cannot serve both God and wealth.”
Boy, those are tough words. I’m not sure I’d be brave enough to say them if Jesus hadn’t said them first. I’m barely brave enough to believe them. “You cannot have two masters – God and money. You will either hate one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other.” And isn’t that true. Just the suggestion that I, too, might at times put a value on money over God makes me want to resist, which shows just how deeply the lure money has its hooks in me. That’s not to say that money is bad – please hear me on this. We all need it; it’s what allows us to survive in this world, and to help others in need. But if we aren’t careful, we can slip quickly into believing the false promises of wealth, and let it make us value things that are not God more than we value God and God’s vision for the world. We become devoted to one, and not the other.
I described the economic system of first century Israel under Roman occupation. The kingdom of God also has an economic system. It requires us to let go of the system that says, “Let the rich do what they want, and let the crumbs from the table trickle down to the poor.” That is the way of the world – it was in the first century, and it still is today. God’s kingdom economics say instead to put God at the top, not the wealthy. To the rich, you are expendable, like the manager was to the rich landowner. The poor are certainly expendable. But you are not expendable to God. God loves you, exactly who and how you are. You matter to God. And not only that. When you love God above all things, everything else gets reoriented. We will see everyone and everything in a new values system. With God on top, you aren’t the only one who matters. Everyone matters; no one is expendable. We are a community together, each with our own unique and invaluable gifts to offer the world. And that is how God wants it. That is how we live out the greatest commandment: to love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength and your neighbor as yourself. That is the picture of God’s economy that this difficult parable paints.
And honestly, knowing the meaning of this parable does not make it any easier. The message remains difficult, but when we can live into it, it is also liberating. The love of money is a never-ending treadmill in which we never have enough to make us feel fulfilled and valuable. But that is not so in God’s economy. When we can orient our world view to putting God, and not wealth, at the top, we free ourselves from that treadmill, and find ourselves instead living in a world governed by love, by justice, and by God’s immense grace and compassion.
Let us pray… God of love and justice, it is so easy for us to turn to money and wealth as the thing that will save us. Turn us instead toward you, that we would put you at the top, so that we would see all of creation as valued and beloved. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Note: this sermon draws heavily from Brian McLaren’s sermon on this text at the 2019 Festival of Homiletics.
No comments:
Post a Comment