SCRIPTURE
Luke 16:1-13 (NRSV)
Serving God or wealth
Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, '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. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 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."
SERMON
Greg Carey, Professor of New Testament at Lancaster Theological Seminary had this to say about today’s Gospel narrative, “Commentators routinely remark that the parable of the Dishonest (Corrupt) Manager stands among the most challenging texts in the New Testament, often regarding it as the most perplexing of Jesus' parables.” (http://www.workingpreacher.org/default.aspx) Today, I want to affirm that I whole-heartedly concur!
I read this scripture over and over again and to be quite frank, it is very difficult to find an interpretation that I am comfortable with in 2010.
Whilst reading the interpretations and commentaries of others, I ran across a blog by a clergywoman named Sarah Dylan Breuer, who wrote her master’s thesis on these thirteen verses of scripture.
She offers a re-telling of the story that might be helpful to us today. (http://www.sarahlaughed.net/lectionary/2004/09/proper_20_year_.html)
A very, very rich man lives in a big city (like Jerusalem), with a lifestyle of luxury made possible from the income of the estate he owns in the countryside. He's hired a manager to run it while he parties in Jerusalem, and all of the work of planting and harvesting is done by peasants whose grandparents might have owned the land but lost it in payment to a debt.
The landowner fires the steward because of rumors that the he was squandering the landowner's resources. So the steward is no longer authorized to do anything at all in the master's name and the farmers don’t feel so very kindly toward him because of his prior allegiance with the rich man.
So what does the steward do? He gathers all of the farmers who owe money, and he declares that their debts have been reduced from the rough equivalent of "a million bazillion kajillion dollars" to something that maybe could be repaid.
The steward doesn't tell the farmers that he was fired any more than he tells them that the landowner didn't authorize any of this generosity. When the landowner comes for his customary visit to pick up the wealth the steward has collected for him, he gets a surprise that is both exhilarating and challenging:
The streets for miles before he reaches the estate are lined by cheering farmers. They're shouting his name, telling him he's a hero. He finds out (probably when he arrives at the estate house) what the steward has done in telling the farmers that the landowner forgave their debts. Now he has a choice to make.
The landowner can go outside to the assembled crowd -- the people shouting blessings upon him and all his family -- and tell them that it was all a terrible mistake and that the steward's generosity was an act of crookedness or he can go outside and take in the cheering of the crowd. He can take credit for the steward's actions, in which case he'll continue to take in the acclaim of the farmers, but he'll have to take the steward back.
In the end the rich man and the steward go from scumbags to heroes. And when the steward retires he can be sure that the farmers will gladly take him in even if the landowner won't.
So what are we to learn from this story?
Well, first of all, I notice that the unjust steward is in need of forgiveness, which he most certainly does not deserve! His boss is mad at him because he’s not turning the maximum profit and the sharecroppers are mad at him for collecting too much!
This man is stuck between a rock and a hard place! But, ultimately, he is fired by his boss and having nowhere else to turn, he runs back to the very people who have been the recipients of his mobster mentality in the past!
As human beings prone to sin, we know how this man feels, right? Sometimes in this world we “get in trouble” for not doing enough or we get in trouble for doing too much…We can never seem to please everybody--or anybody. We do the best we can and in the words of a poster found in one of Mother Teresa’s orphanages, “we may still get kicked in the teeth.” We try to do good, but evil is ever present around us? Right?
In the case of sin—whether big or small, known or unknown, purposeful or accidental, done or undone—we all need forgiveness…
As Lutherans we affirm this every Sunday at the start of our services when we pray, “Most merciful God, we confess that we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name. Amen.
In today’s scripture, we are reminded that we usually get what we dish out! The manager was in need of forgiveness. And in order to attain it, he offered forgiveness to others!
He went back to those who owed his former boss money and he forgave a percentage of their debt. We don’t know what percentage he forgave. Perhaps he was really minimizing the actual bill. It is more likely, however, that he was only cutting out his OWN take of the haul. Regardless, by offering forgiveness to the sharecroppers, he received their forgiveness AND ultimately the forgiveness of his boss who was able to collect more of the debt than he had ever dared to dream.
I don’t think that we can praise the unjust steward for being so dishonest. But, Jesus does praise him for realizing that forgiveness was the key to his dilemma. Jesus further praises him for realizing that money isn’t everything…indeed, you can’t serve God and wealth.
In the case of the unjust steward he learned that to serve God means to extend love and forgiveness to those in need of it.
The unjust steward needed grace. The indebted farmers needed grace. And in the end even the rich man was in need of forgiveness, love, and grace from those whom he had oppressed for he had “trampled the needy, and brought to ruin the poor of the land (Amos 8).”
I love the words of Pastor Sarah who says that the moral of this parable is, “FORGIVE. Forgive it all. Forgive it now. Forgive it for any reason you want, or for no reason at all…It boils down to the same thing: deluded or sane, selfish and/or unselfish, there is no bad reason to forgive. Extending the kind of grace God shows us in every possible arena -- financial and moral -- can only put us more deeply in touch with God's grace.
There may be someone in your life whom you have been having trouble forgiving. There may be someone in your past that does not deserve your grace. But, hear the words of he Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us!”
Forgiveness is always in order and grace is always appropriate. As we extend love and grace to others, it will boomerang back into our own lives in ways that we could never imagine. This is a God-principal and a spiritual law of the universe—put another way, “what you sow, you will reap!” Therefore, let us serve God, being faithful over little, as we reject worship at the altars of money and unforgiveness, setting ourselves truly free to worship GOD in spirit and in truth!
My friends, there is freedom for all, when we choose to forgive!
In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.
INVITATION
If you have questions about how to become a friend and follower of Jesus, please see the devotion entitled, “Come to Jesus” @ http://bit.ly/JVhaLta
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