September 19, 2022

 Today's Gospel reading is about a lot of things, but today I want to focus on power. This is one of the most difficult parables that Jesus told, and Luke doesn't really explain very well what Jesus meant. So then after the parable it looks like several authors tacked on a bunch of other sayings or explanations, including “You cannot serve God and wealth.” 

Another difficulty comes with translation. The word for wealth here is “dishonest wealth.” “You can't serve God and dishonest wealth.” 

Then there is the contradiction that the master commended the dishonest manager and later when the Gospel reads “whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.”  Dishonesty gets commended and rebuked in the same reading!

Some have said that the manager was caught between the land owner and the debtors, with the landowner always wondering if the manager was doing a good job and the debtors always resentful that the manager was squeezing every last penny out of them. So when the manager lost his job, he had to think of something to help himself. He slashed the debt, so he would at least have some friends among the debtors. The debtors all threw him a party. So when the landowner showed up, everyone was thanking the landowner for his generosity, as well and suddenly everyone loved the rich landowner, too. So rather than get mad or heap the debt back on, the landowner just thanked the steward. He was so rich that he wouldn't even miss that money the manager slashed. Maybe the rich man learned that friendship and relationships are more important than money and eking out every little drop he could get from those debtors.

The reading becomes slightly clearer when placed in context, surprise, surprise! If you don't understand something from the Bible, it can often be helpful to read what comes before it and what comes after it. Just before this reading is the story of another person who squandered or wasted his property, and that is the prodigal son. In the story of the Prodigal Son, though, the father is waiting with open arms for his son to return home and forgives him and throws him a party. 

In this parable, today, the rich man is waiting in judgment over his steward. He doesn't even let him defend himself. He's already made up his mind that his steward is guilty.

Jesus is telling both of these stories in the midst of the Disciples and Scribes and Pharisees and the tax collectors and sinners. He tells them to the Disciples. They are close to Jesus. They have power because of that, whether they realize it or not. Sometimes they are able to heal people or cast out demons. Sometimes they just want to make sure their special relationship, their power in relationship to Jesus gets them a front row seat in the heavenly kingdom. Jesus is giving them two examples of how power can be used.

He's telling the Pharisees and Scribes who also have power and need to use it well. He's telling it to the tax collectors because they are often like the steward or manager, stuck in the middle. He's encouraging them to be creative in their response and he's telling them that relationships are more important than money. And he's talking to the sinners, because they are the debtors and their debt is getting slashed. God cares about them. God treasures them and finds value in them, as we learned last week. God is forgiving.

We are powerful. On the one hand we can use our power to forgive and welcome and celebrate. On the other hand we can use our power to judge and condemn. Some of that power is financial. Many of us have enough money to be pretty comfortable. Some of it is our skin color. Most of us can drive down the street without constant fear of getting stopped by the police. We can get approval for our loan applications. We can get an Uber driver or an Air BNB. We don't realize the roadblocks that people with darker skin experience. Sometimes it's our gender. Sometimes it is our profession. Sometimes it's our height or language. We are powerful. We are privileged.

Now God is asking us—how will we use our power? How we use our power might partly depend on how we see God. Some see God as a stern judge. Others see God as a forgiving parent. Will we use our power to welcome and share that power, to look foolish and undignified, throwing a party and sharing our wealth and power, giving people second chances, not hiding our enthusiasm to be in relationship with them? Or will we use our power like this rich man, judging people, just trying to earn more money for himself, firing people and making their lives miserable, taking advantage of his debtors, the poor who are working the land?

Of course we do both. These days we can trample on the needy and never know it. We don't know the working conditions of the people who make our clothes. We try to buy things made in America, however many of us don't realize that most manufacturing in the US is prison labor, in effect, slave labor, for people who don't make but a few pennies for that work. We don't know where much our food comes from, what forests were cut down to grow it, who harvests it, or what the crop or fertilizer or pesticides do to the soil or the economy. One woman who shops for Backpack Buddies was saying that she started shopping at Walmart, because the lower prices meant she could serve 30% more kids. However, those kids might as well be the same kids who are receive the Backpack Buddies food each weekend, children of people who work at places like Walmart and can't make a living wage. 

We can pollute the earth and never know our personal part in it. We can drive past a person who is in desperate need and never see our own responsibility. We are blind to our own part, our own sin.

On the other hand we are faithful. We volunteer. We are generous. We are kind. We forgive. We welcome.

Now sometimes we are not in such a position of power. I have seen people treat seniors like little children. I have heard doctors talk about their patients as if they are not there in the room. We get ill. We lose our job. We have to give up most of our possessions and go into assisted living. Our driver's license gets revoked. We feel powerless to help our grown child who suffers from domestic violence, or alcoholism, or mental illness. There are plenty of times we are in the chair of the steward, losing our power or in the shoes of the debtors, powerless to do anything to help ourselves.

This story urges us to be creative. The manager could have told his boss to “Take this job and shove it!” He could have told him all the things that were wrong with him and his business. But he didn't burn that bridge. He asked himself what he would need going forward. He would need friends. What would be a way to make friends and make his boss look good? Cancel some debts. What power did he have and how could he use it to help himself and others?

We don't know what ultimately happens to this steward, just as we don't ultimately know what happens to the prodigal son. But they are both practical, eventually, and they both get commended. For them, the money was no longer there, the power was no longer there. That is true for all of us. No matter how powerful we are, we all face powerlessness. However, there are some kinds of power that last longer than others. Money is pretty short-lived and not very flexible. There are certain things you can't buy, such as true friendship. However, there are other kinds of power, such as the power of creativity that can help change a powerless situation into one of strength, and the power of relationships that can get us through hard times. The most powerful forces are not money or possessions. They are the power of love, the power of compassion, the power of relationship.

That's what God wants for us, to guide us into life-giving relationships of compassion.