September 22, 2019

 September 22, 2019   Luke 16:1-13   1 Timothy 2: 1-7          Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

            This week Luke continues his barrage of difficult Gospels with one of the most confusing parables of all time.  Parables are supposed to make us think and if we don’t let ourselves get too overwhelmed, we can start to ask some questions.  What are some questions you have when you read this parable?  ___________What did the manager do to make the landowner take notice that something wasn’t right?  Who is connected with dishonest wealth—the landowner for charging interest or taking advantage of the debtors, the manager for taking what wasn’t his, or the debtors for not paying what they owed?  And who decides?  Who does the landowner represent?  The manager?  And who are the debtors?  Are any of these God, Jesus, and the people or do they represent someone else?  What does the part beginning in verse 9 have to do with the rest of the Gospel?  Finally, what does it all mean?  So many questions!

            Let me begin by saying, we can’t answer all the questions and the fun of parables is that as many times as we read it, we will hear something different.  So enjoy the confusion and the open space Jesus leaves us with this story to see ourselves and our world in a different light. 

            Since you called me here, with my education and experience, to shed some light, let me share with you where I went with this, this week.  I think Jesus told a parable, maybe even something very like what we have in front of us.  We won’t understand everything because our context is so different from his.  Then Luke took a bunch of Jesus’ sayings that he didn’t know where to put and tacked them on to this gospel at the end.  This list of sayings at the end (make friends by dishonest wealth, whoever is faithful in a little is faithful in much, no one can serve two masters) These sayings may or may not reveal something about the main parable, but they are worth exploring on their own.

            I think it is easiest to put ourselves in the place of the debtors.  We owe everything to God who gives us every good gift.  We could never repay the crushing debt we owe.  We are helpless.

            The landowner may be our impression of who God is or how Luke’s audience saw God , the Creator of all good things, the one who makes the food we eat, provides for our every need, comforts us when we are afraid, and leads us to new life.  So of course, we owe a huge debt to God. 

            Which makes Jesus the manager, who slashes our debt, and takes the heat, and get’s fired from his job, dying on the cross to reconcile us to God.  We might struggle with Jesus as the manager because the manager is described as dishonest.  However Jesus died for breaking laws that the pharisees put in place, or at least the ways they interpreted God’s laws.  Jesus was executed as a criminal because he committed crimes such as touching and raising dead people, not denying he was God’s Son, the Messiah, encouraging people to question whether they should pay taxes or not and who they owed their allegiance to, and for healing on the Sabbath. We don’t like to think about Jesus breaking laws, but he did, because he was aligned with God’s laws that encouraged God’s values, rather than human laws that enforced human values.  It was less that he was dishonest than that he disobeyed unjust laws.

            We might also struggle with Jesus as the prodigal—the wasteful one.  But that’s what he is.  He is like the farmer who is planting the seeds all over the place, on the path, in the brambles, in the rocky soil.  He is seen by those in power and even the Disciples as being wasteful with his time—he spends it with women and children and tax collectors and centurions and lepers and Samaritans and criminals.  He is wasteful with God’s love, in some people’s opinion—he offers it to everyone: blind people, dead people, people who are divorced 5 times, people with evil spirits or epilepsy or whatever is going on.  He’s wasteful with forgiveness—slashing debts, not 20%, not 50%, but 100%.

            This manager slashes the debt, and gets commended for being “shrewd.”  Shrewd isn’t that nice a word in our language, but in the original it means more wise or understanding.  I agree that this manager is wise, because he takes this awful situation and makes it one that brings people together.  He is very creative.  He not only thinks of himself, but he thinks of the landowner and he thinks of the debtors, and he weaves a safety net between all parties, creating community and goodwill.  When we translate this to Jesus, we know that he unites heaven and earth into one Kingdom of God and here we celebrate this reality at the table of grace, the table of generosity, the table of the wasteful, criminal Jesus, who broke the law to reveal the ridiculousness of our divisions and the silliness of our worship of wealth, and weaves us together in one communion.

            Here it is from a slightly different angle.  This parable is one of a broken humanity, divided by wealth—literally the haves and the have nots.  In this situation most of us are landowners, although we are probably also in debt.  The manager is stuck in the middle.  He’s accountable to the landowner to watch over his interests, but he also feels the pressure of the debtors and has compassion on them.  So when he is accused of skimming off the top, he knows he has to act fast.  Amazingly, he keeps his calm and uses his creativity to build community and a little more equality into this situation.  I think that it is creativity and relationship-building that are commended here.  It may not be exactly on the up and up, lawful or right according to human laws, but it accomplishes God’s laws that point out we are all brothers and sisters who need to be freed from oppression and divisions to be in community.  So now we can consider we can be freed from our division from the poor or rich or those different from us?  How can we distribute our wealth and find renewed power and freedom in relationships and love?  That’s part of the reason the church helps to separate us from our money—money isn’t our god and it isn’t worth the worry and fear and power we give it, but it can sure help feel the poor and make their lives easier.

            This parable is about power.  Money has been the most powerful force up until this moment in this parable.  The landowner has been gathering it to himself.  The debtors are crushed by the lack of it.  The manager has the perspective of the two sides and sees more of the complete picture.  He has compassion on both.  And he knows a greater power, which is the power of relationship, also known as love.  If he’s going to lose his job, he will lose his income, and he’s going to need a power stronger than money, and that is friendship and love.  So he does the thing that will grant him friendship, but not only him, also for the landowner, and also for the debtors.  How can we creatively use the power of relationship to build the Kingdom of God?

            I learned this week that the word for dishonest wealth is more like unjust, so it’s about unjust wealth.  Wealth is tainted by the people and land that have been exploited to bring it to the wealthy.  I know when I received a Lily grant to take my sabbatical 4 years ago, it crossed my mind that this money I received was tainted by the high cost of prescription drugs that the Eli Lily company makes.  I was benefitting because of unjust wealth.  This parable commends those who take unjust wealth and use it to ease the suffering of people in need.  It’s kind of a Robin Hood situation.

            In both my interpretations this week, Jesus or love is the manager, the middle man.  1 Timothy, too, names Jesus as the mediator.  He calls on us to pray for everyone, even kings and those in high positions, who are not beyond help in their obsession with wealth and power, but who may learn to use their powers for the good of the whole realm or community, and be freed from all that constrains and separates them.

            We who are relatively wealthy do not know where our food comes from, or our clothing, for the most part.  We are ignorant of who suffers so that we can live in luxury.  But God is calling for an accounting, and the rich have responsibility to bridge the divisions and inequalities between us, just as Jesus who is rich in mercy takes action to weave us all into one community.  But Jesus even slashes our debt, those of us who are relatively well off, and teaches us to be creative in the ways we share the gifts we have to build community.  Let us focus on the true riches, relationship with God and with all God’s people and all God’s Creation and be thankful for the gift of God’s mercy, making us all brothers and sisters, heirs with Christ and workers together in the Kingdom of God.