Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
August 4, 2002
Luke 16: 1-8
This is a hard one. Why would Jesus tell such a story? Why does he make the hero of his story this man who clearly was a dishonest cheat – a shrewd scoundrel who feathered his own nest at the expense of the man who trusted him. And, as if that isn’t bad enough, Jesus then appears to suggest that this dishonest manager is a model for the life of faith. Whatever lesson he is teaching here, I’m not sure I want my children to learn it. This particular parable should probably come with an “R” rating. One colleague writes, “This parable is a mess. It’s filled with dishonesty, deal cutting, confusion, conniving, and vindication.” Well, ready or not, let’s take a closer look the story.
We see a manager being fired by his master, a rich landowner, for “squandering his property.” The landowner has tenants who work the land and then pay him a fixed portion of the crop to be grown. But the landowner does not do the collection himself. He has an agent, a manager, who looks after these affairs for him. It would seem that this manager has been taking a little extra off the top or under the table, falsifying accounts, cooking the books – he could have been a CEO in a corporation today. But now he has been caught and quickly dismissed. “You can no longer be my manager.” Interestingly he offers no defense. New Testament scholar, Kenneth Bailey, points out that this is supremely significant in a Middle Eastern setting. The manager confesses his guilt by saying nothing.
Much as I said last week with the parable of the mustard seed, it would be nice if the story ended right here. Man cheats, man is caught, man is punished. Issue resolved, end of story. Dishonesty does not pay. But, as always seems to be the case, Jesus has a little more to say and the story continues.
Instead of looking back over what he has done, the manger quickly looks ahead. What can he do? How to guarantee that he will still be able to make a living and that “people will still welcome me into their homes.” He begins to hatch a plan that will enable him to salvage his public image and ensure future employment. He calls in his master’s debtors, asks them one by one how much they owe, then proceeds to significantly reduce their debt, right then and there. “You say you owe a hundred jugs of olive oil to my master? Now you owe fifty.”
Note that he still acting as the master’s manager. The community does not yet know he has been fired. He is legally powerless to do what he is doing, so he must act quickly, before the master finds out. And what he is doing is decreasing everyone’s debt. The debtors, of course, assume he is speaking for the master, so they are thrilled. What incredible generosity. Their debt to the master has just been reduced significantly. “Dear Mr. Nelson: We have decided, since you have been so faithful with your payments and are such a good guy, that we are going to cut the remainder of your car payment in half. Love, The Ford Motor Company.”
Right…like that is ever going to happen! But this is precisely what the manager does. You might say he cheats his now former master one more time. But, of course, now the entire village thinks he is a great guy for bringing this wonderful news and they think his master is an even greater guy for being so generous! The glasses are already being raised in his honor down at the local watering hole. And in the process, the dishonest manager accomplished what he wanted to do –he has secured his future in the village. Even after the world learns he has been fired, he’ll have someplace to go. And he can be pretty confident that his master, who is now being hailed as the model of generosity, will no doubt have to accept what happened. He’ll have no choice. He’ll have to eat his losses because he dares not risk turning joy in the village into anger by insisting that everything the manger did was null and void. He would then be vilified and cursed by his neighbors for his stinginess, for taking back what they believe he has so generously given.
So what happens when the master learns what his fired manger has done in his name? “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly….” He has been cheated by this manager; he has been put in a position where he can never get his money back and still maintain his place in the community. And in response to this seeming outrage, he commends the one who has cheated him. What is going on here? Is Jesus telling us that “dishonesty is the best policy?” – that cheating is okay as long as you can get away with it? What is going on here? To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I know! But I do know this: late Friday night I began to understand why many preachers do not preach on this text! Where do we go with this?
As I think about this challenging parable, I find myself returning to the words, “because he had acted shrewdly.” I don’t know what comes to your mind when you hear a person described as “shrewd.” I suspect, more often than not, it has negative connotations; it describes a person who is on the shady side of honest. But preaching professor, Ronald Allen, points out that in the world of Jesus, shrewdness could be more positive. In his words, “A shrewd person could be clever, insightful, prudent, even wise.” The manager is confronted with a crisis. He comes up with a rather bold, creative and imaginative way of dealing with that crisis. So imaginative, in fact, that the very one who was cheated feels moved to commend him.
Could it be, wonders Professor Allen, that this shrewd manager is indeed a paradigm – a model – for faithfulness in life today? Could it be that Jesus lifts up this rather unsavory character as an example because people of faith need a measure of his boldness, creativeness, imagination, and risk-taking in today’s world? This sleazy guy as a model for faithfulness? Seems pretty far-fetched…or does it?
As I reflect on the ministry of Jesus, it seems to me there is always a sense of urgency. In his presence, people are always confronted with a choice. Are you with me or against me? The Kingdom of God is coming into your midst even as I speak. The time for making a decision about that Kingdom is now. Don’t wait, don’t even take time to pack a suitcase; in one instance he even says don’t take time to bury the dead! Now is the time for decision; now is the time for bold, decisive action in my name!
I like this summary by William Willimon of Duke University: “A kind of reckless, bold, risky action is being commended here. I don’t think we as church people perform that sort of action very well. You have to love Jesus for telling a story like this to people like us, for poking at us a bit, we who have been confronted by the very kingdom of God yet still plod along in our accustomed ruts. How do you get people out of their ruts? How do you get people to move, and move decisively? Maybe one way is to tell them a story that challenges them, that calls into question how they have lived their lives and asks them, ‘What are you willing to risk in order to be present for the Kingdom of God?’”
It would be nice if Jesus would comment on the morality or immorality of the manager. This could then be a nice neat tale of right and wrong that we could tell our children when they went to bed at night. But in this instance Jesus doesn’t seem all that concerned with moral questions. Perfection and purity are not the issue here. In fact, perfection and purity are seldom very important for Jesus.
No, to say it again, I believe that what interests him is bold, decisive action taken in a moment of crisis, of urgency. That is what he wants from us. Is he saying we can go out and cheat each other? Of course not. But he is challenging the church and each of us to get out of our familiar, comfortable ruts; to set our sails and catch the new wind of justice and mercy and faith. “Take some risks in my name,” he says, “there is more to the life of faith and church life than institutional self-concern. Worry less about the budget (there is blasphemy!) and worry more about how you are sharing the hope of the Gospel each and every day.”
In the end, the dishonest manager is commended. It truly is a surprising, disrupting way to end the story. But I suspect that is exactly what Jesus wants to do – to surprise and disrupt us. For the advent of the reign of God is just that – surprising and disruptive; an old world is being turned upside down as a new world is being born. Maybe our situation is really not all that different from that manager’s. Now is the time for decision; bold new action is called for. Nothing less – nothing less will do.
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