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A Problematic Parable: Luke 16:1-‐13

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A Problematic Parable: Luke 16:1-‐13 D. BENSON SEPTEMBER 18TH, 2016 A Problematic Parable: Luke 16:1-13 The parable of the dishonest (literally ‘unrighteous’) manager is probably the biggest ‘problem child’ of all of Jesus’ parables. Here is a man who, upon hearing that he was about to be fired because he cheated his boss, proceeded to cheat his boss even more by systematically cooking the books. This guy is just about as self-centred as they come. Too proud for charity and to weak to do manual labour, he wheels and deals away a significant portion of the debts owing to curry favour with his master’s clients, hoping to receive their good will when he is kicked to the curb. The parable wouldn’t be so problematic if what came out of Jesus’ mouth was “Verily, I say unto you, surely cheaters such as this will one day find themselves cast into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” But that’s not what came out of his mouth. Instead the parable concludes with the words of the master praising his wily manager for his prudence and cleverness. Instead of judgment, the master says “way to go for knowing how to work the system to your own advantage”. What was Jesus’ thinking? No matter what we do with this parable, we just can’t make the manager come out good in any “Jesus and Kingdom” sense of the word. So, what shall we do with this parable? Let’s start by noting that this parable comes hot on the heals of a series of three parables which are essentially about God’s outpouring of devotion and love for his wayward people and kingdom joy that occurs when the lost are found. The next two parables, including this one, have to do with what needs to be done here and now to ensure that you get to participate in that kingdom joy when the time comes. The parable of the dishonest manager acts as a bridge between the prodigal (who also had “sQuandered” property), and the rich man and Lazarus (both begin with ‘there was a rich man who…’). And if this parable seems odd and confusing, just wait until next week when we get to the seemingly unfair one about the rich man and Lazarus. But by its very location, we can surmise that the parable has something to do with the order of the kingdom and how our expectations about how things work in God’s economy might differ a little from how they work in ours. There are a number of familiar elements of this parable, the most familiar are probably Jesus’ words with respect to loving both God and wealth. Simply put, ‘you can’t (Luke 16:13). Interestingly, Jesus warned people more about the love and use money than anything else. Truly he knew the disposition of the human heart! In this instance, the word for ‘wealth’ isn’t used often, but when it is, it is only Jesus who speaks them. And in every instance it refers to worldly goods – the stuff of this world. When people trust in earthly goods they simply can’t trust God, depend on God, or love God. Believers must learn to depend on God above all else (Matt 6:24). We do live in a world where there are rival systems that vie for our allegiance. The world does everything it can to secure our fidelity: companies have entire departments dedicated to customer service and customer retention, sports events claim the loyalty of Christians over corporate worship, churches compete with one another for members, and allegiance to certain economic systems claims our devotion over God’s kingdom justice. The bare bones reality 1 D. BENSON SEPTEMBER 18TH, 2016 is that the essential order of life, relationships, love, justice, existence itself, in the Kingdom of God stands entirely and completely on contrast to the ways of a fallen world. As much as we would like to have both in this post-modern world (the Kingdom and this world), we just can’t. And when we try we end up sacrificing bits and pieces of one or the other when these two kingdoms come into conflict. This isn’t to say that Jesus was against money itself. His ministry and that of his followers depended on the wealth and hospitality of others. However, Jesus knew that of all the things that could divide our devotion, money was the most dangerous. When we look at our world today, what is the biggest barrier to kingdom justice? Greed, which is the love of money in action. This parable also highlights the kinds of reversals that mark God’s Kingdom among us: the last will be first, the rich will be poor and the poor rich, the high brought low, the lost found, the outcast will be welcomed to the community. And like many of these kinds of parables, this one suggests a ‘reversal’ of the regular order of things. In this case, the dishonest manager is commended for using his situation of power to make friends for himself with those a little lower down the social ladder. He recognizes that he might need their help one day, and he does what he can to secure their good favour. Just as the Jew on the side of the road was forced to accept help from a Samaritan (Luke: 10:25-37)1, or the prodigal had to reconcile himself to swilling slop with the other lowlifes and then returning to his father’s house as a servant rather than a son, or his older brother who couldn’t join the party until he accepted his scoundrel of a brother (Luke 15:11-32), or the rich man who ignored Lazarus and then was forced to beg for his mercy (Luke 16:19-31), so this parable of the dishonest manager seems to suggest that social status in this world is fleeting, and status in the kingdom will look much different than it does here. This all points to a change of relationships. People find themselves blessed by unlikely relationships and unexpected friendships. And all of these instances where there is a great reversal of status embodies one of Jesus’ great commandments – ‘do to others as you would have them do to you’ (Luke 6:31). It stands to reason that one possible explanation for why the master praised the manger is that he recognized that this man may have been ashamed to beg or do manual labour, but he was wise enough to recognize that a great reversal of his fortunes was afoot and figure out that his status had evaporated. He was prudent enough to reach down the ladder for help, and to begin developing a new set of relationships with unlikely friends. I think there may be a lesson for the church here. We inhabit a church that desperately clings to a status long gone, but which hasn’t yet acknowledged the reality that the church 1 Usually when we study the parable of the Good Samaritan, we focus on the actions of the Samaritan in coming to this poor man’s rescue. However, eQually significant is the fact that the Jewish man who had been set upon by robbers was forced to accept help from an unlikely and normally unwanted source. Sure, the Samaritan broke out of his own religious and cultural circumstances in extending help to a man whose people had oppressed and judged him and forbidden him from worshiping in their temple, but the Jewish man had to adjust his judgments just as much by allowing an untouchable to touch him. 2 D. BENSON SEPTEMBER 18TH, 2016 in our society has been fired, kicked to the curb, and has been told not to come back. At the risk of being overly simplistic, perhaps one of the solutions to that problem is to reach a little further down the ladder and start developing new relationships with the people we find there… After all, didn’t Jesus come to save the lost, the poor, the outcast and the marginalized (Luke 19:10)? Finally, the master praised his unrighteous scoundrel of a manager for one more thing. The manager had foresight and a vision, and gave thought to how that vision of the future needed to shape his actions in the present. He perceived that he was about to be unemployed and figured that the only way he was going to make it was with the help of others. By reducing the outstanding debts, he took what he perceived as necessary risks to ensure that his future security was possible. I don’t think Jesus really wants to say that the ends justifies the means, or that one should do whatever it takes to realize your vision for the future. But perhaps part of Jesus’ point had to do with being commended for the ability to look ahead a little bit and take some risks. The church has a strong vision of the future Kingdom of God, and that future includes the potential of a pretty rocking kingdom celebration when even more people end up at God’s kingdom party. This vision should influence our present reality and shape the decisions we make now. Unfortunately, the church’s future vision seldom extends beyond the next budget year. Instead of looking ahead with joy, we are more like the manager who buries his talents in the ground because he is afraid of the future rather than anticipating the joy of it.
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