September 25: The Parable of the Shrewd Manager

The Parable of the Shrewd Manager

Jesus told his disciples:  There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions.  So he called him in and he asked him:' what is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management because you cannot be manager any longer.'  The manager said to himself what shall I do now?  My master is taking away my job, I'm not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg - I know what I'll do so that when I lose my job here people will welcome me into their houses.  So he called in each one of his master's debtors.  He asked the first, 'how much do you owe my master?' Nine hundred gallons of olive oil, he replied. The manager told him, take your bill, sit down quickly and make it four hundred and fifty.  Then he asked the second, and how much do you owe? A thousand bushels of wheat he replied, take your bill, sit down quickly and make it eight hundred.'  The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.  For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of light.  I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.  Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.  So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?  And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?  No one can serve two masters.  Either you will hate one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and money.
(TNIV Luke 16:1-13)

Well, if this parable prevents us from anything it is reductionist thinking and the temptation to moralize the story as we are so often eager to do - especially when we are telling stories to children.  We have here an anti- hero - a manager who is about to get fired from his job for wasting the master's possessions and he must make his final accounting before the end of his last shift.  He is obviously somewhat self aware - he knows he is not strong enough for manual labour and he is too proud to beg; from now on he will only get by on the relationships he has in the community.  Recognizing this the manager calls in the debtors and in an attempt to build some good will, he reduces their debts.  We are left to wonder who is absorbing the loss here - is it the manager or is it the master?  Whose money is this to give away? Is this and has this always been at the discretion of the manager?  Does it matter?  The view that he is forgoing any commission is certainly a more generous view of the manager's character but the truth is - we don't know.  The clock is ticking the books need to be reconciled - the suspense is building.  What will happen when the master finds out he has done this?  Will he destroy his reputation and his chances for future work?  Will the master require that he pay back any losses?  No!  What happens is a rather surprising plot twist: the master commends the manager for being shrewd.  At last he is using his wits to do business, it is commendable.  This is a generous response by the master - he sends this man on his way with some encouraging words - 'well done!' There are some clear connections between this parable and the lost son which preceeds this: both have a master/father and a subservient manager/son; in both parables there is a squandering of resources and in both cases there is a generous response by the master/father at the end of the story. What feels a little sticky about this parable is that clearly the manager is acting out of his own self interest.  He does not appear repentant for any mismanagement and is now acting only to save his reputation and to buy his way into people's homes, perhaps even implicating them in the process.  And Jesus commends this - he says the people of this world are more shrewd with their own than the children of light.  In the message Peterson picks up and expands on it saying: "streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law abiding citizens.  They are smarter, on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be the same way - but for what is right - using adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you will live, really live and not complacently get by on good behaviour."

Perhaps the parable is illuminating a way for us to be in the world: smart, be generous and subversive for what we will receive is beyond any human accounting and outside any economy of exchange?  Perhaps there is a slightly ironic and sarcastic tone to these words that Jesus is speaking in verse 9: "And I tell you make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they make welcome you into eternal homes."(NRSV) Perhaps Jesus wants to disposses the disciples of any illusion that dissipating wealth in the hope of securing connections will give them any security or stability.  Getting at a central paradox in the scripture that letting go is the way to have and keeping is the way to lose.  That we must have faith in God to take care of us and thus echoing the exhortation to his disciples in chapter 12 saying: "do not worry about your life, about what you will eat; or about your body what you will wear.  Life is more than food and the body more than clothes... do not be afraid little flock, for your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.  Sell your possessions and give to the poor.  Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail... for where your treasure is there your heart will be also."

The truth is that mammon -  is our undoing - it always has been.  In verses 10 -13 Jesus is coming back to the first commandment - you shall have no other gods before you.  How many times has Israel had to re-learn this? And how much do we need to hear this today? It is a demanding teaching; it exposes us over and over again.  Mammon can own us in scarcity or abundance.  In its abundance it can inflate our sense of self; it can give us a false sense of security and confidence. In scarcity it can also leave us overcome by fear and feelings of inadequacy.  In both cases it can be the cause of great amounts of anxiety.  And yet when our lives are ordered, when God is our master we can find a way to live that is free and generous whether we have a lot or a little.

This is an interesting text to bring to children - how quickly they too acquire the love of things and how complicit we are in fostering this.  From very early on children are acculturated into excessive and expensive habits and it can be very difficult to disentangle ourselves from this cultural ill that threatens to distort the value of things and relationships.  As teachers and parents how can we find our way and then lead the way for our children?  How can we live in such a way that children don't just know that God's economy operates in a different paradigm but that they get to experience kingdom economics here and now?  How can we be good stewards of what we have been given; generous, smart and even subversive undermining the powers of this age and living into a lasting inheritance?

Or maybe children can teach us - have you ever seen how satisfied young children are with simple things?  We lived in an old house with lead glass at the top of the windows and when the sun would pass through rainbows would dance along the walls.  I cannot tell you how beautiful it was to see children delight in watching and counting rainbows on the wall.  Or maybe you remember how a child is utterly satisfied in being with one who loves them and having the attention of that person.  And maybe deep down we aren't that different.  And maybe it is for this reason that the kingdom of God belongs to children.

I am under increasing conviction that I cannot love God well; love God first; love God best unless I am practicing sabbath.  Unless I am carving out time and space to remember/discover who I belong to, who I am, then I am all too likely to be swept up in the scurry of the week, entangled in disordered priorities and as a result becoming a sloppy manager of what I have been given.  If I am learning to love God and ordering my life out of this I can't expect everything to fall into place or become easy.  In fact some things will become a lot more difficult.  The life of a follower of Christ is demanding - there is no way around this in the gospel. But how we live now matters deeply to God.  So as we live with wealth: the wealth of the kingdom and worldly wealth may God renew our vision for the kingdom of God beyond us and among us.

Lost and Found

My Mom is a pretty resourceful lady with a great talent for recovering things that other people have passed over or thrown out.  Very little was wasted in our home growing up and few things give my mom more satisfaction than finding practical uses for scrap fabric, or sanding down and refinishing a discarded piece of furniture. Her latest project was recovering two very dated reclining chairs; I was openly skeptical of the value of this endeavor but was once again proven wrong when we arrived this summer to see those chairs looking new and inviting in the living room.  And so it comes as little surprise that my mom is also a good thrifter.  This summer when we arrived in Comox she had a stack of books she had gathered on her travels.  At the top of the stack was a copy of Because of Winn Dixie; a touching and poignant story about a young girl named India Opal who was abandoned by her mother at three years of age, her itinerant preacher father, an orphaned dog and a the group of misfits who find one another and themselves along the way.  It is a brilliant little story because it touches so beautifully and truthfully on loss - India's mother does not come home, but India finds a home and a people and a way to live hopefully, even with her sadness.  At the end of the story this rag tag group of people: pinch faced Amanda, the rumoured witch Gloria Dump, Otis who is just out of jail, the orphaned Dog Winn Dixie, the town bullies, India Opal and her Dad are gathered up in old Gloria Dump's house eating egg salad sandwiches and enjoying music.  And sometimes I wonder if that isn't just the type of party that Jesus would show up at.

This theme of lost and found is the theme of our text for this week: the lost sheep and the lost coin.  This is a theme that runs all through scripture.  Think of Adam and Eve hiding from God and yet found by him, remember Cain murdering his brother in a jealous rage and wandering around trying to hide from God, or Jonah running from God and yet being found by Him in the belly of the whale. The story of God carries with it a God who pursues, who finds us, who reaches out to us where we are - hiding in deceit like Adam and Eve, wandering and deep in jealousy and anger like Cain, inside a whale in disobedience like Jonah.  Sometimes being lost is really dramatic and sometimes its a little more subtle, it's a disorientation; we have lost our way even when we seem so close. It is that experience of circling around a neighbourhood looking for the house you were meant to be at ten minutes ago, one you've been to before, knowing you are in the vicinity might help but the truth is - you are still lost.

Jesus tells these stories to two groups of people gathering around to hear him: those who are sinners and those who are teachers of the law and pharisees.  The pharisees are murmuring, muttering in the background - they are scandalized by Jesus, he is eating with sinners, with unclean people.  And cleanliness matters! Meals matter - they are an expression of worship - clean food, clean hands, clean plates, pure hearts - to eat with sinners is blasphemy.

And to this crowd of people Jesus tells three parables. The first is about a shepherd who leaves ninety nine sheep to go looking for one who is lost and then upon finding the one missing sheep, he throws it on his shoulders and hosts a party for friends and neighbours.  The grade three worship bulletin has a little section called "interesting facts" and there it states: a shepherd would not actually leave ninety nine sheep to go and look for one that is missing.  It certainly would be risky business to leave a flock to go and look for just one sheep who didn't have the sense to come home with the others.  Wouldn't it be better to cut your losses and return home with ninety nine?  Even if you left your flock in the care of other shepherds dangers were in the moors: wild animals, rocky crags and cliffs.  But it is a risk this Shepherd must take; he searches for the sheep - you can imagine him calling to the sheep, making noises to try and attract the sheep to him; looking and listening for any clues as to where the sheep might be.  And when the sheep is found he is full of JOY.  The kind of joy that God has when a sinner repents, comes home, is found.

Or what about the woman who turns her house over to find one coin, it clearly states she had nine others.  One coin - one denarius - one days wage and this woman could not afford to lose it. But finding this coin in a poorly lit house with dirt floors is a tall order.  You can imagine her sweeping or running her hand along the floor with one hand and holding the lamp in the other, her heart beating rapidly and her mind racing: where could it have gone, what did she do with it?  Have you ever lost something and felt that surge of adrenalin as you turned your house over, near tears, or called your Mom and asked her to pray that you find your wedding ring or something else of great importance? The woman persists until she finds that coin and when she does she gathers her neighbours and friends to celebrate with her and this little celebration is a glimpse of the celebration God will have at one sinner who is found, who turns to God.  There is a tenderness and an intimacy, something about being known, in these stories. We are all unique, we all have value and matter deeply to God: "O God you search me and you know me, you know when I sit and when I rise, you knit me together in my mothers womb, your eyes beheld my unformed substance." (Psalm 139)

And so back to that sticky matter of eating with sinners - Jesus is also talking about sharing the table with sinners.  Just like the Father in the story of the lost son (which follows the lost sheep and the lost coin).  The younger son doesn't feel worthy to come to the feast his father has prepared for him - he wants to eat with the servants, surely he does not deserve to be the guest of honour at such a lavish celebration. The older son doesn't want to share the table with his brother - after all why should the father throw a party for that scoundrel?  What did he ever do to deserve that?  All his brother did was come home after squandering his fortune.  And yet the Father welcomes both of them to the table, to the feast.  It is a wide and generous invitation for all of us sinners and saints.

It is a pretty incredible story that has become our own story of lost and found.

Let us return home, receive the embrace of the God of love & rejoice together!