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Luke 16:1-13
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to the CommonsCast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. Today we have another parable and this one, well, it's a doozy.
Speaker 1:But first, let's look back at where we've been. We've been making our way through the travel narratives in Luke. And this is a section in this gospel characterized by Jesus' long journey toward Jerusalem. And the way he meets people and interacts with people, he heals people, he teaches people, and we've just been walking along with him observing. Last week, though, he told a parable and it's a pretty interesting one.
Speaker 1:The main character wants to have a party, but all of his invited guests are busy. Some of them have pretty lazy excuses. I just bought some ox and I need to test them out. I mean, really? Who buys their oxen unseen?
Speaker 1:That's the first rule of oxen acquisition. This is kindergarten stuff, my man. But others have better excuses. I just got married and I have plans this evening. I find that one slightly amusing.
Speaker 1:But frustrated, the host changes gears. He tells his servant to go out and to find some guests. Specifically, says, find the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame, and bring them to my table. And we should make a note here about language, I think. This is one of those moments where person centered language would probably be helpful.
Speaker 1:And we don't talk about the crippled or the lame or even the poor anymore because that tends to center a very specific part of that person's journey and thereby obscure the full spectrum of how they might themselves. But in the context here, these are very much symbolic categories for Jesus. These are those who have been cast aside, those who are not invited to tables like the one that he is sitting at when he tells this story. But the owner of the house isn't done yet, because even when those people are brought in, the house is still not yet full. And so the servant is sent out again, this time to the roads and the walls, hodos kai fragmus in Greek.
Speaker 1:But it's beyond the neighborhood, past the boundaries, out into the unexpected, beyond the walls that protect us to find even more people for this party. So there's this compounding sense of intensity in the tale. The host wants more and more people at the table. The guest list goes from those known to those ignored to those not even part of the community. The bidding goes from invitation to bringing them in to compelling them to come.
Speaker 1:And we can get too caught up on the language parsing out what every word means. This is a parable after all. And everything breaks down if you deconstruct it enough. But that sense of intensity, that sense of desperation, that sense of expanding imagination for what this party could become. All of that is very much part of this story.
Speaker 1:So we've got a packed house and a packed room and lots of food and wine and good times, but then the master says, I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet. And that can seem unnecessarily vindictive. I mean, remember, one guy was just on his honeymoon after all that evening. That was a good excuse. But a couple of things here.
Speaker 1:First, this is a parable. And in the parable, just like the replacement guests are representative categories, so is the initial guest list. These are the people who think they deserve to be invited without needing to respond or reciprocate or even take joy in that welcome. That is incredibly representative of Jesus' imagination of both judgment and his imagination of who deserves judgment. For Jesus, the wide road that leads to destruction is not something that God does to you.
Speaker 1:It's only ever something God desperately tries to save you from. Likewise, those that don't get to taste God's banquet in the story, they are not cast out. They're not pushed away. They were, after all, chased down and invited, welcomed, but instead refused to come. There are all kinds of times where I can look back and realize that I was invited and I refused my seat.
Speaker 1:And because of that, missed out. Maybe because I was selfish, maybe because I wasn't ready, maybe because I wasn't listening. But did God write me off or ignore me the next time? I'm here now, aren't I? Aren't you?
Speaker 1:And so, there are times that I have missed out on the blessing of God in my life, at parties, in conversations, in relationships many times over because I did not see God's invitation to me. Yet, as God has continued to invite me, as you have continued to offer me second chances, as we have found ways to slowly expand our imagination of all the ways God draws all of us together forward, Even in these moments when we have missed the banquet, please know there is another just around the corner. And you are once again invited. All right. Let's pray.
Speaker 1:And then today we've got a real doozy of a story to wrestle with together. God who invites us over and over again, who is sad when we miss out and refuse to come for all the joy that we don't get to experience in your presence? Would you remind us that we are always invited again and again? And do no matter how many times we have turned away and refused our seat, we can always come back to you. Your grace is infinite.
Speaker 1:Your welcome extensive. And we are part of that loving story. God, may that become the story with which we interact with each other around us all the time. Always extending welcome, always offering second chances, always ready to reconcile when the people near us are ready for that. God, if we need to hear that today, that we are welcome again and again and again, would your spirit be present to something deep inside of us, reminding us of just how loved we are.
Speaker 1:In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen. Okay. Today, we're jumping to Luke 16 for one of perhaps the least recognizable parables of Jesus. And why is it so unrecognizable?
Speaker 1:Well, largely because we're just not sure what to do with it. So, Luke 16, starting in verse one. Jesus told his disciples, there was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, what is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management because you cannot be my manager any longer.
Speaker 1:Now a couple things here. First, the word here is oikonomos, so think economist or maybe accountant. Although manager is probably actually the best word here to get the full meaning because this was basically someone who ran the household or ran the business for the owner. The oikonomia is where we get our word economy from, but it wasn't just money in the ancient world. It was that plus everything else that it took to live.
Speaker 1:By the way, reducing our economy to just money or GDP or interest rates and not broadening the conversation to include well-being and shared responsibility for each other. Fuzzy terms like happiness and what that might mean to us. This is actually a mistake. The oikuanamia is what it takes for us to flourish, not just the money it takes to purchase. But this manager gets called in by the owner because he has been wasting his possessions or literally here squandering his advantage.
Speaker 1:That's quite the image, isn't it? How do we think about our wealth? Is it something static that we hold on to and hoard? Is it something that provides us an advantage over someone else? Is it an opportunity for us to do something good and lasting in the world?
Speaker 1:I think the way we think about what we have goes a long way, subtly perhaps, to shaping how we act with what we have. But this manager has been doing his job and he's not been doing it well, and so he is getting fired. Verse three. The manager said to himself, what shall I do now? My master is taking away my job, and I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg.
Speaker 1:He says I'm lazy and I'm proud. And by the way, there's this neat play on words going on here. Strong is the word. Embarrassed or ashamed is the word. It's a different route, but it's likely meant to flow together here to show that he's got away with words.
Speaker 1:Fact, what I kind of picture in my mind here is is Loki, you know, from the Marvel movies without maybe the helmet and horns, of course. But that smooth talking character that finds a way to get his, that seems to be what's going on here and seems to bear itself out. He says to himself, I know what I'll do so that when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses. And he called in each of the master's debtors. He asked the first, how much do you owe my master?
Speaker 1:900 gallons of olive oil, he replied. The manager told him, take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it 450. Then he said to the second, how much do you owe? A thousand bushels of wheat, he replied. He told him, take your bill and make it 800.
Speaker 1:So he's basically reducing everyone's bill before he gets fired, not exactly leaving his employment on good terms. And yet, we read in verse eight that the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. Literally, the word here is just wise. But he continues, for the people of the world are more shrewd, again, wise, in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the 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.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, Jesus, what are you talking about here? How to win friends and influence people? This does not sound like particularly Jesus y advice. So let's take a look at what might be happening here in this story. First of all, we need to note that this comes immediately before and after two other passages.
Speaker 1:Immediately before this is the parable of the prodigal son. Another story, this time about a son who squanders, same word as here, the wealth of his benefactor in that story, his father. And then right after this parable, Jesus offers a teaching where he says, no one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Speaker 1:Interesting way to follow this story. But I think a lot of our confusion really comes down to this particular line. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. And there's a few approaches to this parable that attempt to wrestle this strange saying to the ground. So let's look at some of those, and then we'll talk about how I think Jesus might intend this.
Speaker 1:Well, the first approach is to essentially just ignore it. There are a group of scholars who just say, look, this does not sound like Jesus, so it must not be from Jesus. Maybe someone attributed it to Jesus. Maybe Luke just made it up. Maybe he misheard Jesus.
Speaker 1:But it seems out of character for Jesus, so let's just ignore it. And there can actually be something helpful here, I think. I think I think when you come across scriptures that you don't know how to deal with, it can seem disconcerting or damaging to your faith in that moment, it can be okay to just move on. You don't need to understand everything right away. Sometimes some things take time.
Speaker 1:Sometimes they take conversation. Sometimes they take study and research and work to figure out them in their context. One of the beautiful parts of community is that we can together enable some of us, like myself and our teaching team here, to do that kind of research and study and synthesis on our behalf. So I think it's okay to leave a scripture and come back for it later, to trust that the way of Jesus will bring you back around to new understandings. But in terms of this approach to discarding this parable outright, that that's tough for me.
Speaker 1:Because truth is we only know the historical Jesus through the accounts of the gospel writers. And the gospel writers thought this story was consistent with the Jesus that they were much closer to. To. So it seems strange to me to accept Luke's portrayal of Jesus until we don't accept his portrayal of Jesus. So I'm inclined to keep digging.
Speaker 1:A second approach is to key off verse eight in the story. The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly or, again, literally just wisely. And here, the choice is to see the manager in the story as the hero because he is ingenious, not necessarily because of the specific actions that he takes. I like the way that William Barclay outlines this approach. He writes, the lesson is that if only Christians were as eager and ingenious in their attempts to attain goodness as others are in their attempts to attain money and comfort, they would be much better people.
Speaker 1:If only we would give as much attention to the things which concern our souls as we do to the things which concern our business, we would be much better human beings. So Barclay's reading is that Jesus is not endorsing the manager's actions at all. He said he's comparing the manager's hustle to our comparative lack of hustle when it comes to goodness. And if that's what we take away from the story, I I think that's a good lesson. Put all that you've got into becoming the best, most gracious, most generous version of yourself.
Speaker 1:Work as hard pursuing goodness as some people do riches. I like that. But but it still doesn't totally make sense for me of Jesus' words in the next verse. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves. That that just keeps throwing me off.
Speaker 1:So the third way of dealing with the story is as an antiparable. If you notice, Jesus never actually says that this is a parable of the kingdom or a parable about God. Often, he will say something like the kingdom of God is like before he begins, but this time he just kind of rolls into a story. And it's a story that seems to be about a bunch of bad people. Obviously, the manager seems to defraud his boss and the customers seem to knowingly change their records when given the opportunity, but even the master here, there's a hint that everything may not be above board there either.
Speaker 1:In Jewish law, you are not allowed to charge interest on loans if you were dealing with another Jewish person. That finds its roots in Deuteronomy 23. Now, you could charge a fee for a loan or a fee for the work in setting up a loan as long as that fee was fair, but interest was forbidden so that people didn't find themselves trapped or perpetually stuck in a debt that they couldn't fully manage or understand. Well, one of the ways that people would get around this was to essentially charge interest in kind. So I'll loan you X number of dollars, but you'll pay me back an oil worth far more than what you're borrowing.
Speaker 1:Maybe that gets around the technicality of the letter of the law, but it certainly is not the spirit of it. And given the seemingly hyperbolic levels of debt in the story owing 900 gallons of olive oil or 1,000 bushels of wheat. These may be exaggerated numbers to indicate this is just this type of arrangement. And in that case, then maybe the whole point of the story may be that all of these people are corrupt. Indeed, all of us are corrupt.
Speaker 1:And the point of the story comes only after the story when Jesus adds in verse 13 that no one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money after all. In other words, everything from verse one all the way through to verse 12, all of this is about describing a corrupt imagination of what is good based entirely on money. In this reading, when Jesus says, I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, you have to read this not in Jesus' mouth, but in the voice of the business owner who basically says, yep, I'm corrupt, but you pulled a fast one on me, so good for you.
Speaker 1:Now you understand the way of the world, the way that even God operates. And to that, Jesus says, no, that's not it. And then I like that. I think I think there are moments where Jesus parables dig in deeper than we imagine, that he pulls us along on a thread only to pull the rug out from under us at the last second. Sometimes that's the only way we really see what's hidden from us.
Speaker 1:It takes a twist ending. And again, I think if you take that lesson from this story, I think that makes sense. And yet, I'm I'm not fully satisfied with that. I wonder if there might be still more here for us. And ironically, it's actually this third approach that begins to open the door a crack for me.
Speaker 1:See, I wonder if it's possible that the master is not as commendable as we imagine. Remember, think I think our bias, certainly the bias in the ancient world, was to assume that wealth meant virtue. But that does not seem to be Jesus' paradigm. But if that's the case and he's dishonest and I go back and I read again, I see the manager being accused of wasting the master's possession or, as we said, more literally in Greek, squandering his advantage. And I ask myself, well, what does that mean?
Speaker 1:Well, I think it might mean that his wealth is not just a neutral. Perhaps it's something that he holds above another, something he has weaponized against his neighbors, which, incidentally, is exactly why Torah forbids usury. And if that's the case, perhaps the question here isn't whether the manager is bad at his job. Perhaps the question is whether the manager has been willing to go along with the schemes of his wealthy master. Imagine this.
Speaker 1:Imagine working for a company that you know is dishonest. An employer who you know is ripping off clients, a business that asks you to manipulate your customers rather than serve them well. What happens if you act justly in that employee? Perhaps you get called in and told that you are squandering an advantage. And in that case, what are you going to do?
Speaker 1:Perhaps what you do is you call in the clients and you determine with them what they really should owe, and you use what power you have left in that moment to right what has been done wrong to them. You use worldly wealth. The Greek here is actually dishonest wealth. The adjective is adikaios, which is actually the negative prefix in front of the word righteous. So it's literally this.
Speaker 1:Use unrighteous wealth to gain friends for yourself so when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. In other words, if you know that someone has been manipulated or coerced or ripped off and defrauded even by your own employer and you have the opportunity to use that dishonest wealth to make things right, to pay them back, to demonstrate love, to follow the way of Jesus in kindness and friendship and thereby find yourself on the way of Jesus, welcomed by Jesus, then what's stopping you from doing it? In fact, Jesus says in doing this, you might actually wake the conscience of those near you. If you if you challenge your boss and point to a better way forward, even at great cost to yourself, you may lose your job. And it would be worth it.
Speaker 1:But maybe maybe they'll actually say, you know, you're right. You're honest. You're true. You're trustworthy. You are wise.
Speaker 1:Because, again, that's what the story says here. The Greek is the word, is almost always translated wise, not shrewd. In fact, the only reason to use shrewd is to kind of make this sound a little sneaky in English, which granted the story does on first reading. Phronimos is the same word used in the Septuagint to translate chokhmah from the Hebrew, which is the wisdom that enables one to navigate life well. See, I wonder if what's happening is that we come up against a hard parable and we try to massage it to make it make more sense to us.
Speaker 1:And in that, we move away from the plain reading of Jesus' words. And in that, we actually begin to lose sight of him. A wealthy man called in his manager one day and said, What's this I hear about you squandering my advantage? You can't be my manager unless you're willing to play by my rules. So the manager thought to himself, I'm already implicated in the guilt of my boss.
Speaker 1:If I'm fired, who's ever going to trust me again? I know what I'll do to repair my relationships. I'll call in his clients and I'll find out what they really owe. I'll make it right. I'll make it fair.
Speaker 1:And then maybe they'll give me another chance. And so he did. But when he did, the owner came back and realized what he had done and he looked again at himself and he said, maybe you're more wise than I realized. See, used to think that the people of my world were more wise than you with your bleeding heart for all the poor, but maybe I was wrong. Therefore, I tell you, use dishonest wealth to make things right, not to enrich yourself, but to turn the page on a new story.
Speaker 1:For if you do, you will discover the way of Jesus, and you will find yourself welcome eternally. No one can love to master. So, choose wisely, child. May we be honest with ourselves, so that we can be honest with each other, so that we can all of us play our part in returning justice to those who've been injured by our greed. And in this, may even our participation in the economy that surrounds us bring light and love to those who need it this week.
Speaker 1:May it, may we always point to an alternative way in the world, the way of Jesus. Let's pray. God, we recognize that all of us are implicated in the injustice that surrounds us, the systems, structures. Paul calls them the principalities and powers of this world. And we have, at times, turned a blind eye and gone along with things that were not right.
Speaker 1:Perhaps they benefited us, but not another. And we took advantage of that. Maybe we were afraid of the cost of it. Maybe we were afraid of what someone might say. Maybe we just didn't know how to push back against the system.
Speaker 1:And yet, God, as you continue to invite us to your table, as you continue to show us what grace and peace looks like in the world, may we slowly discover the way of Jesus. Be willing to do the right thing, to follow Jesus even if it costs us something. Trusting that the goodness of that path has something about it that's magnetic, that it can wake people up, can open their eyes, it can help them see a new way forward, even if we don't think they can ever change. May we believe that you are as beautiful as you say that you are. That when we follow you, you will draw unexpected people toward you.
Speaker 1:May we be your representatives this week in this world. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen.