Luke
16:1-3
We are in that place in the gospel of Luke,
where we are awash in the parables of Jesus.
You might remember that the
thing about parables is that they frequently begin with every day, recognizable
situations for the people of Jesus’ time. They begin with life as they -or we-
know it, and end with visions of life as God intends it to be, the life that
is, even now, coming to fruition through Jesus. But due to their peculiar
nature, parables can be challenging to interpret and understand.
Such is the case with the Parable of the Unjust Steward,
known as the most difficult parable to understand. I’m sure you can see why.
The parable begins with a common scene in the world of
Jesus and his friends. There is a manager who works for a rich man. This
manager, or steward, is responsible for managing the affairs of the rich man.
Somehow, justified or not, charges have been made that this manager is not only not doing a good job but that he is in fact “squandering” the rich man’s property. Squandering means not making the most of
the resources; it sometimes involves failing to either protect or grow the value of the investment.
The rich man, who does care
about his investment, lets the guy know he’s going to sack him. “You need to
turn over the books and leave.”
There are a couple of things to remember about the social
world of Jesus’ time. The first is that by
and large there are two classes. There are the very rich and there are the
very poor.
The second thing to know is that this is an
honor/shame society, meaning that a hierarchy existed that undergirded all of
life, and within this hierarchy, honor
was the currency of the time. Honor was
as real a commodity as gold or silver or the most valuable spice, and was
treasured at least as much. The higher the status you had, the more honor
and therefore the more power you held.
A system of patronage operated, where people of higher
status, like landowners and merchants, could act as “patrons” to those lower
down the ladder of status, like craftsmen, by hiring them to provide goods and
services; they could choose to act charitably on those on the lower rungs, thus
earning both honor and favor. Everybody owed somebody something and a delicate
balance of favor and reciprocity was maintained.That's an important point to remember: everybody owed somebody something.
In his role as manager, the main character in this
parable has benefited from this hierarchy. But that is all about to change. “What will I do now that my master is taking the position away from me?”
This isn’t a simple, “will I be able to collect
unemployment?” kind of question.
It’s more like a kind of, “how will I live?” kind of question.
Because there is
no aid for the unemployed, there is
no subsidy, there is no cushion. He
is about to fall, and fall fast.
So, he thinks to himself, "I'm not about to do manual labor!" And he sure as heck doesn’t see himself begging. He knows that with the loss of his job and therefore his status, there
go his “friends.” How will he live? What
future will he have?
So of course, he develops this scheme to mark down the
amounts owed by his boss’ debtors. This serves him in several important ways –
he avoids the shameful options, like needing to beg; he maintains status - he
transfers the debtors’ gratitude and favor to himself; he develops a system of
reciprocal hospitality between himself and the merchants, and finally, unbelievably,
he wins the approval of his master who sees his shrewdness and approves his
ability to assess his situation and act on it to preserve his future.
Jesus tells us this story and we are confused, because he seems to
hold the actions of this man as being of some kind of twisted example of virtue.
As I was thinking about this puzzling story and why
Jesus would a) tell it; and b) approve what the manager has done, it came to
me. It makes perfect sense. The reason that Jesus “likes” this story of the unjust
steward who many of us see as a crook, is that at the heart of it all, Jesus is a crook!
I’m not being irreverent or disrespectful here.
The truth of the matter is that our controversial, subversive, scandalous Lord
Jesus is, himself, a crook! He consistently disappoints our expectations by
revealing that those things we value most have absolutely no value in the
kingdom of God.
Robert Capon writes, “The unjust steward is nothing
less than the Christ-figure in this parable, a dead-ringer for Jesus himself.
First of all, he dies and rises like Jesus. Second, by his death and
resurrection, he raises others, like Jesus. But third and most important of
all, the unjust steward is the Christ-figure because he is a crook, just like
Jesus.” [1]
This parable is offensive, and it tells us what the life of Jesus showed
us. Jesus was scandalous, not respectable;
·
he frequently
acted counter to secular, cultural or religious Law and mores.
o
he broke the
Sabbath
o
he robbed us of
our expectations, coming as a helpless, vulnerable baby, and not a sword-an-power-wielding
king.
Further, Jesus demonstrated his criminality when, like
Robin Hood he reversed the fortunes of the people.
At the very beginning of Luke’s gospel, Mary warns of
the reversal God is about to bring: “he has brought down the powerful from
their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good
things, and sent the rich away empty.”
Jesus robs the status quo when he promised that the “last
would be first and the first would be last.” Further,
·
Jesus took away
our right to judge others when he normalized eating and consorting with sinners
·
Jesus took away
the power of demons and
·
he defeated Satan
Jesus the crook has confounded our expectations time
and again as he has turned our worldly expectations upside down through his
words, by his actions, with his love and mercy toward all, and finally, at the
cross.
Jesus was a crook.
·
He died a
criminal crucified between two other criminals.
·
But he stole
power away from the cross by making it the instrument
of his glory
·
He stole away the
sting from Death.
·
Through the
resurrection he robbed death of its power to hold us
·
And just a minor
thing after all of that – but, in the ascension, Jesus even robbed earth’s
gravity the ability to hold onto him.
The dishonest manager cleverly took in the larger
picture. He understood what he wanted for his future – security – and he used
what was entrusted to him to serve this larger goal. He understood that in
order to be where he wanted to in the future, what he did today mattered.
King Solomon wrote in his proverbs: “Where there is no
vision, the people perish.” (Pr.29:18)
Jesus understood the larger vision of salvation he was
committed to. He did what he had to do to secure it. In commending the actions
of the steward, Jesus invites us to think about the vision for the kingdom of
God, and to use the resources God gives us in faithful service to the same. This
is scary. It is unsettling. It’s just like a crook to lay this on us.
Helen Montgomery Debevoise writes, “We are not only
entrusted with a vision of the Kingdom of heaven; we are given the treasures of
the King! Even in the present age, with the imperfect treasures of this world,
we are stewards of God. However we use what we have before us, we should use
these gifts in light of our eternal relationship with God.
“The parable warns that the children [of the light] have
lost that eternal perspective of who God is and who we are in relationship to
God. Too easily we separate life as it is now from life in the future kingdom.
Not long ago we shouted, “He is alive!” but already we are whispering our faith
because we do not quite believe it anymore.
“Somewhere in our journey we stopped living for Christ.
We stopped believing that Jesus died and was resurrected and that life was made
new. Somewhere along the way it became easy to serve all those pressing
demands: of people, of schedule, of money. Somewhere along the way, the vision
for God’s call became cloudy and muddled. We stopped hearing God’s voice and
joined the crazy survivor-takes-all mentality….This is the crisis Jesus
addresses in his parable. The children of light have lost the vision of God. It
is easy to grow complacent about responsibilities God gives us. The parable is
a call to reclaim who we are and to renew our vision today of the kingdom of
God beyond us and among us.”[2]
Jesus became a crook so that the kingdom of God would
be formed in the image that God intended, a kingdom where God’s mercy, grace
and love are known by all people. Jesus became a crook so that he might take
away the sin of the world.
No doubt this parable will still make us
uncomfortable. You may even be peeved that I called Jesus a crook. But, when
you think about it, it’s true. Jesus became a crook for the sake of the world.
With this parable in mind, we ask ourselves: how might God be calling us to creative, shrewd use of
the gifts and talents God has entrusted to us? God owes us nothing, but we owe our very lives and our salvation to God. How will we respond? What difference does it make to our lives and to the world to understand the depths to which God went to bring about this subversive, scandalous, kingdom, ruled by Christ the crook of all creation?
O Lord, you call us to kingdom work in a world that
belongs not to us, but to you. Grant us the vision and the wisdom to see this
kingdom as you see it, not as the children of this age tell us it should be. Inspire
us to participate in the scandalous story of the cross and to careful
stewardship of all you have given us to use, for the sake of Jesus, our
marvelously crooked savior and Lord. Amen.
[1]
-Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and
Vindication in the Parables of Jesus, (Eerdmans, 2002) pp 307-309.
[2]
[2]
Helen Montgomery Debevoise, contributor, Feasting
on the Word, Year C, Volume 4, p. 96. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown
Taylor, editors. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press), 2010
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