“And his
master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the
children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than
are the children of light.” (Luke 16:8)
Well, ain’t that the truth?! It always seems it’s easier to be a dirtball than it is to be a righteous person. But, I guess if being righteous were easy more folks would be doing it.
I always get a little stuck on this parable (Luke 16:1-13) whenever it shows up in the RCL. The hero of Jesus’ story looks for all the world to be a white collar crook. All the stuff about not serving God and wealth is pretty self-explanatory, but the parable itself always leaves me scratching my head.
Of course, I could just deal with the Hebrew Scripture lesson (Amos 8:4-7) or the Epistle (1Timothy 2:1-7). Unfortunately, there’s not that much to unpack about old Amos. He’s railing about income inequality. I think I’ve done that well enough in years past (check out the “Featured Post” at the right)[i], and Bernie Sanders does it better than I. The Epistle is rather timely in that it tells us to pray for kings (v.2). I guess Charles III could use a little prayer. His approval rate with the British public is a lot lower than his mom’s was, and there’s a growing opinion among millennial Brits that having a king in the twenty-first century is stupid. I can’t get too much of a sermon or essay out of that.
Looks like I’m stuck with that dishonest manager parable after all. Fortunately, the good folks at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN post this cool website for preachers, and I get to steal some of their ideas each week.[ii] This go-round I’ve started to look at the dishonest manager in a different light. What if he wasn't dishonest—at least not at the offset..? I’ve preached on this text at least seven times during my tenure at Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia, and yet never did I pick up on the fact Jesus says the manager was only accused of squandering the boss’s money. Jesus doesn’t say he actually did it. So now I feel sorry for the poor slob. I’m thinking the real villain of the piece is the boss who is being a hardass and not letting the manager face his accuser. He’s already decided he’s going to can this guy without even taking it to the union or the HR department.
New Testament Professor Mitzi Smith of the Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia suggests the manager might be an enslaved person. As such, the boss wouldn’t trust him as far as he could spit. Slaves couldn’t testify in court. There was a presupposition based on their status that they were born liars. Even if this guy wasn’t a slave but only a peasant, he didn’t enjoy the benefit of the doubt a rich guy would get. Jesus doesn’t say the manager was in any danger of prison or death for cooking the books. It looks like the worst the boss could do to him was show him the door.
Unemployment in Jesus’ time as well as our own is never a pleasant thing to contemplate. Nobody likes poverty and starvation. On the other hand, there’s something liberating about not having to go to work. Like all those folks furloughed during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m betting this guy has a chance to re-evaluate his life and ask himself why he’s been slaving away just to keep the books for some rich jerk. Maybe he starts to think, “Hey! If I’m going to get canned anyway, I might as well do a little creative accounting. This slimeball I work for charges his debtors interest which would embarrass the Mafia. I’m going to cut the juice on their debts down to a place where they can actually pay the whole thing off. Then maybe one of them will offer me a job.” So he does.
Jesus says the rich boss praised the manager for his cleverness. This could be one self-centered, greedy jerk admiring the self-serving trickery of another. You know: one thief complimenting another on an impressive act of thievery. Or, as Professor Mitzi suggested, the reduction of the debt allowed the creditors to pay the rich man something—which is better than not getting paid anything if the debt is unsustainable and the creditors go belly up before they can repay what they owe.
I’ll bet those debtors really appreciated
what the manager had done. Everybody needs to be cut a break at some time. I
know I’ve been pulled out of the ditch (metaphorically speaking) any number of
times in my life, and I’ll bet you have too. We should all have grateful
hearts. Let’s not forget Jesus cut us all a break when he went to the cross.
I asked that existential question to my Confirmation students this past week: What is the meaning and purpose of your life? One of the students answered, “The meaning of my life is to spread kindness and joy.”
I’ll just let it go at that.
[i] You
can also check out these two other previous reflections on that parable: https://oldreligiousguy.blogspot.com/2013/09/thieves-and-robbers-reflections-on.html
https://oldreligiousguy.blogspot.com/2016/09/good-at-being-bad-reflections-on.html
[ii]
The website is called Working Preacher.
Is it really stealing if I give it credit?
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