Hearing the gospel for today, do you think Jesus just wanted to make sure people were listening? I have heard of university professors who add instructions at the end of the syllabus to test whether students read it in its entirety, and in seminary we joked about inserting random text, like lines from a favorite hymn, into our papers, just to see if they were really being read. Maybe that’s why Jesus tells the Pharisees this parable that appears to commend dishonesty.
Maybe Jesus just wanted to make sure he had their attention, but maybe not.
Remember what we know about parables. Sometimes, parables were a way to put two things such as the kingdom of God and a mustard seed or yeast (Luke 13), alongside each other to help us understand them. Other times the parables teach us about the kingdom of God through stories like the Good Samaritan where it’s easy for us to imagine who we are supposed to be in the story. Last week we were reminded that often the parables are there to challenge us or shake us up. And often they surprise us, awakening us to the way God is breaking into our lives and turning the wisdom of the world upside-down or inside-out.
At the time that Luke is writing, around 80 CE, the Romans occupied Palestine, and as the Empire demanded higher taxes, sometimes the rich who lived in the south “rescued” the small farmers in the north, who sold their land and stayed on as tenant farmers. Where once they might have harvested crops that provided food for themselves and their households, now the farmers were planting production crops to be sold to the Romans, and a manager would keep track of what was owed to the landowner.
The parable begins with someone making charges against a manager. We don’t know what he’s done, but the rich man calls him out and accuses him of being dishonest. There’s no denial; instead what we hear is his internal dialogue, or calculations, as he considers his options. And then Jesus tells us that the dishonest man acts quickly, speaking to the tenants and lowering the figures for what they owe.
We can speculate what he was doing. As a manager, he would have earned a commission, so perhaps he reduced their debts by the portion he would have taken. Or maybe he reduced their debts to hurt the landowner, or to ingratiate himself into their lives. We cannot know his motive. And we don’t need to.
The result is that the tenant farmers have a little bit more for themselves and their households. The manager, who has power because of his position, chooses to use his power, while it lasts, to help others.
Jesus still recognizes the man for what he is, calling him the “dishonest manager” even when the rich man commends him. What is being commended isn’t the manager’s dishonest practices but the steps the man took to address the wrongs he had committed.
This isn’t a parable that obviously works as an allegory for our lives of faith. Featuring a dishonest manager and an opportunistic rich man, we aren’t eager to identity ourselves or God as one of the characters.
But aren’t we all dishonest managers?
Five times between verses 8 and 11, we hear the word “dishonest.” The Greek words are ἀδικίας and ἄδικός which can also be translated as “unrighteous” or “unjust”. Eugene Peterson who wrote The Message paraphrase of the Bible calls this character a rascal. That sounds about right, I think.
By our nature, apart from Christ, we are dishonest or unrighteous, rascals and scoundrels, captive to sin and to death, self-centered and self-indulgent.
In this parable Jesus contrasts what is dishonest or unrighteous with what is faithful or believing.
But faithfulness and believing are never the result of anything we do – no measure of hard work, earnestness, or ability will achieve them.
As Martin Luther wrote in the explanation of the third article of the Creed, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but [the Holy Spirit] calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies [or makes righteous] the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers.”
It is only through Christ, and the gift of unearned grace – what some might even call dishonest wealth – that each of us is wholly beloved and forgiven. Giving us what is his, Christ makes us children of God and heirs to the kingdom.
As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, now we are dead to sin and alive to Christ, and as ones who have been brought from death to life, we are instruments of righteousness. (Romans 6)
As instruments of righteousness, we are given the power to intercede on behalf of the suffering, the sick and the poor.
Indeed, in our baptismal covenant we promise to “strive for justice and peace in all the earth”[i] and accept this responsibility to intercede on behalf of others. And we do have power; we have the power of the Holy Spirit acting in our lives and those around us, and we have the power of our voices to engage in difficult conversations; we have the power to use our vote on election day; we have the power to use our time to volunteer or write letters to the editor and congressional representatives.
This parable challenges us to look for the places where we could give up some of our power and wealth so that others might suffer less, despair less and hunger less.
There are ways we do this in our everyday lives, giving out of the abundance we already have:
- Many of you have donated hotel-size toiletries that we are able to give to people who don’t have anything.
- I know someone else who never pays with exact change; instead, she rounds up and donates the difference to charity.
- Scrolling through Facebook, I saw a post where a mother told a story about her son who had asked every day for a week for two of everything he usually took to school for lunch. She had chalked it up to growing pains, figuring the kid must be hungry. And then the boy’s mother got a note from another mother in his class thanking her for providing lunch for her child when she’d been in the hospital.
The Good News we hear today is that God gives us the power to transform the world around us, sharing our inheritance as God’s children and making God’s kingdom present and visible here on earth, if only we will act.
Let us pray…
God of Righteousness,
Thank you for grace and mercy that makes us your children and heirs to Your kingdom and thank you for Your Son Jesus who shows us what Kingdom life looks like here on earth.
Show us ways that we can be instruments of righteousness in our community and world.
Empower us by Your Holy Spirit to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.
We pray in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
Amen.
[i] Evangelical Lutheran Worship, ELCA. 236.
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