Who is Your Master?

Luke 16: 1 – 13

 

I feel like we need a content warning for the next several weeks of scripture as we continue to walk through some teachings in Luke’s gospel. Because the scriptures ahead of us are big, rooted in a context, but also they are the word of God that is still speaking to us today if we are open and listening. Remember that the gospel is good news, and so we’ll seek through that lens even when the text is hard.

 

Luke’s gospel is concerned with the least and the lost, and it is particularly focused on justice within a very stark economic model that existed in the area in which Jesus and his disciples lived and taught.  

 

Today Katie has shared a parable and some wisdom sayings that came forth from that teaching. 

 

Let’s begin thinking a bit about the “form” of parables. 

 

Today, I shared a parable in the style of Godly Play, a form of reflective scriptural teaching with young children. As we heard then, parables are like gifts that have existed for us before we were born. And they are somehow closed – not always ready for us to open them. That knowledge – that we might not be able to “access” a parable, shouldn’t be alarming to us. It is always there, waiting for us to be ready.

 

Another important note for our approach here – the “subtitles” that most of our bibles include between sections of text were put there just a few hundred years ago. They are not original to the text. And they generally reflect a single understanding, perhaps influenced by the times in which they were added rather than the period reflected in the text itself…and definitely not necessarily reflective of how this text may land in our ears and hearts today. The NRSV calls this “the parable of the dishonest manager.” The Common English Bible titles it “Faithfulness with money.” All of these titles reflect a specific way of reading the text, a specific interpretation, and none of these titles were there once upon a time.

 

Back to that Godly Play notion of parables not always being ready for us to open, this particular text from Luke feels like a parable that might be difficult for any one of us to access at points in time. Recognizing we bring our own lenses, our own experiences, our own faults and foibles, and whatever we have been taught, learning to approach parables with open hearts and deep listening might help us crack open new and different meanings. There is not just ONE right way.

 

Let me say that again – there is not just one, right, single significance to a parable.

 

So let’s dive in and see what questions bubble up from this text in this time and place.

 

Let’s start by understanding the original context of the story.

In her commentary, Barbara Rossing, professor of New Testament studies at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, notes:

 

To try to understand this parable (Luke 16:1-8a) and the attached sayings (verses 8b-13) in the context of Luke’s narrative world, we need a mini-course on the economics of Roman-occupied Galilee in the first century. Rich landlords and rulers were loan-sharks, using exorbitant interest rates to amass more land and to disinherit peasants of their family land, in direct violation of biblical covenantal law. The rich man or “lord” (kyrios, v. 3, 8), along with his steward or debt collector, were both exploiting desperate peasants.

 

So in the parable, there is a rich man and his manager.  The rich man is unhappy with the manager because of the way the manager has handled the possessions or wealth of the rich man.

 

The rich man is firing the manager, requiring him to give a complete accounting of the assets that the manager has been responsible for. So the manager, realizing that he is in jeopardy, decides to make quick deals with the debtors, lowering their recorded debt amounts. He does this as a way of ingratiating himself to them so that he will be well-treated by the community once he is jobless and in need of the community’s help.

 

The rich man receives the news of accounts and commends the manager for his “shrewd”ness.

 

Now…to our ears, it might seem odd that the rich man commends the manager here, right? Essentially, the manager has reduced what is due to the rich man, affecting his economic comfort.

 

And if we understand that one of Jesus’ interests in this story would have been the Jewish laws around not charging interest, perhaps JESUS would commend the manager for reducing the debts owed – but Jesus isn’t the rich man here, is he?

 

And in our current context, we might see the manager cutting deals for the sake of better relationships, but we also probably see the financial “mis-dealings” as something of an accounting problem. OR we might see a little bit of Robin Hood here – taking from the rich to serve the poor.

 

But after the parable, Jesus launches lays out a few “sayings,” nuggets of wisdom to wrap up his teaching. It’s a little bit like Jesus doing midrash on his own teaching, reading between the lines.

 

“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.

 

And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

 

Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?

 

And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?

 

No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

 

Let’s face it – each one of those is a sermon all by itself.

 

So what do we do? How does Pastor Laura tie this up in a neatly consumable takeaway for everyone listening.

 

She doesn’t.

 

But I want to return to my observations about the form – the parable. And I want to frame two questions to rest in our hearts as we keep asking for God to show up for us in this story.

 

First - 

How might we need to be shrewd in connection to the ways of the world around us in order to serve justice, to reach people, to share good news?

 

The Greek translated as shrewd here is translated in similar forms elsewhere across the gospels as “wise” or “prudent.” There is a practical nature to the “shrewdness” the rich man observes in the manager.

 

Might Jesus be pointing to how we have to tend relationships with the world around us, particularly the world that doesn’t believe and practice all the things that we do, in order to maintain a healthy relationship? In order to keep the doors open between us?

 

I heard from a number of folks this week alarmed by Tuesday’s article in the Washington Post about the Pew Research Center’s projection that Christians could make up less than half and as little as a third of the population in 50 years.

 

Now, that may seem anxiety inducing. Christians have grown accustomed to having a corner on the market – getting to assume that the language and customs of Christianity dominate the culture. But in light of the changing world, how might this parable speak to us about how we relate to the world? What shrewdness might we need to develop?

 

And then, there is that quote about Mammon - What master do we serve? God or wealth? Certainly we are surrounded by systems that make it necessary for us to live and work and be part of ways of being and doing that protect wealth and create “haves” and “have nots.” 

 

It is all but impossible to disentangle ourselves.  

 

But, in the midst of our involvement, how might we be wise / shrewd / prudent about how we serve, how we give, who we advocate for?  Who will we serve? Money? God? What Kingdom or Kin-dom will we build?

 

This is our work. And there is no easy answer, no single right way. 

 

And we should not be discouraged if this parable in its shiny gold box doesn’t open to us easily, but we should keep revisiting it – listening prayerfully to understand more about masters and managers and the enslaved, more about debt and negotiation, more about being shrewd.

 

And wonder.

We should continue to wonder.

May it be so.

Amen.