Göttinger Predigten
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17. Sunday after Pentecost , 09/19/2010
Sermon on Luke 16:1-13, by Luke Bouman
Luke 16:1 Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' 3 Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' 5 So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6 He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' 7 Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' 8 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. 9 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. 10 "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. 11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 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."
Another Difficult Story
The story of the dishonest manager in Luke's Gospel is one of the most challenging for anyone to read. The story itself is disturbing enough. It is the story of a manager who is caught "squandering" his master's property. In response, he squanders more of his master's property by ingratiating himself with his master's well-heeled debtors, once again abusing his position. Instead of the even greater consequences we expect, the story ends with his master commending him. We are left to puzzle what is being commended here.
In Jesus' commentary, at the end of this passage, we are given conflicting interpretations of this story. Is the point of the story that we, like the manager are to make friends for ourselves by means of dishonest wealth? (Vs. 9) Is the point of the story that we will be faithful with much if we are faithful with little and vice versa? (Vs. 10) Is the point that if we can't even be faithful with dishonest wealth (glossing over for the moment how one tells honest wealth from dishonest) we won't be entrusted with true riches? (Vs. 11) Or, finally, is the point that if we have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will entrust us with riches of our own? (Vs. 12) At most, only half of these statements make sense, even considering the story itself.
The other difficulty that I have with this story is that I don't like to identify myself with any of the characters. Normally in a parable we can see ourselves in one or another of the characters in the story. In this case, I don't see myself as the master. (Most people view the master as "God", though the story never says so.) I don't want to see myself as the dishonest steward. Perhaps I might see myself as someone whose debt is forgiven, but I would rather that the forgiveness happen from the master than the dishonest steward. Truth be known, in today's culture we might haul all of those whose debt is forgiven into court with the steward for conspiring to defraud the master.
This story is troubling. There is no doubt about that.
The Power and the Glory
It is at this point, as I ponder this story in Luke's Gospel, that I remember another story of another discredited steward. Some years ago I read Graham Greene's troubling novel, The Power and the Glory. Greene sets his story in Tabasco Province in Mexico during a period of Marxist revolution. Religion has been outlawed in the province and priests and other religious leaders face incarceration and possible execution if they remain. Their only hope of escape is to flee to a nearby province where the revolution has not yet spread.
Greene's protagonist is a "whisky priest" who has long since abandoned his vows and is more interested in drink than ministry. Though he is no longer, in his own mind, a priest, he is still a hunted man, running for his life from the revolutionaries. As he travels from town to town, trying to make his way to the safe province, he is recognized by the town's people as a priest. They shelter him, so long as he will, against his better judgment, say mass for them. The population has not embraced the atheism of the revolutionaries, and they crave the grace of God in the form of the communion meal. In the end, the priest finds his way across the border, only to realize that the shelter he has found does not satisfy his need, and Greene ends the story with the priest returning to Tabasco. We do not know whether this means he will die or be captured, but we do know that he is compelled to go and continue to struggle with himself, with God, and with his calling to give away God's grace to the people who crave it.
The similarity between these two stories is startling to me. Both the steward and the priest have lost their status with their lords. Both are looking for shelter from judgment. Both of them dispense the grace of their master, giving away what is not theirs to give. At the end the status of both is in question? We do not know if the whiskey priest will live. We do not know if the steward is still evicted from his master's house, or even if any of the forgiven debtors will be grateful enough to take him in. This ambiguity is what makes these stories troubling and difficult for us to understand. When I am honest, the same ambiguity makes my life hard to understand. I do not know...
What I do know, as I look at these two stories side by side, is with whom I must identify in this parable. Like it or not, I am the dishonest steward. Like it or not, we all are. Because of our sin, each of us, whether we like it or not, has squandered the gifts that God, our Lord, has given us. We are, each of us, unfit to be stewards in God's household. This is true of the best of us and the worst of us. This is true of pastors and laity, Bishops and children. We are truly not worthy.
Our Gracious Master
But God's way of dealing with us is different than our way of dealing with one another. We would condemn, cast out, defrock, even eliminate those who are dishonest in our midst. God does not. God forgives, welcomes, and offers table fellowship to those who have squandered his grace (see Luke 15!). God's grace is transforming for those who experience its power.
There were those in Jesus day as there are those today who do not recognize themselves as needing God's grace, nor of the necessity of acting graciously toward others. It is not only for us, but also for them that Jesus tells this story. "Take note!" Jesus is saying. "See how this dishonest (read: non-faithful) steward knows the power and community that flow from acting with grace and forgiveness. Will it not all the more flow from God through those that are faithful, who trust in God's gracious way?"
Our gracious God has freely given himself for us in Jesus Christ. We are claimed in Baptism and redeemed from the power of Sin and death. We are called to be bearers of God's grace in the world. We, who have squandered that grace more often than we care to admit, are none-the-less, called to give it away, even though it is not really ours to give.
Audaciously we stand Sunday after Sunday with the doors of our congregations flung wide in welcome, inviting God's flawed and sinful creatures to share in Word and Meal the grace of God. We are, as Martin Luther once said, "mere beggars telling other beggars where to find bread." We should rid ourselves of the notion that any of us are fit to perform this service. In this respect we are like both the steward and the whiskey priest. God takes us, broken vessels that we are, and shapes us into vessels that bear God's love to the world.
We are, as Henri Nouwen has called us, "wounded healers." It is this very thing that Christ became on the cross for us. This is the way of the cross for each of us as well: to stand before God and our fellow human beings broken, dying, and yet to offer ourselves for the healing of those around us. The alternative is to think only of ourselves. To serve "money" means just that. Those who serve money gather and hoard and keep that which is not theirs to use for some means of their own. To serve God means to trust God's way of giving away his own self and more. For us it means giving away gifts that belong to God, not to us, up to and including our whole lives. Certainly it means living God's grace as our own way. These two ways of living and serving are in conflict. Jesus is right. They cannot be done simultaneously.