I have to be honest…. I do not like this parable we are hearing this morning from Luke’s gospel. I find it hard to understand and harder to preach on. The only comfort I have is that I am pretty sure I am not the only preacher who looked at it this week and groaned, “Oh no… not this one again…”
It’s a difficult parable. Parables are stories that are supposed to help drive home a point; Jesus uses them all the time to teach people about the kingdom of God and their responsibility for helping to bring kingdom values to the society they live in. More often than not, the parables that Jesus tells have to do with wealth and power, and who has them, and who doesn’t.
The manager in the story is a jerk. He is dishonest at best, and is likely charging the bosses debtors even more interest than the boss knows about; he is likely pocketing the extra, so it is likely that those who are buying goods are being cheated twice, once by the rich man, whose wealth was likely made by squeezing the poor; and then being cheated by the manager who is socking away some money for himself. So, now he gets caught, and loses his job. The good news for him is that now he can doctor the books in the other direction without his boss losing any money, but seeming like a good guy because he is taking his illegal cut off of people’s bills. And now he has built in some insurance for the time he no longer has a job.
He is certainly part of the economic problem in society. He participates in the robbing of others, some of them probably poor who may not have other places where they can purchase needed goods. It doesn’t really sound all that different from all sorts of money making schemes that are around now that target those who have very few choices … interest rates on credit cards, especially cards that target those with bad credit just land people in worse and worse debt. I was talking with someone once about their situation. She was living in one of those “pay by the month” sorts of motels. Rent to live there was over a thousand dollars a month; she had at least one job, perhaps two, but she was caught in an endless cycle of paying rent to this place and not being able to get out from under it. Lots of people didn’t seem to understand that she couldn’t just move; where would she go? She didn’t make enough to save money for all the necessary fees and deposits she would need to have a real apartment… and so, she was caught in an impossible situation… the only good news about her situation was that she had a roof over her head and had hot and cold running water and the place she lived in was clean. Some of the motels near my former church were collecting rent from people and not providing water when there were issues with the pipelines… well meaning people would say “well, why do people put up with that? Why don’t they go somewhere else?” Where are you going to go when you haven’t got enough resources for your family? Some of those families panhandled at the local Walmart on the weekends just to make the rent in these awful places. Who is going to listen to them? Who is going to fight for them?
Jesus speaks about debt forgiveness a lot; the biblical standard for loans is to loan without interest; fleecing the poor, while common from the beginning of time, is not something that is tolerated by God. One cannot serve two masters… Choosing between God and wealth sounds simple… most days we would say “well of course I choose God”… and, we are good people… honest people, people who want to do what’s right. The problem for us is that we are part of a system that has chosen a different God. The bad news for good people is that we are asked to participate in systems that continue to deny mercy; systems that continue to take advantage of people who do not have the resources most of us have… instead they are choosing between medicine and food, or between food and shelter l, neither of which should be a choice anyone needs to be faced with…
While I still believe in voting, I am fairly certain that voting mixes things up in different ways that may or may not help; when we vote, we are making choices, and I hope that they are informed choices that are aimed at helping those who are less fortunate. Often it seems like it’s just a lesser of evils or something that will line the pockets of those who already have the lion’s share of the wealth… but that’s what happens when we work with the empire; empire values, as we know deep in our hearts, are not the values of God’s kingdom… and I doubt they ever will be. We can argue all day long about whose policies might be closer to the kingdom, but ultimately, no one’s are close enough…
The kingdom depends on us to make choices beyond the empire… we have to bring mercy and the forgiveness of debts into the lives of others… let’s face it, the empire, like the rich man in our parable is really only out for himself; he was angry because his manager was skimming off the top… the manager was getting money that the rich man could have had since people were paying those prices anyway; those whom the empire favors do not really care how favor falls upon them, so long as it does.
Little has changed it seems to me. The current climate is one where everyone is looking out for themselves; it’s a climate where fear is the greatest motivator for our actions, and those actions do not serve the common good.
John Danforth, retired Episcopal priest, attorney, and republican senator from Missouri, spoke with our House of Bishops meeting back in 2016. His words were powerful then and they are powerful today. He had this to say, “this longtime politician knows that America needs us; this devoted Episcopalian believes that Jesus calls us” to act boldly in the current political and civic climate.
Episcopalians “should be evangelists to all Americans, especially to the most idealistic Americans, to young people who want to change the world. We should be the voices that call them to do just that,” he said. The call to Episcopalians to do this ministry can be seen as an opportunity created by current circumstances in the United States, or as the patriotic duty of citizens or as a God-given calling, or as all three, Danforth said.
The former senator and United Nations ambassador decried what he sees as politicians appealing to people’s fear and capitalizing on society’s trend of valuing self-interest above the common good. Danforth argued that the United States has lost sight of its founders’ commitment to what they called “virtue,” which he described as putting the common good above personal interest. The Episcopal Church must call people back to that virtue because it seems no one else is, he added. “The model for us is the cross, and that is the opposite of egocentricity,” Danforth said. If Jesus calls on us to love our enemies, he said, then we should surely love people with opposing ideas. “A political opponent is not an enemy, not in this country,” he said, adding that hatred is what is disturbing in politics today.” — ENS News service September 16, 2016
We can only help change the political climate if we change how we engage it. People of faith have to be voices of reason and compassion. We have much to say about how difficult issues can be negotiated peacefully. And of course, besides the big picture stuff of politics, there is the smaller scale places where you and I can make a difference in our community. Choosing God over wealth, for us, is about speaking out against injustice especially for those who are at the margins of society. We must always choose to speak the kingdom rather than the empire, even when it might harm our own bottom line. The empire will pass away in time… you and I are helping to prepare a kingdom that will endure forever… a kingdom where no one lives on the margins, a kingdom where there are enough resources for everyone… a kingdom where God is the center of our lives and being…
Let us pray:
Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
