The fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Amos 8:4-7 Psalms 113

1 Timothy 2:1-7 Luke 16:1-13

I usually take a minute to look back, when I am to preach, at the sermons which I have written on the same gospel at some earlier time. It’s not that I can recycle them. That never works! But it gives me some sense of where I was three, or six or nine years ago in my journey. Three years ago I was in Dahlonega, and it was the week after 9/11. How different the scene is today! We are beyond the intense fear which pervaded those days. Six years ago I was at epiphany and our questions were about ethics, with Clinton and Ken Starr on the horizon. I know we still struggle with ethics, telling the truth, knowing what to do to eliminate injustice in our country and the world, but the focus is different.

But this is today, a time of concern about the impending election, about our role in the world, about the growing gaps between the rich and the poor, and the increase in poverty. The dishonest steward, or manager as he is called in this translation, is congratulated for his shrewdness, for "cooking the books" as they say, for cheating on his master. The point of the parable seems to be that the shrewd master responded appropriately in light of the impending crisis. He has been fired and will be without income. He can’t resort to an occupation like digging, he isn’t strong enough. And he is too ashamed to beg. Jesus seems to want us to identify with the scoundrel. But what then do we do with the ancient command that we shouldn’t steal?

Probably the least welcome label I could apply to myself would be that of a scoundrel, although at times it might have been an apt description. I even find "shrewd" not too complimentary. Clever, yes, I don’t mind being thought of as clever, but shrewd.. It has a note of slyness to it, and it doesn’t feel comfortable. And yet it is precisely that quality that the rich man is commending.

There are those scholars I have discovered who would lighten the burden for this manager by saying that he wasn’t really cheating. He wasn’t squandering or abusing the property. Perhaps it had been a bad season

And the crops didn’t bear fruit. Maybe unknowingly he made some ill advised investments. There are others who surmise that when he called in his master’s debtors to give them a break, he was simply canceling his own commission on their bills to protect his future.

But for all the lack of details, I don’t think there is any question about what he gets praised for. The fact is that he has been fired, has nothing to fall back on, and finds himself in a desperate situation. Pondering he asks himself, "what will I do now?" One response to this question could be to hope that something else will come along soon, and just ignore the issue. But this fellow takes the bull by the horns, and aware

Of how very risky it is, tries to make the best of the situation with his clever deals. He uses his brains.

We are surprised the rich man doesn’t condemn the cheating behavior. There is no moral judgment in this story that Jesus is telling his disciples. Instead it supports the imaginative acts of the manager in the face of this crisis. It is at this point that I am reminded of Jesus’ command to his disciples as they go out to do ministry, "be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."

This all sounds so familiar when we think of the parable of the prodigal son. When he found himself starving in a foreign land his question was the same. "What shall I do now?" And wisely he decided to go home and approach his father in a demeanor of contrition and repentance. Shrewd I’d say. I might add, he was rewarded with a great welcome before he ever pulled off this act. Jesus is a realist. He teaches us by showing us how we can act in our own defense.

The most difficult part of this passage is the collection of Jesus’ sayings, mostly about money, which Luke adds on at the end of the reading. "Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest money so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes." Can you tell me what that means? I suppose, simply taken, it means that we should buy friends so that when the money runs out they will let us in to heaven. Duh. And then there are all the pronouncements about being faithful. "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much" that doesn’t inform us much about the parable. But then Luke winds up quoting Jesus as saying, "you cannot serve god and mammon," mammon, another word for riches and worldly gains. That does make sense to me, but does that enlighten us about the parable?

We still get back to the fact that Jesus wants us to identify with the manager, the resourceful scoundrel, sinner, in that story. And, the truth of the matter is that we are we are all sinners. He is us! So how do we deal with this? Basic to Christianity is the idea that god doesn’t like sinners, and that Jesus was sent into this world to "live and die as one of us," and atonement was been made for our sins by the offering of Christ through his death, a sacrifice. Following repentance we are given divine pardon for our sins and for me, the heart of our faith is that forgiveness. Are we left with feelings of guilt? Hopefully not. God does not expect us to feel guilty, just forgiven

But let’s get back to our parable; ultimately this is not a parable to condemn the manager or his dishonest behavior. There is no judgment against him here. He is a sinner. We are sinners. Jesus is lauding him for his creative response to his problems. Jesus believes that the kingdom of god is at hand and he is saying then and now, we must get our act together. We must handle things appropriately, and with imagination in light of the times. "Deal with it," he says.

"But, what will I do now?" We ask ourselves. All this talk about money in this reading has caught my attention. This is a time when I must think of myself as a steward, or manager as this gospel translates it. I am put in charge of my household, my belongings, my money, and I am called to be shrewd. We are approaching the time of year when we will be called to consider stewardship at St. John’s. We are being asked to support the care of people who have suffered from these destructive hurricanes. We are aware of the many people who are without jobs, and need help. I pray that the energy and vision I give to my job as a steward will reflect god’s call in today’s gospel.

I’m much more comfortable with our unjust steward that I was in past years. I can let some of the obscure words of Jesus go for the moment. And I wonder what the world will be like when this reading comes on again three years from now.