Okay, so we are going from two of my
favorite parables last week to one that leaves me a little confused and I might
say troubled. Here, we have the parable of the “poor manager.” This manager has
been “squandering” the rich man’s property. Sometimes I start over-analyzing
things; just from this statement that Jesus tells us that this manager has been
dishonest for some time. How could this rich man not know? I mean, I would
think that the rich man would be keeping an eye on his own wealth, right? I
mean in modern times you can never know who is out to get your money, but there
is always an underlying suspicion.
The story goes on that the rich man
finally found out and gets ready to fire the manager. It is time to audit the
books. Now, there is going to be trouble. This manager stole what was not his
and now he will pay the price. That is justice right? If you get caught
stealing then it is time to pay the price. The manager does not even bat an
eye; he figures that if he is gonna go down, he might as well go down BIG TIME!
So he reduces the debts of two other debtors to the rich man. He cuts one debt
in half and then the other by 20%. This manager figures that he needs to make
friends among the people that he will have to live with now that he will no
longer be a manager.
This position of manager must have
put this person in some tough spots. Think about it, he is doing the bidding of
the rich man. He needs to make sure that the rich man’s wealth is increasing. I
am sure that he is not eating with the workers of the estate. After all, he is
the right hand man of the rich person. So I bet that he had a lot of perks with
the job and now he will have to live among the people that he was bossing
around. He may have gotten some of them mad at him because our Gospel reading
says that “charges were brought against him.” Who turned him in…maybe the
workers? So he was not the most popular person.
The troubling part is the reaction of
the rich person. Instead of calling the police or authorities, the rich man
commends the manager. That is the most confusing part, for me. This whole
notion of justice and what would seem to be proper (by calling police) does not
seem to apply to this whole situation and this can be confusing. This manager
is commended for reducing debts that are not his to reduce. These are bills
that the people went into knowing that they would have to be paid back.
Have you noticed that this is all
revolving around one thing: money. This parable is about money and it is an
uncomfortable issue to talk about. I don’t like talking about money at all. It
makes me squirm, and get all nervous, and believe me, if I could, I would much
rather be talking to you about the never-ending love of God and happy stories
in the bible than be speaking to you about this particular story. It might make
you uncomfortable hearing about money in today’s reading. This parable might
leave you just as confused as I am that a wasteful manager is praised for
reducing debts.
While this might be uncomfortable,
it is important to talk about. Here is why it is important; because Jesus sees
what’s going on. He is seeing that people in his time are selling themselves
into slavery so that they can earn a living. He sees shrewd business people
that might not be so honest. He sees that there are people suffering and don’t
have enough to eat. Jesus sees that there are people working hard to make ends
meet and still struggling to put food on the table and to have a roof over
their heads. He sees that people allow debts to rule their lives; meaning, you
owe me and I am going to get what’s mine. These debts are not always paid with
money but with the oil, and the wheat. That was their currency at the time.
Once again, it is ironic how the
more things change, the more they stay the same. Look at our society today.
What rules our society? It is pieces of metal and pieces of paper. There was a
song in a play and the phrase was “money makes the world go around…” Our
society runs on money. Everywhere you look, everything has a price. Look at our
government, they are arguing over money! There is talk of shutting down the
government, debt ceiling arguments…and it is all over money. There are studies
that point out that most couples have more fights about money than any other
issue. So we know that money is important. It gets us what we need to survive,
to maintain our obligations, and yes to have fun.
This parable does to the heart of
what Jesus is saying in the last verse. He says we cannot serve God and wealth.
Jesus is pointing out that we get so tied up in having money and having things
that it takes over our lives. We put so much emphasis on having this paper and
metal that we allow it to decide for us what we do, who we know, who are our
friends, and who are our enemies. We allow this little piece of paper to
determine whether we are going to have a good day or a bad day. The truth is
that we give this so much power that we lose what is important in this world.
I want to make it clear, I do not
believe that money is the root of all evil. Money is necessary. We need it to
pay our bills and to do the things that we want to do. The problem is that we
can easily get carried away with keeping an eye on this thing called money. We
can become obsessed with making sure that we get what we are owed and trying to
keep as much of it as we can. Not one of us is immune from this because we all
are concerned with our world and the possibility of losing what we need to
survive.
So where is this hope that is in
this parable? What Good News is Jesus telling us in the parable? I believe that
there is an immense amount of hope. There is hope in knowing that we can serve
the God who delivered the people from slavery in Egypt and brought them to the
Promised Land. There is hope in serving the God who has sent a son into this
world to see where we go astray and does not abandon us; but, continues to
invite us to the table of forgiveness from our debt of sin (where the penalty
is death) and gives us the gift of everlasting life.
This parable is troubling because it
calls us to look at our lives as disciples. Does being a disciple of Christ
mean that we put our faith only in the God of deliverance and grace? Is being a
disciple handing over every aspect of our lives; and when I say every aspect I
mean our prayer lives, our social lives, our personal lives, and EVEN our
checkbooks? Being disciple of Christ means handing everything and I MEAN
EVERYTHING over to God. Being a disciple means being uncomfortable and giving
it all over to God to guide us in our decisions, all of them. When we give all
that over to God, we free ourselves from the bondage of our decisions, social pressures,
and coins.
Friends
in Christ, Jesus, our Lord and Savior tells us that we cannot serve God and
wealth. Thanks be to God that we have a God that is kind, gracious, full of
mercy, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love: AMEN
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