- Luke 16:1-9 (10-13) - read this passage online here »
- 1 Timothy 2:1-7 - read this passage online here » (The Message Bible)
Immediately after the prodigal story, Jesus told his close followers and the same dutiful and moral religious leaders another story. On the surface, this story about a crooked business manager doesn’t possess the same poignancy or heart-wrenching expressions of suffering and hope as the prodigal. When we hear these stories, our feelings are affected in different ways.
But when we probe the two stories further, we perceive some striking similarities:
- In Luke 15, the son threw himself on the mercy of his father.
- In Luke 16, the manager threw himself on the mercy of his master.
- Both son and manager had nothing to show for their lives, except misuse and desperation.
- Both son and manager betrayed a trust.
- Neither prodigal nor rascal (as Eugene Peterson calls him -- another word for someone who is dishonest or unethical) offered an excuse, or rationalization or extenuating circumstance for his behaviour.
- Neither prodigal nor rascal encourages us with their high morals.
- Neither story provokes us to good works.
- The son is not banished from the family. That’s grace.
- The manager is not jailed. That’s grace.
- The father throws an extravagant party for the son. That’s grace.
- The employer surprisingly praises the manager. That’s grace.
- Both prodigal and rascal do not get what they deserve. That’s grace.
- Both prodigal and rascal do not reap what they sowed. That is also grace.
“The missing ending clamours for ... a resolution. We, the readers, the listeners, are pulled into participation in a world of grace.”We want a good ending to a bad situation. We get an ending but it’s not necessarily what we expect. We expect righteous judgment and punishment for wrongdoing. I mean, surely the wronged father could have at least exercised tough love and had the son do some free labour or free community service – or something -- because he had wasted his life and his inheritance. But the father didn’t make him do anything. Surely the wronged boss was at least justified in trying to get his money back from the dishonest manager. But he didn’t make him do anything either. Peterson says:
“The stories leave us not with an agenda to do something to make up for whatever we have done wrong, but with an invitation to receive everything from the One [God] who wills our wholeness, our well-being.” [Eugene Peterson, Tell It Slant, Eerdmans, 2008, p. 101]We are in the midst of a three week mini-series on the theme of “Why Church?” Last week, we talked about our being in church because our being in community matters to God, let alone to us. I’ll summarize this week’s theme this way: Why church? Because God understands humanity and has compassion for real people – very proper people and rascals, dishonest and honest people alike, streetwise and law-abiding people alike. And God gets involved in their lives if they will let him. Why church? Because Jesus wants us to hear his invitation of love and embrace God’s grace and salvation wholeheartedly. So he tells his followers and all who are listening some stories about real families in turmoil and about businesses with real crooks in them – stories about real people in a real world. And yet stories that invite the people he has always loved into a different kind of world than they have known – “a world of love and grace.”
The heart of the story of the rascal, the dishonest manager, is in these verses from The Message Bible:
“Now here’s a surprise [said Jesus]: The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way -- but for what is right -- using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.”Let me put the story in context. If we see the story this way, I hope we will also sense God’s grace not only in the story but also for our lives too.
The manager manages real estate for his rich employer. Those who are in debt are farmers who rent land from the owner and pay their rent in kind (oil and wheat are mentioned). The master accuses the manager of financial waste and mismanagement and informs him he will be let go from his job. Note that the manager does not protest his innocence or make any excuses. His silence is an admission of guilt. He does not even try to get his employer to change his mind. Instead he tries to figure out what to do about his future.
As he deliberates about his next steps, the manager realizes something significant about his boss’s actions so far. In fact, these are key to understanding the story. While the manager is fired, he is not charged and put in jail. And, strangely, his boss doesn’t even require him to pay back the money he has taken. Dr. Kenneth Bailey, a former professor at the Near Eastern School of Theology in Beirut and an expert in the customs and culture of the ordinary people in Jesus’ day, comments:
“This servant has experienced two aspects of his master’s nature. [One] he is a master who expects obedience and acts in judgment on the disobedient servant. [Two] he is also a master who shows unusual mercy and generosity even to a dishonest steward. The thoughtful listener/reader of the parable would not miss either of these facts.” [Tell It Slant, p. 104]So what will the sacked manager do? He quickly rejects both construction work and begging on the streets. Instead he devises a plan that looks as dishonest as his original embezzlement of the owner’s funds. But Kenneth Bailey offers another insight regarding the culture of the day:
[The manager’s plan] “is to risk everything on the quality of the mercy he has already experienced from his master. If he fails, he will certainly go to jail. If he succeeds, he will be a hero in the community.”What is happening to the manager? He has entered the improbable world of grace. And here he even takes another chance by using his street-smarts to cut some deals for his own advantage in the way he has always operated. (He has not yet turned over a new leaf.) All of his life, up to this point, it appears he has lived quite successfully by his own wits and cunning. But then he got caught and suddenly that world has been shattered. Yet he encounters a new world of grace. And he takes advantage of grace. He takes advantage of his master’s mercy and compassion.
So far no one knows the manager has been fired. So, it wouldn’t be strange for the real estate manager to speak to the farmers about their debts. They would be people of good reputation in the community who had probably been associated with the owner of the land for a long time. They would assume the manager is acting on the owner’s behalf and the manager wasn’t going to tell them otherwise. The manager does his work quickly. He has to -- before the owner finds out what he is up to. He also has to be careful the farmers do not become aware of any deception because they would not likely go along with the manager’s scheme. They would not want the owner of the land to refuse to rent the land to them another year. Perhaps the farmers assume this new financial arrangement is a generous bonus for their good work.
The master is a very generous man. He didn’t punish the manager with jail or demand justice. He didn’t even ask for his embezzled funds to be returned or that the manager reverse the last-minute deals he made. He was generous in his mercy to the manager again – undeserving though he was. The master, Peterson says, “chose to pay full price for his manager’s salvation” [Tell It Slant, p. 105].
Does this sound like something you have heard before? Jesus’ story of the dishonest manager is really a metaphor for the amazing surprise of God’s generous grace to people – to us – who do not deserve God’s grace. Who would have expected the father in the story of the prodigal to be so gracious to his scoundrel of a son? Who would have expected God to accept such scoundrels into his loving presence? The religious leaders certainly did not. But Jesus is saying that God, in his love and compassion, gives us chance after chance to accept his mercy and forgiveness rather than ignoring him or taking advantage of his grace. Are we aware of this in our own lives?
I suspect some may have a tough time accepting this. And also, why ever does Jesus seemingly commend a crook for being so clever? Jesus was pointing out that some of the streetwise people – or “people of the world” who care little for God – use their wits to get by or to get rich no matter what it takes. But “people of the light” – of God’s light – should be smart too but in very different ways – in honest ways, in trustworthy ways, in ways that are right as verses 10 – 13 emphasize. This reminds me of what Jesus told his disciples on another occasion: “Be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves” [Matthew 10:16, NRSV].
In the verses following the crooked manager’s story, Jesus comments on this story. Hear what he says from The Message Bible:
“If you’re honest in small things, you’ll be honest in big things;And I might add: we can’t live both God’s way and the world’s way. We must choose. Our future depends on it!
If you’re a crook in small things, you’ll be a crook in big things.
If you’re not honest in small jobs, who will put you in charge of the store?
No worker can serve two bosses:
He’ll either hate the first and love the second
Or adore the first and despise the second.
You can’t serve both God and the Bank.”
Jesus was not praising the dishonest manager for his dishonest practices. In fact, Jesus speaks several times here about being honest or trustworthy. But as with the story of the dishonest manager, God in his grace also gives each of us opportunities to repent of our sin – more chances than we realize, more than we deserve. Do we ignore these opportunities to accept God’s forgiveness or do we recognize God’s gracious invitation on these occasions of our lives to respond to God’s love? The key in the invitation to receiving God’s grace is trust -- trusting in the generosity and mercy of God and not anything else.
I’ll finish with the following story. Financial expert Suze Orman, in her book 9 Steps to Financial Freedom [Three Rivers Press, 2000, p. 262], wrote about a Mexican merchant who sold parrots. They were not in cages. And they didn’t fly away. This fascinated Orman.
She asked the merchant: “Do these birds just love you so much they have no desire to fly away?”God’s grace is something like that. God’s grace releases our grip on whatever holds us back from living freely with God. The story of the crooked manager can help remind us to release our grip on anything that holds us back from trusting ourselves to the mercy and generosity and forgiveness of God. And that trust in God’s character of grace is really the very centre of the good news Jesus proclaimed to all.
He laughed. “No, I train them to think their perches mean safety and security. When they come to think this, they naturally wrap their claws tightly around the perch and don’t want to release it. They keep themselves confined, as if they’ve forgotten they know how to fly.”
She asked if this was hard to do.
“With little birds it’s very hard, sometimes even impossible,” he said. “It’s easy with the large birds.”
Orman wrote: “Suddenly a light bulb went off in my head. We are just like those poor parrots. We have been taught to clutch our money as tightly as we can, as if our money is the perch of our safety and security. Just like those parrots, we have all forgotten how free we really are -- with or without the perch. The more afraid we are, the tighter we hold on, and the more we have trapped ourselves.”
She then asked the merchant how he would go about “unteaching” this behaviour. “Easy,” he said. “You just show them how to release their grip, and then they can fly as free as they want.”
May that trust be so for you and for me. Amen.
Rev. Chris Miller
September 19, 2010
oympastor@rogers.com
* I acknowledge my indebtedness to Eugene Peterson’s insights in his book Tell It Slant, pp. 99-108 for this message.
OYM Oriole-York Mills United Church, Toronto
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