On Shrewd Management; a sermon for the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 16.1-13

Jesus also said to the disciples, “A certain rich man heard that his household manager was wasting his estate. ² He called the manager in and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give me a report of your administration because you can no longer serve as my manager.’

³ “The household manager said to himself, What will I do now that my master is firing me as his manager? I’m not strong enough to dig and too proud to beg. ⁴ I know what I’ll do so that, when I am removed from my management position, people will welcome me into their houses.

⁵ “One by one, the manager sent for each person who owed his master money. He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ⁶ He said, ‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil.’ l The manager said to him, ‘Take your contract, sit down quickly, and write four hundred fifty gallons.’ ⁷ Then the manager said to another, ‘How much do you owe?’ He said, ‘One thousand bushels of wheat.’ m He said, ‘Take your contract and write eight hundred.’

⁸ “The master commended the dishonest manager because he acted cleverly. People who belong to this world are more clever in dealing with their peers than are people who belong to the light. ⁹ I tell you, use worldly wealth to make friends for yourselves so that when it’s gone, you will be welcomed into the eternal homes.

¹⁰ “ Whoever is faithful with little is also faithful with much, and the one who is dishonest with little is also dishonest with much. ¹¹ If you haven’t been faithful with worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? ¹² If you haven’t been faithful with someone else’s property, who will give you your own? ¹³ No household servant can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be loyal to the one and have contempt for the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. ”

Let the words of my mouth
    and the meditations of my heart
    be pleasing to you,
    Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Nine out of ten theologians agree: This is the most difficult of all parables to deal with.

Set aside the last four verses: proverbs that seek to make sense of what come before, probable redactions, later additions that may or may not be the words of Jesus, but most likely were not spoken by Jesus when he uttered this parable.

I am, of course, uttering the idea that the Bible is written by different authors at different times. I know that it’s an unpopular idea here. That’s fine. Plenty of ideas are unpopular. Plenty of ideas seem to threaten faith, but in the end, the only thing that threatens faith is the inability to stand up to questions.

But that’s beside the point.

The point I’m making is that this is a really difficult parable. Plenty of people smarter and more well-versed than I have lost sleep trying to make sense of it, because it is so contradictory to good sense, and so contradictory to what Jesus tells the disciples in so many other situations.

What is this about?

Jesus is talking to the disciples. In a few verses, he’ll be talking to the Pharisees again, just as he has been previously. Maybe they’re around. Maybe they’re not. But now he’s talking to the disciples, people with whom he most readily shares words of grace and hope and peace, and also, increasingly, words of foreboding and warning.

He tells this strange, strange story.

A rich man hears a rumor, a story about the man who manages his estate, or at least his household, which might be more minor than the estate itself, or he might be responsible for the rich man’s everything. We don’t know.

There’s a lot about this story we just don’t know. That’s why so much of it makes so little sense.

This manager is doing something, or is rumored to be doing something, or to have done something, to waste the rich man’s estate.

So the rich man fires him.

No, actually, there’s a little more grace here. The rich man gives him another chance, a chance to prove himself. He asks the manager to give a report, to be accountable for his management, to give evidence whether he is or is not, as rumored, “wasting his estate”.

Now, because there are so many holes in the story, we don’t know what prompts the manager to react the way he does. He thinks he’s getting fired. Is it because he’s actually guilty, or is it because the rich man’s reputation is so fierce and unforgiving that the manager already knows that his is a hopeless cause?

Again, we don’t know.

But he does this thing. This really weird thing.

He shorts the debt of every person who owes his master money. Maybe he’s just writing off interest, or maybe he’s writing off his own cut, or maybe he really is cutting off some of the original debt. We don’t know. We also don’t know why he writes off different percentages of different debts.

Although we do know that these are massive debts. These are debts that would themselves pay for pretty big land portions. This is big money he’s writing off.

The point, he says, is that once his master finally fires him, which he would surely do after this last piece of mismanagement, this bit of cunning will get him in good with the debtors. For a little while, at least, after he loses his everything, he gets a few couches to crash on.

But no. The master says, man, that’s pretty shrewd. Way to go, dude.

End of story.

Boom.

You can read whatever you like out of the last few verses, which make several of their own completely separate points about what, exactly, the point of the parable actually is. Or maybe they just stand on their own.

We don’t know.

Again.

See what a mess this parable is? How I don’t want to have to deal with it? Give me Sodom and Gomorrah, for Pete’s sake; this thing is crazy!

This isn’t the way Jesus talks.

So what’s going on?

There’s cunning. There’s shrewdness. There’s dishonesty.

But do you know what else there is?

There’s forgiveness. There’s generosity. There’s this weird writeoff of debt. In fact, if the subtext of forgiveness is as present in the master’s reaction as it seems, there are two separate writeoffs of debt:

the several opportunities that the manager takes to write off debts that don’t seem to be his own,

and the one opportunity that the manager seems to take to forgive the manager’s debt.

<pause>

Do y’all remember this bit?

If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you don’t forgive them, they aren’t forgiven.

That seems a pretty important thing to manage. That’s a pretty massive thing to be responsible for.

Forgiveness.

Look how our Master showers it on us. Look how extravagant, how wasteful. Look how eagerly our Master writes off our debts.

And God tells us to forgive, too. And it is God who gives us the model of forgiveness.

Forgiveness that is practically endless. Forgiveness that is unstoppable. Forgiveness that is urgent. Forgiveness that is complete. Forgiveness that forgives everything. Forgiveness that forgives everyone.

Shrewd forgiveness, maybe. Clever, maybe. But extravagant. Generous.

Crazy generous.

And it’s a crazy responsibility to have. But, after all:

If you haven’t been faithful with someone else’s property, who will give you your own?

Are we being called to exercise mercy and forgiveness faithfully because it is specifically not ours to give?

Isn’t it time to prove, not necessarily that we are worthy, but that we are willing to hear the call to act like the one who calls us, to forgive and reconcile and welcome as willingly and extravagantly as Jesus? Isn’t it time?

If you think maybe, just maybe, it is, then hear Christ calling you today to manage what God has given you; the only gift that truly matters: forgiveness.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Slow Path

This was going to be a typical morning:

• Get cleaned up.
• Get my wife and youngest out the door.
• Get the other kids fed, dressed, cleaned up, packed, and out the door (whew!).
• Walk the kids to school.

That's one of the beautiful things about living where we do. Sure, we live on a major highway (for Scott County, Virginia) right in the middle of town, but that also puts us less than a quarter of a mile from the elementary school. If it's not pouring or freezing, walking to school is much less hassle than getting two kids in the car, buckled (one of them can't do this herself), and burning the gas to get out of the driveway and up the hill to the school.

So we walk. We walk all the way to the front entrance of the school. I get to hug and kiss the kids and remind them to make it a good day, and I typically exchange a few words with the teacher on bus duty.

It's a small town. I know quite a few of the teachers already.

Today, the teacher on duty was the sponsor of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. She was stressed because she had just found out that she wouldn't be able to gather the FCA for their morning devotions, because the faculty member who was supposed to relieve her from bus duty at that time was not available.

If I were she, I'd have noticed in previous days that the local Methodist preacher walked his kids to school, and he'd be a great person to corner. That may or may not be exactly what happened, but in any case, she asked me to lead the morning devotion, and I said, "Sure".

I'm glad I did. Yeah, my morning run was a half hour later, and so was my celebration of Morning Prayer, but I got to hear the testimony of two brilliant young people. I got to see the witness of about two dozen sixth- and seventh-graders who showed up, sat on cold metal picnic tables on one of the cooler mornings that the late Summer has brought us, and decided to begin this day with a word and with prayer.

If I had driven the kids to school, that probably wouldn't have happened.

I know not everybody has the luxury of living within walking distance of their children's school, but everybody has chances we don't take, probably every day, to take the slow path; to stop, as it were, and smell the roses; to stop and make ourselves available for God's spontaneity.

I, for one, am glad I did. I think I'll keep walking.

Joy Breaks Out; a sermon for the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 15.1-10

All the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus to listen to him. ² The Pharisees and legal experts were grumbling, saying, “ This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. ”

³ Jesus told them this parable: ⁴ “Suppose someone among you had one hundred sheep and lost one of them. Wouldn’t he leave the other ninety-nine in the pasture and search for the lost one until he finds it? ⁵ And when he finds it, he is thrilled and places it on his shoulders. ⁶ When he arrives home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Celebrate with me because I’ve found my lost sheep.’ ⁷ In the same way, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who changes both heart and life than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to change their hearts and lives.

⁸ “ Or what woman, if she owns ten silver coins and loses one of them, won’t light a lamp and sweep the house, searching her home carefully until she finds it? ⁹ When she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me because I’ve found my lost coin.’ ¹⁰ In the same way, I tell you, joy breaks out in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who changes both heart and life. ”

Let the words of my mouth
    and the meditations of my heart
    be pleasing to you,
    Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

When we turn on the news, we’ve found out that war has broken out.

When we sit down to dinner, a fight breaks out.

When Wall Street’s crimes come to light, protests break out.

I want to live in a world in which peace breaks out.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

But that doesn’t happen in our world, does it?

Jesus is clearly talking about the Kingdom of God today, not the kingdoms of humankind.

I left my entire flock to fend for themselves and found the one that was lost! Let’s break out in joy!

I’ve found the one coin I’d lost! Let’s break out in joy!

We’ve seen God turn someone’s life around! Let’s break out in joy!

That’s just not our automatic response.

We’ve seen God turn someone’s life around. Yeah, let’s see how long that lasts. Let’s hound her until she slips. Let’s leer over her so the weight of being watched is so overwhelming she can’t help but collapse.

And then let’s go back to our churchy friends and complain about how people can’t change, about how she was always a hopeless cause, about how we don’t want her kind of people here anyway.

I get so sick of that.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

I want to live in God’s Kingdom.

Because I believe it’s happening today. The problem is that we get so caught up in our snobbery and navel-gazing that we can’t recognize where God is moving.

And when we’re caught up in our own stuff, whether it’s our judgment or our busyness or our worries or anything else, we aren’t looking around to see God’s Kingdom. We aren’t looking around to see where God is moving.

I believe heaven is, though. I believe that God is well aware where lives are being changed. I believe the heavenly court is keenly attuned to transformation happening in the world. I believe the Holy Spirit is seeping into lives that are awakening to grace.

I believe joy is breaking out in heaven.

And here we are, worried about how bad things are getting, clamoring about how the latest event in the news was proclaimed in Daniel or Revelation, as though nobody’s done that before.

The Church is supposed to be the place that proclaims Christ’s resurrection, but today we’re just the worrywarts of creation.

We are the very wall keeping people away from God’s Kingdom.

We are the ones keeping joy away from people.

I don’t want to proclaim that life any more. I don’t want to live in that world anymore.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

I want to see a Church that welcomes sinners and eats with them.

I want to see a Church that not only houses meetings, which we don’t, but provides for people suffering from the disease of addiction.

I want to see a Church that will embrace you whether you’re wearing a three-piece tailored suit or a pair of donated, ratty jeans and an AC-DC tee-shirt.

I want to see a Church that won’t pick a fight with you because you’re a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Socialist.

I want to see a Church that celebrates color.

I want to see a Church that affirms the grace in everyone, and celebrates the call of God to everyone who has recognized the work of grace in them.

I want to see how the world, which only knows a judging, hypocritical, snobbish, navel-gazing, closed-door Church; I want to see how that world reacts when it sees this welcoming, affirming, celebrating, listening Church and realizes, “Holy cow! That’s what Jesus has been on about this whole time!”

I want to see how the Church goes viral again when that happens. (Do we know that term?) I want to see how the Church becomes so insanely popular and respected again that we don’t know what to do with all the people who are recognizing Jesus in us.

I want to live in a world that is changed by the love of Jesus, that is inspired by the Holy Spirit, that is reshaped into the image of God.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

It’s a difference that happens in subtle shifts, you know. In every moment, we face a choice to welcome or reject, to celebrate or to mourn, excitement or apathy, screaming or listening.

And each time we make those choices, we subsequently choose to either break in or block God’s Kingdom.

If we are going to take seriously our prayer, “thy Kingdom come”, then we need to not only expect that it’s coming, but we need to make it happen.

We spend hours, days, probably years of our lives complaining about how the world is going against God, but the people who are really blocking the Kingdom are the people sitting right here in this God-box.

I don’t want to live in a world in which the Church is blocking God, because then God is going to forsake the Church and speak and act through someone else.

I’m not in the business of breaking the Church. I’m in the business of helping her come back to her calling. And maybe, at this point, that means doing CPR and administering electric shock to the Church’s heart.

And we know how frequently CPR actually works, right?

I’m tired of being part of a dying Church, y’all. I don’t want to live in a world so full of hate and shouting.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

I want to see God’s Kingdom coming today.

That’s my choice today. I can’t sit back and watch the Church die any more. I need the life-giving breath of the Holy Spirit. I need the heart-restart of Jesus.

“ This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. ”

Yeah. Good. Let’s do that.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.