Sermon: September 18, 2022
Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, we weren’t able to stream or save our service audio. The sermon manuscript can be found below.
Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka
Scripture(s): Luke 16:1-9
Well, that was… interesting. This week will be our final one in Jesus’ parables from the gospel of Luke. This one’s a doozy. The last bunch have all been dining-themed. About which seat you should take at a banquet, who you should invite, and who you should be seen (or not seen with) at a dinner party.
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This week’s parable, though, shifts industries. We go from the elbow-grease world of catering and hospitality, to the high-flying world of commerce. Of commodity training. This parable’s called the parable of the “the dishonest manager.” And it’s easy to see why.
There once was a rich man, Jesus says. He had a manager taking care of his investments and trading portfolio. One day the rich man gets word from a company whistle-blower that his manager’s been blowing his money. We don’t know how exactly—could be through bad stock tips, or racking up huge personal expenses. Either way, the rich man says, your resignation on my desk right now. Close up all the accounts one last time, then that’s it—you’re outta here.
Now, this news terrifies the manager. He’s gonna lose the house, the car, the tropical vacations. And not only is he out of this job, his reputation is toast. He’ll be out on the street, and he’ll never work in this town again.
Suddenly though, this lightbulb goes on in this manager’s brain. He’s been fired, but he’s still got signing authority. He’s still got the power to make and revise contracts. There’s a way for him to still ensure a soft landing. That he comes out of this thing still on top.
So he flies in each of his boss’s debtors one by one.
“Let’s see,” he says to one. “How much are you in the hole for?” “100 shares in olive oil futures?” He crosses out the 100, and pencils in 50 instead. “Let’s make it half.”
To another, “what’re you in for?” “Wheat stocks, eh? 100 shares in Agrocorp?” We’re feeling generous over here. Let’s make it easy, and make it eighty instead. For you guys I don’t mind taking such a huge hit.”
Now, in case it’s not obvious, what the manager is doing is ensuring that ensuring that, when he gets canned, there’ll be a few people out there who’ll have his back. He’s called the dishonest manager, because he’s making friends by forgiving his master’s debts. He’s giving away stuff that doesn’t belong to him to make sure he lands on his feet.
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Now, seeing as how the Bible is an intensely moral document. You might expect some kind of comeuppance. For this guy to get punished for his deceit.
Nope.
In fact, we’re told that when his boss, when the rich man gets the pdf of the bank statements, he scans them with keen interest. So on the last day, the manager’s being escorted out of the building by security, contents of his desk in hand. “Wait!” says the rich man, running towards him. He pats this thief on the back, and says “that whole thing. Incredible.” We don’t know if he gives him his job back. But he’s extremely impressed by the ingenuity of it all. “Shrewd, my friend,” he says. “Very, very shrewd.”
In the end, the manager’s not dragged away by the cops for his self-serving thievery. He’s commended for his cunning.
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Now, usually after dropping one of these parables, Jesus offers up a little interpretation. Again, the Bible is an intensely moral document. Here’s where both of these amoral businessmen are gonna get what’s coming to them, right? The FBI drags both the rich man and the manager away, tossing them in a maximum security prison for life, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Truly I tell you, Jesus says, the whole thing was a pyramid scheme to begin with. You can run along for a long time but sooner or later God’ll cut you down.”
No! That’s not what happens at all.
Jesus says that the rich man commends the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. “Look, Jesus says. “Say what you want about the pagans, the children of this age, they know their way around a business ledger. These guys are smart! They know sales. They know how to deal with the average person way better than you guys, my disciples, do.”
“You guys need to be more like them,” he says. So be like that dishonest manager and go out and make yourselves some friends by means of dishonest wealth. So when all is said and done—like the debtors he forgave—you’ll earn yourselves a spot for all eternity.”
So instead of condemning the manager for his dishonesty, like the rich man, Jesus commends him for his ingenuity. And not only does he commend him, he commands his disciples mimic his method. That they, too, make friends using this same strategy. And not only that, but doing so is the key to eternal life.
By the rights… how bizarre.
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Now, what are we supposed to make of this apparent endorsement of dishonesty from the Lord?
Is Jesus giving us permission to do bad things as long as they’re for the right reason? Say we make all our money off blood diamonds or shady real estate deals. Or say we own a strip club, or screw over a business partner? As long as we donate a good chunk of the proceeds to charity, or use the cash to help spread the Christian message, is that OK? Kind of like the notion that everyone pursuing their own self-interest will lead to the common good? Something like soul-laundering, where the good justifies the bad?
As much as we might like it to, it’s probably safe to say no.
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So what is it then? You’ll remember that parables aren’t just straightforward directions. But they’re also told to reveal who God is and what God’s kingdom is like. The world as God created it to be, and intends it to be. Like a little stick of dynamite, to blow up the old world, and replace it with the new, the kingdom. As odd as it may seem, this parable is no different.
Just to be clear, this reading of the parable isn’t mine. I owe it to someone I’ve quoted before, because his book on the parables is the best of the best. The late Anglican priest, author, New York Times food critic, Robert Farrar Capon.[i]
Capon says that the rich man is like God the Father. The Creator of all, the ground and source of all existence. And as he checks over all his accounts, he finds humanity is in deep trouble. squandering all of the good gifts he has given, fallen, captive to the powers of sin and death. From the smallest act of jealousy to the larger family destroying infidelity. From great greed to brothers and sisters shedding each others blood, and the exploitation and destruction of creation.
Like the prodigal son, we squander what we’re given. And our accounts are so deep in the red. We’re like the debtors in the parable. We’re so spiritually bankrupt, that there’s no way we can possibly pay. No way we can never truly make things right. We’re doomed.
And so, for Capon, the Jesus is like the manager. The manager is to take the fall for the racked up debt. The rich man dismisses his manager as a way to settle the accounts. Jesus is the one who is dismissed on the cross. The one who takes on the debt of sin, and the penalty of death, and in doing so leaves our ledgers clear. In the black. And in the same way that the manager’s dismissal drives him to break the rules of commerce, Jesus’ dismissal of death drives breaks the rules of the graveyard with his resurrection. And in the same way the manager writes off the debts of his master’s debtors, in his death and resurrection, Jesus writes off our own. He raises us with him. And in the same way that the master approves of this extraordinary scheme, God our Father declares that this was his intention all along.
According to Capon, this parable is a parable of grace. And in it, the grace is that in Jesus Christ, God has blotted out our unpayable overdrafts, cleared our cosmic credit histories, and completely re-financed the future of all humanity. To rescue us from destruction. To free us from our sins. To de-activate death forever.
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And what does that mean for us?
Well, in place of punishment, it means that you have been qualified for forgiveness. It means that whatever you have done. Whatever you’ve failed to do. Whatever you’ve brought on yourself. Your debt has been paid in full. You’re forgiven. In Christ, your credit history has been wiped entirely clean.
It means that whatever shame you’ve accrued. Whatever’s weighed you down, made you feel like you never were enough or had enough. You are. And there is. In Christ, your account’s been topped up to full and will never sink below zero again.
It means that, rather than being consigned to the bankruptcy of death, you’ve been pre-approved for God’s New Creation. And for the gift of eternity. In Christ the end is never the end, and death is unable to collect.
Like the dishonest manager, Jesus has broken all the rules of life and death, he’s thrown a spoke in the wheel of the system of punishment and reward to save you, to save me. To save us all.
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And what does this mean for the world? And for how we live our lives?
Well, because if it’s true. If Jesus has broken all the rules. If in his death on the cross, and in his resurrection on the last day, he’s smashed our system of owing and paying and collecting, it means he’s made it possible for us to do the same. That’s what he means when he says we’re to be shrewd like the manager, and to make friends through dishonest wealth. To share the wealth! To break the rules. To make friends of Jesus with that gift of grace that comes free of charge.
First, on the spiritual end. It means you can stop dwelling in the past and be present for your sake and the people you love. It means that you can quit keeping tabs on your kids, keeping score with your spouse, you can cease tallying tit-for-tat. You can stop fretting about balancing life’s ledgers, because you can’t. But the good news is that somebody else already has for you. And you can stop waiting for everybody else to make things right. For them to apologize, to forgive them. Because their debt’s already been paid, too.
Second on the literal end. You can start seeing your money, your resources as a way to glorify God and point other people in the direction of amazing grace. It’s why we have a soup kitchen. It’s why we’re raising money for Habitat for Humanity. It’s why we have a church budget. None of this generates a profit in worldly terms. We play by a different set of rules, the rules of grace.
You can stop making a distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor. You can stop being preoccupied with the return on your investments. You can stop pinching pennies and you can start giving your money away for the sake of God’s kingdom. Trusting that with it God’s gonna do some good. You can break all the rules of investment and return, to use your money shrewdly to make friends of Jesus.
And in the end you can stop being preoccupied with your own future because the same reward that was given to Jesus belongs to you in baptism. You no longer have to play the lifelong game of fear and anxiety. Because, like Scrooge McDuck diving into his pile of coins, you’ve got a bottomless pool of grace, to swim in forever. An d our role as disciples of Jesus is inviting others in on the party. To use our wealth, both spiritual and literal, for the glory of God, and the love of the world.
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Friends, dear friends. Hear the good news of the gospel. That, like the dishonest manager, Jesus Christ is as crooked as it gets. He’s made us forever his friends in the cross, in his crafty way of disbursing the Father’s wealth. And on account of him and his shrewd dealing, we have been given the freedom of the children of God. You have been given the freedom to do the same. To blow the bank on God’s mercy and grace. Because there’s always more where that came from.
Amen. Hallelujah and amen.
[i] Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans: 2002), 302-308.