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September 20, 1998
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So, how about that Gospel text? Clear? Clear as mud! Actually, that parable of the dishonest manager is one that has perplexed the church for two thousand years, and I have got to confess this morning that I am not in a better position, but I am going to give it my best shot.
Interestingly enough, this is only found in the Gospel of Luke. Evidently, everybody else decided not to touch it. (I can't say I blame them.) However, at the very heart of this story is the Gospel message, but we are going to have to put our detective hats on just for a little while to get to it. Let's start with the hard part.
There is a master here who is condoning dishonesty. That's not Jesus. That's the person in the story. (We need to get that out there really quickly. I do not think Jesus ever condoned dishonesty.) There is this rich man who has a manager and the manager is taking what we would call "kickbacks" in the 1990's, He skims profits and pockets them for himself. Of course, the owner has pretty good accountants. He finds out and informs the manager that he is about to be fired. The manager, in order to win friends and influence people, tells people to pay less then what they owe. His idea is that at least they'll remember him when he is unemployed. Maybe someone will hire him.
That leads us to the troubling part. Here is this master saying, "You are a crook, but you are a clever crook. You are pretty good! I've got to hand it to you. I am still going to fire you, but you are good!"
The culprit in our detective story is irony. It's the use of irony. The Bible is full of irony. What is that word anyway? Well, one little girl defined it best. She said irony is saying what you don't mean and making a funny face while you are saying it. Let me give you an example in the Bible.
God calls the prophet Isaiah. It's a great scene. Isaiah is sitting in the temple and he sees the Lord. The Lord's train fills the temple, there is a great fireworks show, and God says, "Who shall I send?" Isaiah says, "Send me, Lord." God says, "Terrific. Now Isaiah, get out there. Keep listening, but don't comprehend anything you hear. Stop those peoples' eyes and ears. They won't listen to you, Isaiah. You might as well be talking to a brick wall." Isaiah says, "Exactly how long do you want me to do this, Lord?" God tells him, "Until all the cities are empty and I've kicked everybody out of town." I don't think it actually took that long. That's the irony.
God knows that we are not going to believe anything that he tells us. The biblical writers knew that too and so they are going to use strange literary devices to grab our attention. It's like telling a four-year-old after you have her all dressed up in her Sunday dress, "Okay, now you can play in the mud!" And she does! Be careful when you use this.
Well, back to our detective story - what Jesus says at the end of the parable is that in order to make sense of this, it has to be read backwards. The children of light — that's supposed to be those of us who follow God's example as best we can — we don't always do it correctly. Sometimes, the crooks have it before we do. I will tell you what I am talking about.
When I was freshly ordained and working in a downtown urban cathedral in Phoenix, I used to take Communion to a man in the Madison Street jail. This man was a bonafide crook. He had been involved in every pyramid scheme, every drug deal, every piece of dishonest stuff you can imagine, but I always learned from him. Every time I took him Communion, it was my worldly wise lesson for the week. One week in particular, he told me how he had been involved in a telemarketing scam where they call you up and they have you recorded. They're asking you to say one word. If you say the word "yes" at any part of the conversation, they have you on tape and can rearrange the tape saying you ordered whatever they wanted to sell you. It just so happened that the next week I got a call like that and I hung up.
That is the ironic part of this. That is how God is calling us to work. Jesus says be innocent as doves, and wise as serpents. And sometimes the children of light, in all our intentions to be nice, don't quite get it. Instead of being pro-active and fired up about the Gospel, we tend to just drift. Whereas other people go out there and, by dishonest means or not, seize life and live it to the fullest. That is what I think the ironic part of this is. We are called to live that way and live that way on behalf on God. The kind of people Jesus wants us to be is the kind who will reconcile the world to God with the kind of vim and vigor of the dishonest manager. And the ironic part of the Gospel is Jesus did that — once and for all.
AMEN
Amos 8:4-7 {8-12} 1 Timothy 2:1-8 Luke 16:1-13
The Rev. Sean A. Cox
seancox@stmargarets.org
20 September 1998
[The Sermons of the Rev. Lois Hart]