Belated Ingenuity

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 23, 2007

Well, what can we understand about this Gospel lesson today?

What is Jesus intending to do to us through it?

The tendency is of course to skip over the parable at the beginning of the lesson and jump right to the several pithy sayings at the end, or run quickly to the Second Lesson or Old Testament lesson to see if there would be something easier to work there.

But today let's just stick with these troublesome verses and see how they might grab hold of us.

There is an old story about an enterprising fellow who set p a trading shop in a market with a window in front and a window in back.

To one window a farmer came with two pigs, wanting to buy a suit.

To the other window came a tailor with two suits, wanting to buy a pig.

The middleman procures the suit for the farmer for the price of 2 pigs, and procures a pig for the tailor at the price of 2 suits.

The farmer gets his suit, the tailor gets his pig, and the trader gets both a suit and a pig for arranging it all.!

Is it fair? well....

Is it common? well....

Some of what sounds so strange to us about Jesus' story is merely reflecting the economic situation in Israel at the time of Jesus.

If a man came and wanted to borrow 40 barrels of oil, the steward might charge 10 barrels of oil as interest on behalf of the owner, and then charge an additional 50 barrels of oil as his fee, so that the loan of 40 barrels would actually cost the debtor 100 barrels. There it is; take it or leave it, he might say to the debtor.

It sounds harsh.

There were lots of absentee landlords, meaning that there were lots of stewards running the farms, and the vast majority of peasants who were in a very poor state.

The owner didn't care much if he got an income that he thought was enough, and the steward was responsible for extracting that amount from the peasants.

The stewards were the only ones who knew what income the owner wanted, and the steward could tell the peasants a vastly inflated price, in the name of the owner.

He could keep the difference as his management fee.

According to some written sources, this kind of thing is very common practice, leading to tremendous resentment against both the stewards and the owners.

In Jesus' story, the owner discovers that the steward has been outrageously abusing the situation, and fires him.

It is a moment of crisis and the dishonest steward must do something.

He is out of a job, and has no friends at all because of the scam he has been running.

He calls in those under him and even though he no longer has authority, reduces their debts to the master by half.

In other words, he has given up his profit.

The master will still get what was due to him,and the debtors are delighted that their bills are reduced, and will think well of both the master and the dismissed steward.

What happens when the master discovers what has gone on?

The steward's actions are illegal, and could be undone.

But the party is already underway in the village and the peasants are toasting the magnanimity of the master.

Should he go and spoil that party and be called a miserable tyrant?

Since he still is getting what is due him and doesn't want to be regarded as mean, he laughs off the actions of the steward, who for once in his life has acted honestly about something.

What has the steward done?

--he recognized a crisis,

-- he accurately discerned the situation,

--he took bold action leading to a change.

Each of us must account for what has been entrusted to our management.

We are stewards, and in the end, must return to the Lord the life that was given to us.

We need to wrestle with the painfully difficult question of how we have been investing that life.

Are we deluding ourselves that our work is for the purpose of piling up more and more things?

or are we investing ourselves in the people around us, who need the encouragement that that is God's gift reaching out through us?

Work, money, and possessions are great tools, but if they become our masters, we are in deep trouble.

One of our groups that understands this is our Stephen Ministers, who despite all of the other things that are going on in busy lives, are investing themselves in other people, one at a time.

Another group of stewards are those who have agreed to be leaders in the Sunday Church School.

What an investment this is!

They may never see the profit in what they are doing, but nevertheless, our Lord and master Jesus Christ is pleased, and another generation can learn to praise God.

A wise person of the last generation put it this way: “Our problem, yours and mine, is not to end up as the richest man in the cemetery, but to use our time, talents, and money to make life easier for our fellows, to lift the crushing burden of poverty, [economic and spiritual!]. We can't buy our way into heaven, but we can model our life here on what our life will be like in heaven.”

Belated ingenuity, we might call it.

So what?

It is late in the day, but it is still day!

Jesus says,

Look, you know what you owe me – your whole life.

You also know that I am determined to love you, to hold onto you despite the crazy things you do and say, and the way in which you give me a bad reputation by how you deal with other people.

Bank accounts can evaporate in an instant; possessions can be destroyed... but enticing a friend, a neighbor, a family member to praise God – that bears profit forever.

How do we treat the child who comes home from school with the first coloring page?

and the 2nd?, and the 35th?

We smile and exclaim our delight over stick figures and scribbles, and post them on the refrigerator.

Great art? probably not.

But it is an exploration in color and joy, and we encourage that child's growth.

So the Lord smiles at our ingenuity, our feeble and faltering attempts to do better than we have done before by investing ourselves in people.

Sometimes it is belated ingenuity;

--it may take us awhile to catch on.

--it may take a shock of realizing that the accounts are coming due for us to catch the truth and allow Jesus to rework us from the inside out.

Belated ingenuity.

By November 1965 Millard Fuller was making a million dollars a year, and almost losing his wife and family.

When he heard the threat of divorce, he panicked and declared a vacation for their family.

On the way to Florida, they met up with some friends in Georgia at the Koinonia Community, had lunch with Clarence Jordan, stayed a month, and started Habitat for Humanity, helping people to develop affordable housing.

Some folks have a dramatic beginning to the process of change; others have grown up with God's baptismal promise firmly in their head and heart.

Whether it just began or has been going on for decades in our lives, we are here today for the Lord to celebrate with us the new kind of community that is underway now and continues to its completion.

Today is a party that

All depends on our possessing

God's free grace and constant blessing,

Though all earthly wealth depart.

They who trust with faith unshaken

By their God are not forsaken

And will keep a dauntless heart. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.