Crisis and Mercy

It seems as though Luke is as confused about what this little story means as we are, for it appears that he has added to the story several other general sayings about honesty etc. which don't seem to be directly connected with the story.

So our decision today will be to lay those verses aside and concentrate on the parable itself, leaving off the final 3 verses.

Then as we move through the process of reading and pondering one of Jesus' stories, one of the other things that usually happens is that we decide to identify with one of characters in the tale.

That is really difficult with this story!

We want an example to follow,

to find a way a better way to live,

to try to be good.

Who is the good guy here?

Who provides that good example?

The rich man?

No, he's rich., and we summon up all the class envy thing.

Our sympathy is with the little guy,

with the Robin Hood type fleecing the rich in order to give to the poor.

For example, we get angry when we still hear stories about people dying in fires in sweat-shop type places because the doors were locked to prevent the workers from stealing a chicken or some such thing.

Yes, we have sympathy for the little guy.

So, if we're not on the side of the rich owner, then are we on the side of the little manager?

The owner has told him “Give a good accounting, or get out.”

So as the manager stands there trembling, we're on his side.

What can he do?

He has wasted his master's resources.

(Luke uses the same word to describe this as he uses to describe what the prodigal son did with his father's property...”wasted.”)

What is he to do?

Some people freeze, and do nothing, and the situation gets worse and worse.

That has often been the case with people who finally come to Family Promise or to our front office window.

Something that should have been headed off earlier was not, out of sheer fear.

But that is not the problem of the manager; he decides on a course of action right away.

He summons the owner's accounts, and reduces their bills greatly.

Lots of commentators on this story try to figure out some way of making this result sound better.

Some have claimed that the bills had been inflated by the manager to make an unseemly profit, and so the manager is now simply reducing the bills to where they should have been anyway, etc. etc.

As much as we are tempted to follow that convenient line of reasoning, let's resist the easy out, and just leave the story alone in its raw and jagged form.

After all, in telling the story, Jesus does label the steward as dishonest.

We've run into this type all too often.

--There is the bureaucrat who approves an inflated contract so that when he leaves government service he can get a consulting job with that very same firm.

--There was Imelda Marcos, who squirreled away in Swiss bank accounts gazillion dollars that she and her husband had extracted from the poor people of the Philippines, and wasted lots on closets full of shoes.

Do we want to be on the side of “clever” people like these?

Lazy, cheating, stealing, disloyal liars?

Do we want to be on that side?

Should we be ashamed for condoning this kind of behavior?

and in church too?!?

and in one of Jesus' own parables?

“And the master commended the dishonest steward.” the story concludes.

The master has moved from

“You crook you; get out.” at the beginning of the story

to saying “You genius, you!” at the end.

And we're still confused.

Now we've been all over the story.

First with sympathy for the owner, then for the steward, then for the owner again, and now we're disgusted with them both, and not too keen about the tenants either.

Parables are like windows on the world which turn into mirrors, where we see ourselves in all of our confusions.

Neat labels are hard to come by; we are in a mess most of the time.

We share in the righteous anger of the owner, and sympathize with the sneaky but bold actions of the steward.

We recognize in ourselves the commendation of dishonesty and the quick grab-it-before-it-is-gone gratitude of the tenants.

...and maybe we share all of those feelings and reactions all at the same time.

Who is the scoundrel in the story?

They all are!

We have met the scoundrels, and they are us!

Sometimes we are like the manager who wheels and deals, ready to push the legalities a bit if it will help us.

Sometimes we are like the master, condoning immoral behavior, secretly admiring the shrewd manipulators of the world.

Sometimes we are like the tenants, ready to rejoice at any advantage we can nab, fair or not.

We all need a savior who understands all of this from the inside out, and Jesus does.

He was born into the poor end of society that claws and scratches just to survive.

He consorted with savvy businessmen and painted harlots.

He knows about every kind of human activity, the good and not so good.

He died condemned as a criminal.

He became one of us in order to save us.

In the arguments that began long ago about who Jesus is, orthodox Christians say that if there is a part of humanity that Jesus has not taken as part of his being, that aspect cannot be saved.

So Jesus must be fully human as well as fully divine, at one and the same time.

He is not God pretending to be human, masquerading as at a costume party.

Jesus has taken every bit of the soiled mess that we know as our humanity, and

in cross and resurrection, transforms it into the final shape of life that God intends.

God knows the mess, and can see past the mess to what he intends;

he knows how he can use the steward, the owner, and the tenants with all of their pretensions and limitations.

and in spite of all the things that we do which lead Christ to be nailed to the cross, he can look at us and say “Father, forgive...”

At the moments of greatest sorrows, we too are called upon to entrust ourselves to the mercy of God, and some new grace will yet appear.

We can count on it.

We've discovered that the search for the “good guy” in this story is fruitless; they are all flawed.

We thought we knew what to expect in the story, but we don't.

Did Jesus recommend dishonesty, or inattentiveness, or greed?

No, of course not.

He used this startling story for the sake of the central point:

just as the steward when faced with the great problem put his trust in the mercy of the master,

so may we put our trust in the mercy of the Lord God, with full confidence.

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.