Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] September 18, 2022 “A Perplexing Parable in a Baffling Book” Luke 16: 1-13 – The Message “Jesus said to his disciples, “There was once a rich man who had a manager. He got reports that the manager had been taking advantage of his position by running up huge personal expenses. So he called him in and said, ‘What’s this I hear about you? You’re fired. And I want a complete audit of your books.’ 3-4 “The manager said to himself, ‘What am I going to do? I’ve lost my job as manager. I’m not strong enough for a laboring job, and I’m too proud to beg. . . . Ah, I’ve got a plan. Here’s what I’ll do . . . then when I’m turned out into the street, people will take me into their houses.’ 5 “Then he went at it. One after another, he called in the people who were in debt to his master. He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 “He replied, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ “The manager said, ‘Here, take your bill, sit down here—quick now—write fifty.’ 7 “To the next he said, ‘And you, what do you owe?’ “He answered, ‘A hundred sacks of wheat.’ “He said, ‘Take your bill, write in eighty.’ 8-9 “Now here’s a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.” 10-13 Jesus went on to make these comments: If you’re honest in small things, you’ll be honest in big things; If you’re a crook in small things, you’ll be a crook in big things. If you’re not honest in small jobs, who will put you in charge of the store? No worker can serve two bosses: He’ll either hate the first and love the second Or adore the first and despise the second. You can’t serve both God and the Bank. Of all of Jesus’ many strange, confounding, and perplexing parables, this is the strangest, most confounding, most perplexing, and most outrageous of them all – or at least in the top ten. But this is a real doozy to which many of the scholars who help preachers work through these texts have said, “Good luck.” As you heard read, the master praised the crooked manager because “he knew how to look after himself.” Or the more traditional form: The master praised the dishonest manager because “he had acted shrewdly.” What do you think Jesus would have said about Fred? Fred promised God, “I’ll sell my house and give all the money to the poor, if you solve my problem.” One day he realized he would have to make good on his promise, so Fred put his house on the market with the caveat – anyone who bought the house would have to take his cat too. He listed the house for the sum of $1. The cat came along for the bargain price of $100,000. When the house sold, Fred promptly and proudly gave the entire proceeds to the poor. He had promised nothing about the cat. He was just being shrewd, right? But it is wealth gained by dishonest means! You mean to say Jesus doesn’t care? Our Lunch and Lectionary group wrestled with this text on Thursday. As you can imagine, we had a lot of questions. But we had an interesting insight. We talked about people who come up with so many different scams, like the emails that pretend to be the pastor asking you to buy gift cards because of some kind of emergency. Who comes up with these ideas? Well, we thought, the text says, “I want you to be smart in the same way – but for what is right.” As it claims, “Streetwise people are smarter than law-abiding citizens. Use every adversity for creative survival, concentrate on the bare essentials. If you do, you’ll live, really live, and not be complacent or just get by on good behavior.” OK, so I think I understand a little piece of what Jesus is saying. “Be as smart as the scammers but for good.” But even if that’s what it’s saying, I still don’t know what we’re supposed to do with it. And maybe that’s the point. C.H. Dodd defines a parable as “a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” So, another way to say it, a parable is a story to which listeners can easily relate. It welcomes us in, then takes a strange turn, and leaves us with enough doubt so as not to know exactly what to do with it. And therefore, it causes us to think. There’s not always a moral at the end of a parable. Sometimes that frustrates us. There’s supposed to be moral at the end of a story – something that wraps it up in a big bow. Parables defy that expectation which is why after preaching for 30 years, I can always find something new for today. So, context. The parable of the dishonest manager is right in the middle of a whole bunch of other parables and teachings about wealth and poverty involving tax collectors and sinners and Pharisees and legal experts. Verse 14 that immediately follows says, “The Pharisees heard all this and sneered at Jesus.” They sneered because, they loved money; they were money-lovers; they were obsessed with money. The very next parable, which we’ll hear next week, is of what happened after a poor man named Lazarus and a rich man died. I want to make it clear, Jesus doesn’t condemn people for having money. He invites us to have a proper relationship with it. To those obsessed with money, he often invited them to give it away for their own good because it was their obsession. Jesus said, it’s impossible to serve God and money equally. Money is meant to serve God, not God to serve money. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Money is the root of all evil.” But that’s not what the Bible says. “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” In Second Timothy it says, “Some have wandered away from the faith and have impaled themselves with a lot of pain because they made money their goal.” Remember, Jesus relied on wealth, especially of women, to support his ministry. But into this mix, somehow, today’s parable seems to praise those who obtain wealth through dishonest means. That seems like an especially disconcerting message as we present Bibles to elementary school children and encourage them to read it. Perhaps it should come with caution tape around it. Think about it. Sometimes the Bible is violent. It seeks retribution against enemies, portrays a God who is vengeful, celebrates conquerors, and praises immoral victories. And no matter how cute the animals going two by two in the ark might be, everything else drowned in a great flood sent by God. The Bible includes stories that are inappropriate for children, like Ruth uncovering Boaz’s “feet” before they were married. There’s enough in it that it should probably be banned from libraries for explicit content. The Bible tells of a worldview we don’t believe in and represents, without question, cultural norms on things like women and slavery that we find appalling. The Bible, the most recent part of which is 2,000 years ago, is so far removed from us that it doesn’t understand the world we live in. The Bible often leaves us offended, with more questions than answers, more confused than confident. And frankly, the Bible is often boring. Forget the sleeping pill. Turn to First Chronicles. The 27th chapter tells us that “The 8th army commander for the 8th month was somebody whose name I can’t pronounce from some group I’ve never heard of from some place that may not still exist.” And for some reason, this is Holy Scripture. Ultimately, however, the Bible tells us of a God who doesn’t give up on us no matter how willful or clueless humans are. And ironically, despite thousands of years between then and now, the Bible does in fact understand the complexity of our world. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And it does challenge us to confront the cultural norms we find appalling today. Indeed, the Bible does often leave us with more questions than answers, more confused than confident, but that’s good because it’s not a book of rules but a collection of books written by people who are as confused and as hopeful as we are. People who believe there is more to this world than what we can see. One of the best things the Bible teaches is that in our age instant everything, time is eternal and we are part of continuing generations. We don’t know how or when, but a life of faith is to do our part to make things right from whatever wrong was done in previous generations so that we keep moving forward, through the teachings of Jesus and the grace of God, to the vision of a world where the wolves will lie down the lambs, and a little child shall lead us. We never give up hope. Sometimes the Bible gets a little too personal and maybe Jesus talks about money a little too much, but he never stops asking us to find a satisfying life through generosity, to always care for widows and orphans, whomever they are in our world today, and welcome strangers and aliens, from wherever they come in every age. In the Bible, we are confronted us with our faults and failures and leads us to find value in our faults and failures because everything that happens can lead to good. Even the crucifixion of God’s own child. The Bible teaches that no one is ever too far gone, nothing we’ve done is ever so awful, that it can’t be redeemed by grace. Not because of the things we do to make up for it. It accepts our simple asking for forgiveness as enough. There is mercy. There’s also accountability. There is reconciliation. There’s also repair to be made. Yet, bottom line there is always the possibility of rehabilitation and restoration. Always, always, and always, there is the opportunity to change. If there wasn’t, we would only become angrier and more distant from one another. That’s good for no one. So back to our children. As I think of the world they are growing up in, full of anger and hatred and often a feeling that some people are beyond help because of their beliefs or actions, we need people who will never give up on our neighbors. We can be angry and disappointed. But no one is ever so far gone that what “they’ve” done and especially what we’ve done can’t be redeemed and used for good. Because, as Paul told the Romans, there is nothing in all of creation that will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And love. That’s really the continuing and repeating story of the Bible. And we know how messy and wonderful and awful and beautiful love can be. I’m grateful that my job requires me to wrestle with some of life’s most perplexing questions and find meaning. I’ll admit to having a sometimes love/hate relationship with the Bible. Hearing the Bible used against you as a weapon will do that. But I can’t imagine basing my life on anything else because it provides a structure and framework against which to ask questions about life and how to live. To take what gives life and leave the rest behind. I encourage you to give it a try. Read a little bit; something simple. Don’t start at the beginning and try to read all the way through. You will lose interest at the listing of the 8th army commander for the 8th month, if not before. Start by reading just one gospel – try Luke. You won’t understand everything. I don’t. Then Matthew. Then Mark. If you have a question, ask me. Join us on Zoom on Thursday for lunch and good conversation. But let me assure you: In this baffling book, being perplexed by what it says is much better than knowing exactly what it says. Why else would Jesus have used the method of perplexing parables to tell his story. It means we can keep learning and growing. We will keep growing in understanding. Though, I’m not sure I will ever understand how wealth gained by dishonest means is a good thing. And not knowing, that’s OK.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI love being a Archives
March 2024
|