The Rev. Austin K. Rios
18th September 2022: Proper 20
Last week we heard Jesus telling parables about the celebration that accompanies finding lost sheep and lost coins.
You may remember that I made reference to the connection between those parables and the more famous one that directly follows them in Luke’s Gospel—namely the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
Today we have before us the parable that immediately follows the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
The Parable of the Dishonest, or Shrewd, Manager only occurs in Luke and is one of the most challenging parables to unpack.
It serves as a thematic link between the graceful restoration of the lost in the Parable of the Prodigal Son and a larger reflection on wealth, status, and eternity in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus that we will explore next week.
So, what’s happening in today’s parable?
Jesus paints a scene of how working relationships and choices made in the economic sphere are related to matters of salvation.
A rich man—perhaps some of those who first heard the parable even envisioned the Forgiving Father whose estate was split between his sons—a rich man receives complaints that a manager is squandering his property.
We don’t know many important details that might help us get a firmer grasp on the parable.
Was the rich man a slave master relating to one of his high-ranking slaves, or is the term master used more loosely by the manager to refer to his employer?
Based on the size of the bills being considered, we can assume that the rich man is indeed very wealthy—100 jugs of olive oil and 100 containers of wheat are not small debts, but considerable amounts owed.
The dishonest, or shrewd, manager, is told by the rich man that his management days are done and asks for a final accounting before dismissing him.
The manager then summons his master’s debtors, reduces the amount they owe on their bills, and finally gets commended by his boss for “acting shrewdly.”
What is being commended exactly?
Is it that the manager reduced the bills by the amount that he personally would have gotten as a fee, thereby leaving only that which was owed to the rich man?
Is it that by reducing the bills from their original amount the manager was able to keep these clients of the rich man from defaulting on their loan, thereby assuring that the master received something instead of nothing from them?
Or is the commendable action that the manager, in seeing that he was about to be without a job and without a home, found a way to use this final accounting to make friends that would help secure his new future?
There are so many questions surrounding this parable.
Since Luke’s Gospel begins with Mary’s Magnificat, and its theme of reversals in who is accounted rich and poor, and since this same Gospel contains the story of Zacchaeus, the wealthy tax collector who only became truly rich once he restored the money he had defrauded from his community, I believe that Jesus is telling this parable as a way of elevating social capital above the mere accumulation of financial wealth.
It’s not that money is evil.
In fact, this manager today is praised because he employs money as a means of restoring right relationships.
And coming on the heels of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, with a wealthy man’s estate at the heart of parable, it seems clear to me that it is not the mere presence, but our relationship to material goods and money that matters.
Do we serve the God of wealth and lay our entire life at the feet of the idol of Mammon—aligning our decisions and actions toward what will allow us to keep accumulating more and more?
Or do we serve God, and see all that we have, including our gifts of money and resources, as tools in the restoration work that Jesus has inaugurated and invited us to join?
Jesus claims that this choice, about who we will serve—God or wealth—is a binary one.
We humans apparently cannot abide a divided loyalty regarding wealth—if we love and serve the idol of Mammon then there’s no room for our love and service to God.
But if our allegiance is reversed—if we put our devotion to God first— then any material wealth we have can be employed to further the mission of God and to restore communities and peoples broken by the harsh wheel of unjust economics.
Wealth can be an incredible tool, but it is an unsatisfying and dangerous master.
How does this parable of the shrewd manager speak to our corporate life here at St. Paul’s today?
Those of you who have been on this journey with us for some time know that our viability as a church connected with the larger Body of Christ throughout time and space, is primarily located in how much our interpersonal relationships mirror the restoration we have received in Jesus.
We have been blessed with resources to carry out this work—material resources that went to the building of this sanctuary, the construction of our organ, and to almost 150 years of budgets that enable our ministries—and there is never a time that we don’t need such resources to keep moving forward together.
But if we are ever tempted to confuse these tools of ministry with our ultimate goal—if we are ever tempted to fall under the delusion that they are ends in themselves instead of means for enabling us to pursue the “true riches” of which Jesus speaks today—then we should spend more time with today’s parable.
Let us reflect this week on the role that the pursuit of money and wealth play in our personal lives and find ways to use our personal and communal resources to heal broken relationships and reconnect with those whom the God of wealth has mercilessly broken.
Perhaps if we do so—if we prove good managers and stewards of this essential reconciling work— then the Lord of life will begin to entrust to us the true riches for which our hearts, our church, and our world longs.
True riches like unconditional love. Like mercy and truth meeting and the reality of resurrection and grace.
Riches that will never abandon us, like visions and experiences of the Glory of God on earth as it is in heaven and the peace which passes all understanding, which arise from serving God and God alone.