Bad Characters, Bad Story, Good Point

17th Sunday after Pentecost

St. Luke 16:1-13

Ruskin Heights Lutheran Church

September 19, 2010

Have you ever been to a play, or seen a movie, or read a book where you unquestionably disliked every character in the story?

The parable that Jesus tells in today’s gospel report is just like that.

In most parables, there is somebody you want to identify with, somebody you want to be like; someone you admire.

But just look at the characters Jesus introduces to us:

First, there is a wealthy, probably absentee landlord who charges his tenants rent to farm on his land.

Nothing wrong here; my grandfather farmed shares.

When he hears a rumor that his manager might be skimming the profits, he warns his manager there is going to be an audit.

Nothing wrong here, either. The State of Missouri has a state auditor always checking accounts. Audits are good.

Now things go dicey.

Consider the manager.

When faced with the prospect of unemployment, he decides that he cannot get a real job and he’s too proud to beg. So what does he do?

He helps the renters forge payment receipts.

The renters will be so appreciative that when he’s out of a job, they’ll be happy to take him into their homes and keep him in beans.

The truth of the matter is he is prepared to blackmail them into taking care of him. This is Tony Soprano stuff and this is the guy who is praised for his cleverness as the story goes along. I mean, gee whiz.

And the renters — they are every bit as guilty as the manager himself. To forge their payment receipts they must lie, cheat, and steal.

Now, back to the landowner.

He is actually impressed by the brilliant though roguish scheme cooked up by the manager.

“I wish I had thought of that!” This tells you what an unethical character the landowner has been all along.

That’s the story that Jesus told.

So who do you like in that story?

For which character will you cheer?

Who is the hero?

Who do you admire and want to be like?

Think about it:

Not one of these people is marred by any trace of personal integrity.

This parable has baffled Bible preachers for as long as there have been Bible preachers. No one really knows quite what to do with it.

Interpretations have ranged from “people of the world are wiser than the people of God” (well, duh) to “use money in a way that will have long-term effects for good” (like I don’t know that already).

One theologian — about three centuries ago — suggested that money is the hero of this story. Money can be a god, or money can be a servant; and because the manager used money shrewdly, so should we.

There were some others I researched but they all come out like “Blah, blah, blah and a partridge in a pear tree.”

But there are two interpretations I like best. Here’s the first interpretation.

Why did Jesus tell this story?

Jesus tells a story about bad people to make a good point.

Jesus asks:

Why don’t you act as just as shrewdly as this manager when it comes to the business God has entrusted to you?

The bad people in this story are very quick to act in their own interests.

Now Jesus wants to know, why aren’t you — children of the light — just as quick in the interests of others?

God has given to us the management of “holy things.” Take care of them. That’s your business for God. Get busy with it.

God has given us responsibilities for the stewardship of our lives and the lives of those given to us in love — family, friends, children, fellow believers, the stranger in need.

These are the riches God entrusts to us.

By baptism he has brought us into his “business” and the wealth he lays before us is ours to love and cherish.

These true riches are entrusted to us for a life of faithfulness.

“Faithfulness” in this sense is the same as “shrewdness” in the other.

And some day our “faithfulness” will be brought to account.

And — just bet’cha — we shall all end up debtors.

Meanwhile, though, we dare to trust that the riches Jesus brings will in fact cancel out the debt we owe.

Sinners that we are, Jesus takes our debts and nonetheless, gives us credit to the good.

This is a divine bailout.

Only this time it is a stimulus that works.

Our activities as Christians — saints while yet sinners — are never free of mixed motives. We must act while still captive to sin. Our use of time, talent, treasure is always less than ideal and the Prayer of the Day prayed moments ago reminds us:

“Without the Lord’s help, it is impossible to please him.”

So the challenge always lies before us — be swift, be decisive, be clever, be shrewd, which is all a way of saying, be faithful with the real treasures God has given you.

All that is one of the two interpretations I like best.

Here is the second interpretation, much shorter.

Let’s say, the parable is allegory.

In allegory the characters all represent someone else.

In this allegory, God is the wealthy landowner. Jesus is the manager. And you and me, we’re the tenants.

God demands an accounting. And all we have are receipts forged in human conceit.

Jesus tells us, your debt, I’ve reduced it to zero. And he asks, gently, “Can you live with that?”

In point of fact, it is the only way we get to live – canceled sin and all that.

And after that, well of course, we welcome Jesus into our habitations, into our hearts. Look what this shrewd “manager” did for us.

That’s the two of them I like best.

And of the two, well, it’s sort of like which interpretation do you need?

If you need a boost in faithful living this week, then let Jesus ask you the question: How you doing with the stuff God has given you for life?

But this week, maybe you need to know and hear again, God supplies where you fail. If you need reassurance that sin is canceled, that your debt is zeroed out, go with the second.

But maybe, come to think . . . this week and next week, and the week after . . . we need both.