Sunday 18 September - Being people of the light (Reverend Richard Apperley)

I seem to be getting all of the curly Gospel readings recently! Hating your family a few weeks ago, and now the parable of the shrewd manager.

When I began opening commentaries to prepare for this sermon nearly every single one had a comment like:

“It is no exaggeration to say that the parable’s meaning has stumped even the best and most creative interpreters of Scripture.”

I’m reminded of the opening of James chapter 3: James 3:1-2

James 3:1–2 (The Message)

Don’t be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you’d have a perfect person, in perfect control of life.

So I’m entering this sermon with a little trepidation. Don’t expect anything spectacularly wise from me today - I’m not going to be the one to solve the mystery of this parable!

Parables 101

I love the parables. A parable is a story to tell you a deep truth - much like Aesop’s fables, but Jesus’ parables all tell you something about God and our relationship with God.

When you think about how Jesus taught, the parables are likely to be one of the first things that come to mind. It’s certainly not the only way he taught - the way he questioned, disputed, lived and acted are also important for us to learn from as his disciples. His parables are hugely diverse and rich - and I can imagine him telling them with a twinkle in his eye waiting, as we think about them, to discover the sting in the tail where we need to stop and rethink what it means for ourselves, God, or the world we live in. The parables are also largely rooted in peoples day to day living, and he uses examples that may even have seemed so mundanely ordinary to drive his point home. For some of them we need to dig a bit to understand the context they were written in - what it meant to be a shepherd at the time, the shame / honour culture, or the relationship between slaves and masters. But they all have a surprising depth and surpass the barriers of time and have something new to say to us today in the world we find ourselves in now.

When faced with a Jewish 1st century story about a master and a steward, it’s usually a safe bet to assume the master represents God, and the steward is Israel.

But this is where we begin to tie ourselves into knots with this parable!

Paraphrase

Here we have a simple story:

A rich man hears that his manager has been wasting his money, so calls him in and fires him. The manager switches to panic mode, knowing that he’s not strong enough for manual labour, and doesn’t want to end up begging on the street. So he comes up with a win-win plan - he’ll go to people who owe his boss money, and deduct some of the debt they owe in order that they pay up.

This will make everyone happy - his boss will get some of his money back, the debtors won’t have to pay as much, and he’ll have put himself in the good books with the debtors. All goes to plan - we don’t know if he managed to keep his job or not, but his boss praised him for what he’d done.

A crooked rich man, and a crooked manager. Are we really meant to put God in the place of the rich man, praising Israel for their cunning dealings?

There are many convoluted attempts at explaining it this way - some speculate that the manager was waiving illegal interest and some equate it as Israel failing to care for God’s creation. Every single attempt at explaining it this way though requires make assumptions, or leaving things in a tangled but slightly neater mess.

Jesus explains

On occasion, Jesus goes on to explain the meaning behind the parable, and he does here too - though his explanations here can also leave you scratching your head a bit!

The NET Bible (Second Edition) Chapter 16

For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their contemporaries than the people of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by how you use worldly wealth, so that when it runs out, you will be welcomed into the eternal homes.

10 “The one who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and the one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. 11 If then you haven’t been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will entrust you with the true riches?

In context

Let’s drop back quickly, and put this parable in context. At the start of the previous chapter we learn that tax collectors and sinners were gathering around to hear Jesus, and the pharisees and were complaining that Jesus welcomed sinners and eat with them. Immediately before our parable today Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son - in a nutshell, another story about someone wasting someone else’s possessions. But the point of parable of the prodigal son is that wherever sin is, grace abounds.

I wonder if part of the problem with interpreting this story is that we are tempted to try too hard to find hidden meanings, and overlay social contexts to it. Could it just be a simple black and white comparison between the way the people of the world live - often shrewd in dealing with their contemporaries, compared to how we are called to live as people of the light?

Let’s unpack that a bit:

This is a contrast between the ways of the world, and the Jesus way - there is a right way, and a wrong way to look out for yourself. It’s a contrast between selfishness and self sacrifice for the sake of others.

Martin Luther captures this idea:

The Parables: Jesus’s Friendly Subversive Speech Kingdom Strategy

We see every day, all too often, how the world pursues its own ends so devotedly, because it has its interests at heart and spares no pain or effort to get them.… On the other hand, we see how the children of light, that is, confessed Christians, are unproductive, listless, negligent, and indolent in divine matters, even though they know that God delights in their efforts and that they will enjoy his pleasure in eternity

We see this in our Amos reading today as well Amos 8:5

Amos 8:5 NET 2nd ed.

You say, “When will the new moon festival be over, so we can sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, so we can open up the grain bins? We’re eager to sell less for a higher price, and to cheat the buyer with rigged scales!

People of the world can be so skilled in getting themselves out of a pickle or to improve their situation - financial or otherwise - by lying, cheating, manipulating the system, twisting things to their own advantage - there are so many different strategies! If they can live by these worldly ways, what would it look like for us as people of the light to thrive by not accepting this way of living?

Money

Given the parable of the prodigal son, and the parable of the shrewd manager deal with the issue of money - it’s not surprising that Jesus comes back to one of his favourite mantras - you cannot serve God and money. Note the language - this isn’t a command - it’s not “you should not serve God and money” - it’s black and white. You can not serve God and money - for Jesus it’s a non option - in the words of John Mark Comer

“You simply can’t live the freedom way of Jesus and get sucked into the consumption that is normal in our society. The two are mutually exclusive. You have to pick.”

Or, in the words of Tyler Durden:

“Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions.”

As people of the light we are called to live lives that sacrificially care for God’s creation, and the last, the lost, and the least. We have to live lives that are based around the understand that everything we have is from God, and that we are trusted to manage it justly, and to be faithful with the little that we’re given.

Living this way might look like:

tithing - giving a regular amount of your income to the church to further its ministry and mission, and helping to ensure that it will be there to nurture the generations to come

giving to other charities, or donating your time and energy to serve others

trusting in God’s provision - not worrying about money

thinking about the way we live, and the way the things we purchase affect God’s creation and others - particularly those who made it. Are there alternatives that actually better the lives of others and reduce our imprint on the earth?

Earlier in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is recorded as saying:

The NET Bible (Second Edition) Chapter 12

33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide yourselves purses that do not wear out—a treasure in heaven that never decreases, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Paul Gooder writes:

If we use our worldly wealth well now, but with God’s rules - by caring for the poor and outcast - then, when this age has run out, you have an eternal dwelling ready for you. If you use it unjustly now, you will have friends in this age but nothing when it really matters. You can use money to make friends now or then - your choice.

We are what we love.

Jesus’ final dig

The lectionary, and most bibles, end this section at verse 13. But I think as I close it’s worth adding verses 14 and 15 in to the mix:

The NET Bible (Second Edition) Chapter 16

14 The Pharisees (who loved money) heard all this and ridiculed him. 15 But Jesus said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in men’s eyes, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly prized among men is utterly detestable in God’s sight.

Conclusion

This is the best I’m going to be able to do for now. My conclusions are far from perfect - in fact there are holes all over the place - but this is where I’m going to throw my hands up in defeat, and leave you to reflect on it further.

Kairos - in pairs