September 19, 2004
By Jack Price

This is a difficult parable to figure out.  With all its twists and intricacies, this story by Jesus is definitely not clean and easy.  The hero of the parable is a business manager (steward) who is incompetent and borderline dishonest.  The big boss discovers that the manager has been squandering the boss’s money.  This probably means he’s been wasting it.  Perhaps he’s been doing this by not collecting debts on time or not collecting enough, perhaps by not investing wisely or through inadequate record keeping?  Maybe the manager has been living high on the boss’s expense account?

The outcome is certain for our hero.  The boss requires a final accounting, a squaring of the books, and then, like Donald Trump, “You’re fired!”  It’s a dilemma for the manager.  His cushy job is gone.  “What will I do?”  His options appear to be limited:  manual labor or begging.  I guess he should have stayed in school!?!  He decides that the best  course is to make friends quickly and influence people.  So, this soon-to-be former manager, who has no great career ambitions and no other “managerial” prospects (not really a person to emulate) chooses to rely on the charity of friends.

The best you can say for this guy is that he takes decisive action.  He knows he needs charity, sympathetic supporters for his unemployment.  To do this, he falsifies records of debts and thereby cheats the master further.  He moves from incompetence to fraud.  What’s he cutting out?  We don’t know if it’s the master’s profit or his own profit?  With the shoddy record keeping, maybe he doesn’t even know.

The big boss is evidently a real entrepreneur type.  He actually admires the manager’s resourcefulness, even if is dishonest.  He’s still going to fire him and certainly won’t give him a reference, but he admires the guy’s self-preservation instinct. 

The point of the story seems to be that the resourcefulness of the manager in dealing with the realities of his own life situation, even though the problems are of his own making, is admirable.  He finds a pragmatic solution and follows through.  Jesus suggests that “children of light” should be so resourceful, though with higher ethics.

The original parable probably ended with verse eight with the admonition to a.   “emulate the cleverness of the unjust manager, but for better ends.”  Jesus does not commend the fraud, but commends shrewd action.  He might have been telling his disciples, “Don’t act dishonestly, but learn from shrewd people.”  One is reminded of the business secrets of Ghengis Kahn!  Take clear and decisive action.  Be this clever on behalf of the “kingdom of God,” in the spirit of the kingdom of God.

Is there a moral to this story?  It appears to be written in verse nine:  “Make friends for yourselves, even by means of ‘dishonest wealth,’ so they’ll welcome you when the money’s all gone.  This is certainly a strange moral. 

Jesus goes on warn people not to serve “mammon.”  This word “mammon” derives from uncertain Semitic origins and generally means wealth, money, property, or profit.  It’s not really a problem until it becomes a competitor with God for loyalty.  Unrighteous mammon enters the picture when one’s acquisition involves dishonesty.  Yet, even so, tainted money/mammon can be used for good purposes.  The danger lies in the lure of earthly possessions.

Later editors probably supplied a list of summary teachings in verses 10-13.  These include:  faithfulness in small matters translates to faithfulness in large ones; dishonesty in small matters translates to dishonesty in large ones; dishonesty with “mammon” won’t lead to your receiving true riches; dishonesty with someone else’s stuff won’t lead to getting your own stuff, and, finally the clear statement:  you can’t serve God and mammon.

What does this parable mean for us?  Remember that parables are not allegories.  You can’t always find God in the story as a character, but they’re always about God and life in God.  You need to find yourself in order to find the central idea.  Doing that, you can leg go of the other information.  In other words, how we handle our “mammon” affects how we handle our “true riches”.  There’s a truth in this world and we can live truthfully and honestly in it.

Cleverness is a vital tool in life.  Believers are warned not to deny the realities of life, not to think of faith as pie in the sky.  Hard realities here do matter.  People of faith often rely on God without relying on their own God-given gifts.  It seems that, in many cases, answers to prayer are already in us and the answers are all around us.

What are the issues raised here?  There’s stewardship of money and of your own spiritual journey, of this church, your relationships, and opportunities to be loving.  These all reflect our loyalty to God.  There are life values – the importance of this life, the mammon we have that is both a valuable tool and a dangerous temptation.  Money is an example.  It is a challenge to give money and time for church.  The church needs both to be solvent and viable.  We each have a spiritual need to tithe.  There is a challenge to overall financial solvency because we can’t give to the church at the cost of breaking ourselves.  Financial stewardship challenges our priorities in other areas and provides for us an opportunity to live honestly regarding our stuff.

Crossroads Church is in the midst of a building discussion through which we are paying attention to institutional realities and the needs of this congregation while keeping a clear eye on the church’s mission and ministry.  We are keenly aware of the fiscal risks and the spiritual/institutional challenges, always holding these in tension.  Pastor Gordon Cosby, of the DC-based Church of the Savior, spoke to a fund-raising group in his church:  “Deal with your own ambivalence concerning [money].  Very few people are free about money.  In ministry, when you have no money, there is no mistaking who is called.”  (Elizabeth O’Connor, Cry Pain, Cry Hope)

Stewardship includes our faith tradition, our process of theological exploration, our relationships, spiritual giftedness, and calling.  Jesus’ parable points out the importance of decisive action.  The manager’s quick and decisive action drew Jesus’ praise.  I am an Enneagram “9”.  For those of you familiar with the Enneagram, “9’s” tend to be so focused on connecting, reading everyone, and trying to fit in to keep life going smoothly, that we are often challenge by the need for decisive action.  This is certainly no just true of “9’s”.  It’s true of many types of people.

In church, we recognize the tensions of life and the difficulty of hard decisions.  We often bemoan how hard the decisions are, but clear and direct action is what’s required.  Using the resources of shrewdness and cleverness within values of the Kingdom of God, spiritual values, let us take decisive action.  This is not rash action, but decisive and clear action, to deal with life’s challenges as individuals and as a congregation. 

The pathway to abundant life lies in embracing the particular riches God gives us with enthusiasm.  The pathway to healing lies in strongly embracing God’s presence in our giftedness and in our brokenness.  The Word of God to us as individuals, and to us as church, is to move into the future you seek with clear and decisive action.  God will meet you there.  The invitation today is suggested by Francis Dewar in his book Invitations. 

If you have some idea of what God is calling you to, is there some step, however small, that you could take toward it?  Nothing will be clear beyond that step until you have taken it.

If you do not have any awareness at all of God’s calling to you, is there some task or activity you would like to try, to see how you feel about it?

Whatever else you decide-, be encourage with the words of the German poet Goethe:  “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it:  boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.  Begin it now.”

Let us pray in the words of author Janet Morley (All Desires Known) --

“O God, our dance, in whom we live and move and have our being; so direct our strength and inspire our weakness that we may enter with power into the movement of your whole creation, through our partner Jesus Christ, Amen. “