Pentecost 17, Year C
The Rev. Dena Cleaver-Bartholomew
In the Gospel according to Luke we encounter a very literary telling of the life and ministry of Jesus. One of the wonderful things about Luke is that the parables Jesus tells are placed so that key words, phrases, and images from one story inform and illuminate another. Like a golden thread woven through a tapestry, the common themes pull these parables together and emphasize the important points, enabling us to understand each of them more fully than if they stood alone.
In today’s parable of the dishonest manager we encounter a story that is, at best, puzzling. The story centers around a manager who suddenly finds himself summoned before his boss, informed that his work will be audited, and fired. Evidently the charges of mismanagement are true or the manager would rest assured that the audit would clear him of wrongdoing. Enter creative accounting. The manager finds a resourceful way to ingratiate himself to his master’s debtors by lowering their debt. Then comes the surprise: he gets praised for it! The very man who is firing him commends his ingenuity. So where’s the moral of this story?
I think that the moral begins in the parable Jesus tells right before this one. In that parable, often called the story of the Prodigal Son, the younger of two sons requests his share of the inheritance and, as Luke tells us “squandered his property in dissolute living.” He eventually finds himself reduced to slopping pigs. It is then that he has a moment of insight, repents, and decides what to do so that he can return home. Upon his return the younger son receives a completely unwarranted and unexpected response of compassion and mercy.
In the story of the Dishonest Manager we find another person who has been in an enviable position only to ruin it for himself. He too is said to have “squandered property.” Each man had been given a gift, either of his own property or the trust of caring for another’s. Both squandered not only the property, but the opportunity it provided. Both the prodigal son and the dishonest steward then had to rethink the situation and find a way to return to being welcomed either home or into a new home. While it is clear that the prodigal son repented we are not told the same of the manager. It is obvious, however, that the manager is now motivated in a way he had not been. If this manager had applied his cleverness to serving his master, imagine what a different spot he could be in: praise, raises, increased status and reputation in the community, job security. But he wasn’t motivated to be resourceful on behalf of his boss until he had to be, which gives rise to an interesting question. What does motivate people?
In the movie Jerry Maguire Tom Cruise plays a sports agent who has a moment of insight and hates it when he sees what he has become. He had become a successful sports agent, not by being resourceful on behalf of those who entrusted their lives and careers to him, but making whatever deals made the most money, no matter what the cost to his client. He hadn’t squandered their property, but he was more than willing to sacrifice both his integrity and their well being to make more money. When he is inspired and writes a mission statement for his company that declares they need to focus on fewer clients, less money, he is fired. The tension in his career and, not surprisingly, in the rest of his life, is held in the juxtaposition of two phrases: “The key to this business is personal relationships,” as taught Jerry by his mentor, and “Show me the money!” the slogan of his one and only client. Each person in the movie struggles to find the balance of these two emphases.
The dishonest steward is being called in by his master and told “Show me the money!” What he does instead is to reduce the amount owed by each of his master’s debtors, so that they see the master as generous and compassionate. While the master will forego some income, the prestige and honor he gains in the community for this unexpectedly magnanimous act is priceless. After all, when it comes to honor and reputation, Jerry’s mentor had it right: “The key to this business is personal relationships.” The master sees what the manager has done and realizes the brilliance of it. The manager’s job is twofold. He may have failed in dealing as he should with the money, but he made an astounding recovery in building up the relationships.
The
challenge of balancing the world’s emphasis to “Show me the money!” and Jesus’ emphasis on right relationships
shows up in both the parable of the Prodigal Son and today’s saga of the
Dishonest Steward. Both money and
relationships pull at us to be the source from which we derive our
value. Jesus addresses both as
important. The money is important
because how we treat wealth in this life is indicative of whether we are good
and trustworthy stewards of the gifts God gives us. The temptation is to get so attached to the
money that we forget it is a means to an end and not the goal itself. The primary goal is to get the relationship
right. If we place God first, the other
priorities, including money, line up behind that first one. That is what the First Commandment is about: “I am
the LORD your God…you shall have no other gods before me.” You cannot serve more that one master because
there is only one God. This relationship is so important that Jesus literally
embodies our opportunity to put God first.
Jesus comes to tell us in stories, to show us in person, to live out the
prophecies, so that we might understand how very much God wants us to be in
right relationship. God wants it enough
to not only to call us to account, like the master in today’s parable, or
to eagerly scan the horizon, like the
father of the prodigal son awaiting his return, but to set out in person, in
Jesus, to give us the opportunity to get it right. God is motivated. The prodigal son was motivated. The dishonest manager was motivated. Are we?