What Do You Make of This? Or What Does It Make of You?

Luke 16:1-13

Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' 3 Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' 5 So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6 He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' 7 Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. 10 "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

You know, Oh Great DoLessHarmers, we had a pretty good discussion of this text 3 years ago on this very blog. 

smokeythebear had the opening entry; (Though I think it was just P-b-ment posing as a cuddly furry critter) and titled it Shrewd Discipleship. Smokey the Basement quoted from the Message, where Peterson uses a nice turn of phrase, to suggest that this parable invites us to “creative survival” - and to living lives that are more than just getting by “on good behavior.”

Nice.

A couple insights from the sermon brainwave podcast - 

Skinner’s deal that money is powerful, and don’t be naive about it. . . And Jacobson’s notion that this parable gives a chance to talk about money, without asking for money. He points to Mark Allan Powell’s idea that a big part of the biblical teaching about money, is how you regard money.

ok - in fact, I am beginning to think that I’m going to take their advice about that, and talk a bit about that. 

Yet - it seems to me, that one really ought to deal with the scandal here. 

This is a parable that Augustine said he couldn’t believe Jesus actually told. . . 

I don’t know where I first ran across this, but I used it in a sermon, so it must be true:

“St. Augustine said "I can't believe that this story came from the lips of our Lord." “

In one sermon I saw that used this line of Augustine’s, - a line many brilliant preachers have used - she says, toward the end:    
“I wish I could work out all the puzzles of this parable - when all is said and done, I still find it very confusing!”

Well, heck. Is that what you’re supposed to do with it? Work out all the puzzles? 

I sorta doubt it. I think this story is supposed to work on you. The quesiton is what work the Holy Spirit has in mind for you with this Word. 

. . . but I digress

In my favorite book on parables, Hear Then the Parable, Bernard Brandon Scott says that this parable unmoores us by “challenging the way justice works in the world.” He says that it “breaks the bond between power and justice. Instead it equates justice and vulverability.” (266) 

That’ll preach. 

NOT.

Sarah Dylan Breuer who blogs at sarahlaughed.net - focuses on forgiveness. 

In a sermon - I used this construct that she proposes:

Now, we might do well to take note of what kind of situation this manager is managing. 

A very very rich man enjoys his fabulous wealth far off in the city of Jerusalem. His land is being worked by the peasants, and while he’s partying in the city, he has a manager take care of his affairs out there in the country. The peasants are working land that used to belong to their grandparents. But, they lost the land in payment of some debt. Speaking of debt, things work out such that the people are paying rent that puts them further and further behind.

The landowner gets word that his manager is squandering his property, and so, he sets out to fire him. While on his way, the manager, having gotten word of this, moves quickly. He calls the farmers to come to his office, and he reduces their debts. Perhaps he even makes it possible for them to get out from under their heavy burdens. 

The people, of course, are elated. They are glad when the Steward tells them of the reduction of their debt, and grateful to him, but all the more, not knowing that the Steward is acting on his own, they are grateful to the landowner for reducing their burden. When he arrives to fire the manager, the people have gathered together to thank him for his great generosity with a grand parade!

Here’s the great rub. What can the Rich Man do? He can tell everyone that they don’t need to thank him. . . the parade is over, they still owe all that money. . . or, he can take in the honor the people have bestowed on him, thanks to the Shrewd Manager.

This is, in Jesus’ strange way, a story about forgiveness. Extravagant, dangerous, outrageous, forgiveness. Forgiveness, in fact, that might set us on edge. This is forgiveness that seems extremely cavalier, and maybe a bit crazy. The next verse tells us that the Pharisees, hearing this, ridiculed Jesus.

That - I think - WILL preach. 

I have a notion that this is one of those texts where we might want to take the time to note, that in reading scripture, the point isn’t to discern “what it means” but to engage the Word for what it does. 

What does this do to you? 

That is the question.

And what it does, as Scott suggests, is unmoores us. This is a story that betrays a downright strange inclination toward mercy. Word & World had an issue devoted to the theme; “Is Forgiveness Enough” and the opening article is by Forde. The title, I would suggest, says it all: “Is Forgiveness Enough: Reflections on an Odd Question.”

One might well suggest, that the response to Jesus after a story like this might well be - “Is there no limit to forgiveness?”

Maybe that’s the question; of this text, and of this life. . .