Have you heard of the carnival barker who kept yelling “Alive! Alive! Here! Here! Did you ever see a two-headed baby? Come in! Come in!” The gaff is that they don’t have a two-headed baby inside the tent. They only asked if you ever saw one.
This is the kind of shrewdness being celebrated in today’s Scripture reading.
Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012), the Mexican novelist and playwright whom some called “the soul of Mexico,” gave a long interview about his writing shortly after he turned 50 and began to contemplate his mortality. “I used to write to live,” he said. “Now I write not to die. I’ll live as long as I have another story to tell.”
Jesus was the greatest storyteller who ever lived. But I’ll wager a guess that there’s one Jesus story on which you’ve seldom if ever heard a sermon. It’s our lectionary text for today. And it’s one of the strangest and, for some, the most repugnant story Jesus ever told. There are so many features of this story that deserve our attention, and today’s exegesis probes some of them. In this morning’s sermon we only have time to highlight one of them.
This story provides primary evidence that Jesus wasn't just about telling stories of people who were "better" than we are, good and moral people we should try to imitate in some tradition of Aesop’s fables. The servant in this parable is bad to the bone. Yet he still has a message to bring that we can learn from. Jesus shows how even the worst have something of the best to teach us if we will be willing to receive wisdom from a tainted source, just as the servant received tainted wealth from a tainted world.
When people criticize others for quoting someone who doesn’t get everything all right, or citing someone who made mistakes and got some things wrong, pastor Mark Cain counters “Quote whom you wish ‑‑ bees make honey from weeds as well as orchids.” Or as the founder of Methodism John Wesley put it about Egyptian gold, “plunder the Egyptians.” In his classic devotional text Imitations of Christ (chapter 5), Thomas à Kempis says "Let not the authority of the writer offend you, whether he be of great or small learning; but let the Love of pure truth draw you to read. Search not who spoke this or that, but mark what is spoken."
Jesus cared less about pedigree than destiny. In fact, Jesus even told the disciples not to stop those who were speaking even though they "were not one of us” (Lk.9:49-50). Paul echoed this sentiment to the church at Philippi in an equally amazing portion of Scripture:
“It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice” (Philippians 1: 15-18).
Augustine and Aquinas took the best thinkers of their time and used them to introduce Christ to their culture. Augustine used Neo‑Platonism; Aquinas used Aristotle. When criticized for lifting up the thinking and insights of non‑Christians, Thomas Aquinas said: “Do not heed by whom a thing is said, but rather what is said you should commit to memory.” Or in the words of the great philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, “Great ideas enter into reality with evil associates and with disgusting alliances. But the greatness remains.”
Jesus’ strange and startling parable illustrated both for his disciples who were listening and for the eavesdropping religious establishment, that there is a definite distinction between a life lived fixated upon the needs to survive in this world, and a faithful life lived focused on the promises of the kingdom.
The dishonest servant so honed his energies to save himself, on saving his earthly existence, that he didn’t care at all about the fiscal fallout he left behind. The well-heeled “master” grudgingly congratulated his “bad boy” on figuring how to manufacture the first century version of a “golden parachute.”
Jesus’ parable is not about figuring out how to “work the system.” Jesus’ parable is about how the system no longer works to reflect the new reality of the kingdom. Jesus’ parable is about the life-altering power of the reign of God, of the transforming new reality that is to come, and the necessity for Jesus’ disciples to get ready for it. The future is the primary time zone for the follower of Jesus. The world is shrewd about taking the future into account for selfish interests. Why can’t we be shrewd about taking the future into account for God’s interests? Or as Jesus put it elsewhere, why can’t we “be as shrewd as a serpent, but as innocent as a dove?”
You might even call this story the “It Takes One to Know One” parable. Just as it took a wily servant to appreciate and apply the wily ways of his master, so can followers of Jesus recognize and realize the signs of goodness of our Master and take them on as our own.
No matter what we do in "this age," we are still living in brokenness, still living off other lives and others’ living. Jesus' parable is about the limitations of this world, and yet how we work within those limitations and the world’s brokenness. There is no such thing as untainted wealth. All wealth is tainted. Even the wealth of the kingdom of God is tainted in our hands. The wealth of God’s kingdom is a “dishonest” gift to all of us in this world, because it is always and completely undeserved. It’s not something we’ve worked for, or can attain by works, but something we receive as a free gift of grace.
Will you grow in grace this week? To grow in grace is to grow in something we’ve already been given in never-ending supply. And to grow in grace is to rest in the security of a relationship that has already been substantiated and enacted on our behalf by Jesus’ redeeming our brokenness through his death and resurrection. Because of what he has done, our destiny is glorious, despite our damaged pedigree.
At the end of the passage today, Jesus leaves us with a choice. We can choose to follow the ways of the world and embrace a dishonest life, a self-serving life in which we believe that only we can be the masters of our own future through manipulation and guile. Or we can embrace the “dishonest” gift of God and be assured of a future full of life and grace.
Be shrewd about your choices. Which will you choose?
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COMMENTARY
One of the most commonly trotted out critiques about living a life of faith is that it is all about “pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye.” The critics claim that those who put their ultimate faith in a heavenly reward, don’t really engage with this world. This critique is best expressed in the phrase “so heavenly minded, no earthly good.” Hardships and harassments are accepted in this world because “in the next age” heavenly rewards will far outweigh anything this earthly existence might have to offer. “Pie-in-the-sky” theology also has a checkered history of being used by the rich and powerful to keep the abused and down trodden accepting of their lot and their hope deferred.
Pie of this kind is best left in the sky. Jesus preached an inside-out, upside-down, “inverted” gospel — the last would be first, the first would be last; the exalted would be humbled, the humble exalted. But the sky is important in Christian theology, and should not be blanked out. The gospel keeps your heart humble (heart in the kitchen), your head confident (head in the sky), and your hands courageous (hands in the dirt): “I can do all things (you can’t get more confident than that) through Christ (you can’t get more humble than that) who gives me courage” (Phil.4:13).
This week’s gospel text is preceded by Luke’s presentation of Jesus’ most stirring and startling example of forgiveness and unexpected consequences in his parable of the “prodigal son.” Forgiveness, grace, acceptance, new beginnings, new relationships, and a radical re-ordering of divine “bookkeeping” — who is welcomed in and whose attitudes make them outsiders — is portrayed within that story, arguably the greatest short story ever told.
Immediately Luke follows up this “other worldly” view of assessing behavior, of the forgiving father and the prodigal son, with the extremely worldly and seemingly self-serving pragmatism found in the parable of the “dishonest steward.” More than offering an example of kingdom living, this parable initially outlines a series of actions that sound more like an episode from “Undercover Diners” — where hidden cameras record the bad behavior of questionable employees for their suspicious employers to view.
Outwardly Jesus’ parable is about a cold, calculating, world-wise money manager. Jesus’ first few lines describe an all too familiar scenario — that of a bad employee taking advantage of his employer. Nothing new there.
But in Jesus’ parable the “bad” employee figures out a worldly way to help himself out of his position “between-a-rock-and-hard-place” losing his employment, his home, his status. He faces the hard reality that his world is about to change big time. With his “squandering” (“diakorpizein”) ways found out by his employer, this business manager acts in accordance with the ways of the world. He offers those who are in debt to his master a cut-rate, one-time “deal.” It’s an offer designed to get in their good graces. The dishonest manager continues with dishonesty by offering to “cook the books” in favor of those who owe substantial amounts to his master.
What is shocking about this parable Jesus tells is not that it condemns the “way of the world,” but that the master actually praises his self-serving servant for acting, once again, in his own best interest. We hear nothing about this servant’s soul. We hear nothing about this servant’s salvation. We only hear about his business savvy. And his Machiavellian moxie is praised.
The dishonest servant keeps his focus firmly on his own future well-being. He brilliantly uses the Greco-Roman strict social contract of “reciprocity” (the recognition and repayment of established social debts and favors that maintained one’s acceptable social status) to ensure that when he was booted out of his current master’s home, he would have to be “welcomed” or “received” by those he had done the favor of lowering their debts. The amounts owed by these debtors were quite large, suggesting that these debtors themselves had substantial means, and that these individuals would be able as well as obligated to take in the soon to be dispossessed servant, once he was sent packing.
Stunningly, in Jesus’ parable, when the master finds out the latest in this servant’s nefarious actions he reacts by praising the man for his shrewdness (“phronimos”). Realizing that he was about to lose everything, the servant neither panicked nor decided to party hearty to the end. Instead he took decisive action to prepare for the new reality of homelessness he was facing. The scheming and dishonest servant knew how the world “worked.” He made sure it would work for him and his future.
At this point Jesus, as the narrator of these events, adds his own admonition to the “children of light,” that is to those who confess faithfulness. God’s children of light are falling short in their own dealings with the world and with the future. For all Jesus’ teachings about the age that is and the age to come, those who claim faithfulness do not act in this age in the ways fast approaching, in the radical new ways of divine forgiveness. In short, the faithful are not acting in this age in ways that will prepare them for God’s coming kingdom.
As if one surprise is not enough, Jesus continues in v.9 to surprise us with the suggestion that “children of light” should not be shy about using “dishonest wealth” to lubricate their future “welcome” and entrance into the world to come and their “eternal homes.” Jesus’ suggestion is not quite as strange as it sounds, for he describes the wealth of this world as “wicked” simply because it is a product of this fallen world’s ongoing condition. All that human beings have in this world is transitory in nature and tarnished by the brokenness of the human relationship with God. In sum, all wealth is by definition “dishonest.” All money is tainted.
But the fact that wealth is “tainted” doesn’t mean “tainted” goods cannot be used by the faithful with an eye towards the kingdom, the age to come. Most commentaries see here a continuation of Jesus’ call to give alms to the poor and to act charitably and forgivingly towards all those who are suffering. The “children of light” are to use tainted resources, that is worldly wealth, in such a way that it points forward, so that it focuses faith forward toward the greatness of the coming kingdom, where eternal life will be the greatest reward.
The dishonest servant used dishonest money to plan for his worldly, dishonest future. The “children of light” are to use “dishonest,” worldly wealth, to help bring in the kingdom — a kingdom that will ultimately reveal the worthlessness of all this age holds dear. Jesus turns any pedigree into a magnificent and manifest destiny.
Finally, using a classic “qal wehomer” (“light to heavy”) argument Jesus concludes his parable by noting that “whoever is faithful in very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.” Even though the wealth of this world is intrinsically “dishonest,” it can still be used in a “faithful” manner. This “light to heavy” argument suggests that there is no sedimentary segregation of our intentions and actions in this age. All we do, all we say in this age impacts our relationship with the divine in the age to come.
Jesus’ parable concludes by returning to the obvious. We all choose our “master.” For the “dishonest servant” his “master” was not his employer, but was his self-centered concern for his own future welfare and well-being. Whatever it took, that servant was willing to go to any lengths in order to ensure his personal survival. For the “children of light,” Jesus’ parable offers a different “master” who dictates our deeds. Even with our feet in the sand of this world, the faithful are to take every step as a journey to the kingdom. While we live life on earth, we live large in faith.