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Luke 16:1-15 · The Parable of the Shrewd Manager
Know What Time It Is!
Luke 16:1-15
Sermon
by W. Robert McClelland
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While reading the Bible, Mark Twain once quipped, "It is not the parts of the Scripture that I don't understand that bother me. It's the parts that I do understand." There are plenty of passages of Scripture that speak to us and trouble us. But, alas! for me, this is not one of them. Bernard Anderson referred to the Bible as a special delivery letter with our address on it. That may be true, but this particular bit of Scripture had best be marked, "return to Sender; no one at this address!" This is simply one of those texts that we don't know what to do with. And neither did the early church. They kept adding endings to Jesus' parable trying to make sense of a story that obviously commended the wisdom and resourcefulness of the dishonest steward.

The first attempt is sheer jibberish. "And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations." Can anyone tell me what that means? Taken at face value, Jesus is telling us to buy friends so that when the money runs out these folks will let us into heaven.

The next attempt to vindicate the parable was to tack on some proverbial wisdom: He who is honest can be trusted in all things great and small; but he who is dishonest, cannot be trusted at all. A nice thought, perhaps! But it has nothing whatever to do with the parable. In the parable, Jesus is commending the wisdom of the stewards' ruse, not his honesty.

Things go from bad to worse in the next attempt when we are offered a little moralism to take home with us. "If you have not been faithful in worldly affairs, you will not be trusted with heavenly treasures." Again, probably true. But it totally contradicts the parable.

Not satisfied with any of the above endings, Luke decided to go with a sure-fire winner. Quoting Jesus completely out of context, we read, "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." Amen!

The music comes up and the curtain goes down. Satisfied that no one is going to argue with that ending, and anxious to get on with it, Luke moves on to other matters.

But what about the original parable? The master commended the resourceful scoundrel when he learned that the day of reckoning was at hand. The point of the parable is that the dishonest steward responded appropriately in light of the impending crisis. Jesus wants us to identify with the scoundrel in the story.

The problem is that we don't like to think of ourselves as scoundrels. Fair enough! But how about sinners? The church calls us "sinners" all the time and we don't seem to mind. Indeed, we own the label quite readily and confess ourselves to be such every Sunday.

One of the basic doctrines of traditional Christianity is that of the atonement. Rooted in the Old Testament sacrificial system, the doctrine holds that God, being holy and perfect, cannot tolerate our sinfulness. Hence we either must not sin - an impossibility if we are to risk living at all - or our sin must be paid for by some sacrifice. It is only when atonement has been made for our sins that pardon can be granted and we are made acceptable in the eyes of God.

Some New Testament writers portray Jesus as the sacrificial lamb who, by his death, procures atonement with God for us (e.g. 1 Peter 1:19 and Revelation 5:12). Jesus, as Savior, sees our sin, is offended by it, and offers himself as a sacrifice for it, thereby obtaining a divine pardon for us. It is across our sinful nature that God in Christ writes the "nevertheless" that makes us acceptable to sacred scrutiny.

But, as Bernard Loomer has pointed out, the problem with sin/forgiveness theology, is that we end up feeling like forgiven sinners.

When Gerald Ford granted a presidential pardon to Richard Nixon, a good deal of discussion resulted both for and against his action. One of the delayed reactions was voiced by former Attorney General John Mitchell who feared that for a pardon to be granted and accepted made the recipient legally guilty. As a result he was concerned that he and the other Watergate defendants would be presumed guilty because of their association with Nixon.

Basic to orthodox theology is the belief that the Almighty is in the business of granting pardons to those who fall short of God's holy will. For nearly 19 centuries the church's faith has operated on the assumption that the essence of the good news is forgiveness. As a result, worship services normally provide for a period of confession during which we acknowledge ourselves as sinners - if not scoundrels - and ask for heavenly mercy. This, in turn, is followed by an assurance of pardon; the affirmation that God mercifully grants us forgiveness.

It is precisely the goodness of such news, however, that is called into question by Nixon's response to the presidential pardon. The fact of the matter is that when the pardon was granted, it had little or no effect on his well being. Gerald Ford may have felt magnanimous in granting the pardon, but Richard Nixon felt guilty and his depression, the reports said, increased.

The problem with this theology for me personally is that while God may forgive me and call me righteous, God does so in spite of who I am. The reality of my being is that I am a sinner. On this point there seems to be little disagreement. God, the Bible, my wife, the neighbors, even my dog; all agree: I am a sinner. Maybe, even a scoundrel. Consequently, God must accept me in spite of myself, but certinly not because of who I am. My being is, therefore, denied at the very center of my existence. In my totality I stand before God as both good and bad. But in the presence of the One who is the Ground of all Being, part of my being is rejected. God grants me a pardon and thereby calls me righteous, but we both know that I am not righteous. I am a sinner, and that fact cannot be changed with smoke and mirrors. I am a mixture of wheat and tares. The Most High may feel righteous in granting me pardon, but I feel forgiven. Instead of feeling free, I feel guilty. I stand acquitted before the jury, but before them I feel awkward and depressed for I know I am, in myself, unacceptable in the eyes of the Judge.

If God is to love us it cannot be in spite of our sin as if it were foreign to our true nature and could be overlooked by Divine benevolence. No! If God is to love us it must be as bonafide sinners. This is where Jesus' parable comes in. He addresses us as scoundrels.

This is not a parable condemning the sinner or his sin. Not only is there no moral judgment implied in the parable, Jesus commends the sinner for his imaginative response to the crisis in which he found himself. Because Jesus believes the kingdom of God is at hand, the point of his parable is: Act appropriately in light of the times. Be as wise as this scoundrel. Know what time it is! Don't just stand there. Do something about it!

But in what sense is the kingdom present in Christ? And how are we to act in light of it?

The kingdom of God has to do with more than merely life after death; the kingdom of Heaven. The kingdom of God is a peculiar perspective on this life; a grace-full view of this sinful world. Consequently, the grace of God has little to do with erasing our sins as if God were shocked by our scandalous lives. Like the cleric who turns red at the telling of a dirty joke we seem to think God is forced to look the other way out of divine embarrassment. Jesus knows all about scandal. He was born in a barn. He died on a cross.

Religious spokespersons contend that we can only begin living when we get our act together, knock off our naughtiness, and begin to love one another. We are told that to be whole we must be holy. The prophets of Madison Avenue have their own version of a sinless society. We must be people with white, sparkling teeth, who smell nice, drive sleek, shiny automobiles on our way to happy homes and prosperous jobs.

But what if in reality our jobs are deadly dull, or we can't get our act together? What if we can't love as we ought and our marriages are on the rocks? Where is wholeness for us if our car is in the garage or the finance company has repossessed it? What if some of our teeth are missing, we sweat a lot, or have bad breath? What does it mean for us, who are sinners, to live with the kingdom at hand?

The reply of the King is, "Take up your cross and follow me."

The cross, let us never forget, symbolizes our sinfulness. The significance of Jesus' reply rests not only on his assumption that each of us has a cross of sinfulness, but more remarkably, that we can bear it. Rather than have us believe we can get rid of our crosses by earnest prayer, positive thinking, or sincere effort, Jesus, who is an expert on crosses, knows that we will not only have to carry our own cross, but that we can carry it. The grace of God is found, not by having crosses miraculously disappear, but in the discovery that we can, in fact, bear them. The Bible is not a book of nursery rhymes in which God is our fairy godmother who waves her magic wand thereby changing pumpkins into royal coaches. Prayers bombarding the throne of grace stemming from that assumption result in frustration if not futility. But the Bible does suggest that behind the scenes stands a grace-full God who offers hope and help for sinners carrying their crosses.

When Jesus as God's anointed King bids us take up our cross and follow him we need to hear his invitation, not as an onerous command to do the distasteful, but as a word of permission to live in our sinful humanity. Furthermore, (and this is the great surprise of the kingdom) the King not only gives us permission to live our lives with all their sinful limitations and weaknesses, but he gives us permission to rename them. We are not locked into the labels that have been assigned us by church or society - "sinner," "scoundrel," "misfit."

Ironically, amazingly, even humorously, Jesus is Savior because the beginning and the ending of his story is cast in scandal. He was born as an illegitimate child. He was crucified as a criminal. The world looks at the life of Jesus with its questionable beginning and sees the cross as its bottom line. By the standards of the world we ought to conclude that he died "prematurely;" that his life began in "scandal" and ended in "failure." He was an "embarrassment" to his family and friends. To his disciples his ministry ended in "tragedy" and "disillusionment." When we are not caught up in a pious sentimentalism we ought to conclude that he was a misfit. The miracle of faith is that we call this misfit, "The Son of God."

Look at how we as believers have come to regard his crucifixion. We call his cross a symbol of "life," not "death." We speak of it as a symbol of "glory," not "scandal." A sign of "hope," not "dead end." "New beginnings," not failure. It is a remarkable feat of faith that we dare to call the Friday of crucifixion, "Good Friday." Jesus' cross is not eradicated, but in the resurrection God gives us permission to rename it. Consequently all of life's "failures" can be seen differently. When we view the scandal of Jesus' life from a divine point of view, we can see the flaws of our own humanity from the same perspective. We are given permission to rename our scandalous lives and experiences gracefully.

The grace of God is like the man who went into the clothing store to buy a suit and was shown a blue one. "No," the customer said, "That won't do. I want a green suit." So the clerk called out to his partner, "Turn on the green light, Joe, the man wants a green suit!" It is not that things are changed. But we see them differently. In Christ we are given spectacles which give us a kingdom perspective. We see ourselves in a heavenly light; through God's eyes. We see how things really are. We need no longer suffer from the stigma that "sinner" - forgiven or otherwise - denotes. We can see ourselves as "heirs" with Christ of the Divine inheritance. The world is not changed, but we see it and ourselves in a new light; a kingdom light.

A Zen story characterizes life as a Buddhist monk fleeing from a hungry tiger. The monk comes to the edge of a cliff cutting off any hope of escape from the pursuing tiger. Fortunately for the monk, a vine happens to be growing over the edge. He grabs hold of it and begins to climb down the cliff, out of the tiger's reach, who is by now glaring at him from above. But alas, as the monk is climbing down, he spies another tiger waiting for him below; circling impatiently at the bottom of the cliff. To make matters worse, out of the corner of his eye he notices a mouse on a ledge above him already beginning to gnaw through the vine. Then out of the corner of his other eye the monk sees a strawberry growing from the rock. So he picks the strawberry and eats it.

Faith in God is not believing that the Holy One will intervene to "save" us. It is knowing what time it is. We live with the reality of sin and death encoded within us, yet we are to live with joy here and now, sinners and scoundrels, because the kingdom is at hand. We are not to demand evidence of its presence. Rather we are to believe it and act accordingly. The claim that we are invited to entertain is that our Savior has overcome the guilt of living and the embarrassment of dying. No longer do we need to apologize for the bumps and warts which inevitably result from living the risk that we call "life." We are not as those who live under sentence of death, but as those who possess the promise of life.

Christian hope is not something we derive from the evidence. Christian hope is something we claim contrary to the evidence and only because the Most High gives us permission through a story to draw contrary conclusions, i.e. to rename the data.

One of the cliches of our culture is that love is blind, but marriage is an eye-opener. Not so! Love sees with amazing clarity; especially if it is divine love. The New Testament Saul had boundless energy and commitment. Unfortunately, he was also hell-bent on persecuting Christians. That is, until he caught God's attention. The Holy One decided that with all that get-up-and-go he would be a good point man for the church. Saul was renamed, "Paul," and the rest is history. Kingdom vision is a perfect 20/20.

Similarly, the Christ of the gospels does not change us, he renames us. That is a crucial distinction. He does not do away with our sinful natures. He simply renames our neuroses and calls them "gifts." Our idiosyncrasies, after all, are what make us interesting. They are what make us unique as individuals. Christ sees them as contributions to life. He does not remove our failures, he calls them "new beginnings." He does not wipe away our mistakes, he says that is how "wisdom" is fashioned. He does not deliver us from our handicaps, he calls them "challenges." And, most assuredly, he does not deliver us from our weaknesses, but rather calls them "strengths" to be shared.

Perhaps the most important gift this parable offers us is the permission to rename our lives because the kingdom has come in Christ. And in so doing, we ourselves are, in some mysterious, even miraculous way, born anew.

C.S.S Publishing Co., FIRE IN THE HOLE, by W. Robert McClelland