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Luke 16:1-15 · The Parable of the Shrewd Manager
On Fooling a Mafia Don
Luke 16:1-15
Sermon
by King Duncan
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When Joseph Talese was an apprentice tailor in Maida, Italy he made a terrible mistake. His hand slipped and he accidentally cut a slit in the trouser leg of a Eastertide suit being made for the head of a Mafia crime family. Disaster loomed. The proud and vengeful Mafia chieftan might very well exact a terrible price for his disappointment and there was not enough material to craft new pants.

As siesta time approached, the tailor for whom Talese worked closed the shop and ordered his assistants to pray for help with this frightening situation. In due course came inspiration: the tailor cut an indentical slit in the other trouser leg and sewed up both with an elaborate bird-shaped design. When the astonished mafioso tried on his new suit, the tailor explained that wing-tipped knees were the latest fashion in the great capitals of the world. As proof, he pointed to his assistants: each of his assistants now wore trousers with the identical sewn design. The don left, happily in style. (1)

Now let me ask you a question. Did the tailor do wrong in misleading the Mafia boss? Most of us admire the tailor's ingenuity, but technically he did lie. His lie probably did no harm and probably kept him from physical harm but it was still a lie.

Now, let me tell you another story. A middle-aged man was in trouble with his boss. In fact, he had already been given the pink slip. In a few days he would be finished - out the door. The man was mortified. He knew at his age in life it would be difficult to find another job, particularly at the pay scale to which he had grown accustomed. Unemployment benefits would keep his family going for a while, but what would he do when they ran out? He was facing disaster.

Then he hit upon an ingenuous plan. He was in charge of collections for his company. In the short time he had remaining with his employer, he decided to call each of his employers' creditors and offer them a deal. He was leaving his current position, he said to them, to find a new opportunity. In order to keep their good will he was offering them a deal they could not refuse. If they paid their bills immediately, they could settle for 60 cents on the dollar. Of course, he assured them with his fingers crossed, he had been authorized to make this offer. And he hoped they would remember this act of good will when he came to their company to submit his resume. In other words he used his bosses' money to buy good will with possible future employers. 

Now, did this man do wrong? Of course, you say. He was not authorized to give away his company's money like that no matter how desperate he was to find another job. His behavior was inexcusable. This brings us to the question for the morning: Why did Jesus make a hero of this man?  For basically, this is Jesus' parable of the unjust steward brought into modern times. Why did Jesus make a hero of this scoundrel?

Certainly it was not because of the steward's sense of ethics.  What ethics? Like many people today this man believed the end justifies the means. Can't you hear him rationalizing his behavior: "My boss won't miss this money. He drives a Mercedes. He takes trips to the Bahamas all the time. This money is peanuts compared to what this firm takes in every year. Besides, I'm desperate. I've got a family to feed. There's nothing else I can do." There's nothing surprising about such thinking. People do it all the time in our society today. 

A man in Florida had survived Hurricane Andrew. One day one of his neighbors asked him, "So, what claims are you putting in?" The man had not suffered any damage to his house or car from the storm, so he answered, "None." The neighbor couldn't believe it. "Hey, here's your opportunity to collect a few bucks," the neighbor said. "The insurance companies are practically writing checks on the spot. How could anyone pass up putting in a claim for $5,000 for wet carpeting or a damaged car? After all, you've been paying premiums all these years. Why not get a little back?"

Does that sound familiar? The neighbor's willingness to give in to the temptation to falsify a claim is not that unusual. One-third of those sampled by the University of Florida's Insurance Research Center believe it's okay to falsify an insurance application. One half feel it's all right to shade the truth in order to save on out-of-pocket deductibles. (2) This is the state of ethics in our society today.

That's sad. For one thing, we all pay for such chicanery. And secondly, it's getting so you don't know who you can trust. If people tell little lies, are they not at risk to tell bigger lies. What happens when the day comes when we will not be able to trust anyone?

But you say, "Pastor, aren't you being a little rigid here?" I think not. We need a consciousness that it is always wrong to lie. It is always wrong to misrepresent the truth. Even when bending the truth is necessary, it ought to be done with a queasy feeling in our stomach. For example, if you were hiding a Jewish refugee from Hitler's storm troopers, of course it would be permissable to lie. But still we need a consciousness that lying is wrong. Otherwise there is a danger that we will begin rationalizing far less critical situations and justifying falsehood with regard to those situations as well.

Some years ago, in Newark, New Jersey, the front page of the newspaper carried the startling headline that ducks by the hundreds were drowning in one of the bays in the vicinity. It seems that great flocks of these migrating wild ducks were settling down upon the water as usual, but there was a new unsuspected hazard. From a nearby refinery a large quantity of crude oil had spilled into the bay. The oil itself was not harmful; it was not poisonous, it had no hurtful acid content. But gradually and subtly it matted the feathers together, and before the ducks realized what was happening the icy waters had penetrated to their skin; their bodies became numb with cold, and the ducks perished. (3)

There is a moral numbness in our land. Polls are showing that more and more people are playing fast and loose with the truth ” particularly our young. Where are we headed? What happens when we are no longer able to trust our spouses, our attorneys, our police? Jesus put it like this later in this same chapter, "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least is unjust in much."

When Jesus chose this man to be the hero of this parable, he was not extolling the man~s ethics. The man was a scoundrel. A knave as our foreparents might have called him. Why then did Jesus make him the hero of a parable? It was the man's ingenuity and drive that Jesus was extolling. The man didn't sit around whining over his situation. He got busy and found a solution. He came up with a plan and he followed the plan to fruition. He may have been a scoundrel, but at least he was an industrious soundrel. Jesus was a man of action and he wanted his followers to be people of action. It saddened Jesus that many of his followers were good people, but it was a negative kind of goodness that did not advance the kingdom. You can almost see the sad expression on Jesus' face as he concludes this parable with this commentary: "The children of this world are wiser than the children of light."

There was an interesting legal question posed in The Saturday Evening Post recently. It seems that one lovely Sunday when the sermon was overlong, the congregation rushed, as usual, from its pews on the first syllable of "Amen!" Faithful Abigail, the only worshiper held entranced by the sermon, moved slowly and was trampled. She sued the church and its officials for damages.
"Those in charge of the church knew that most of the congregation stampedes after long sermons," Abigail argued. "They should have recognized the danger in the situation. Not being prepared to cope with it, they were negligent."

The church's attorney argued like this in response: "A church is a nonprofit organization manned for the most part by volunteers. No one has a right to expect it to be run with the smart efficiency of a business concern. Abigail, therefore, has no real claim."

If you were the judge, asks the writer, would you award damages to Abigail? (4)

What I found interesting in this hypothetical situation was the characterization of the church. "A church is a nonprofit organization manned for the most part by volunteers. . . No one has a right to expect it to be run with the smart efficiency of a business. . . ."   Why not? What if we were as good at what we do as McDonald's is at what they do, or Coca Cola or Microsoft? What if we were as committed to spreading the good news of the kingdom of God as American business is to winning new customers? This is the point Jesus is trying to make. He wants people who bear his name to not only be nice people but to be people who make a difference in the world.

Charles Spurgeon put it both colorfully and clearly years ago. He was commenting in a church meeting after reading a verse from the book of Job that goes something like this: "And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them."

"Yes," (Spurgeon) said, lifting his eyes with a kindly glance around the crowded gallery, "that is still the case. Some of us are always plowing, breaking up the fallow ground, preparing the ground for good seed. And others are feeding." Then he looked his congregation in the eye and said, "I know some of you dear people. You would not miss a service if you could help it. Feeding, everlasting feeding. It is good to feed, it is necessary to feed, but do a bit of Gospel plowing as well, for the health of your souls and the glory of God. The oxen were plowing, but the asses were feeding!" (5)  There's a powerful message in Spurgeon's mischievous words. Jesus got frustrated by people who were nice but who never did anything to advance the kingdom. 

Now please do not misunderstand. We're not talking necessarily about heroic service. We're not talking about getting on a plane and heading to a far corner of the earth.  Sometimes the most meaningful acts of service can be the simplest if those acts are given with love.

Let me tell you about a man named Wilbur Pinney. Wilbur spent his career in the food industry and died several years short of retirement. Like all executives, he had many demands on his time outside of business ” community projects, Scouting, charitable groups ” but his first consideration was his church. As a longtime member of the famous Chicago Temple, Wilbur performed an unheralded service. On Sunday afternoons, he participated in a social program for senior citizens who lived in the neighborhood. Many were widows and widowers; most were lonely, forgotten and neglected. Wilbur didn't develop or administer the program; he merely met the senior citizens when they arrived, mingled among them, and bid them farewell.

On the Sunday after Wilbur died, the pastor of the Chicago Temple unlocked his study and found a note slipped under the door by an earlier visitor. "Pastor, Wilbur Pinney died," the note read, "now who will smile at us on Sunday afternoon?" (6)

Undoubtedly Wilbur Pinney was a nice man. But it wasn't mere niceness that made him smile. Pinney was committed to a ministry among the older members of that congregation. There were probably times when he didn't feel like smiling. But this was one thing he could do. He could help his church by his ministry of caring. 

I believe that everyone in this room is a nice person, I hope you will leave church today asking yourself this question: What is my ministry? Am I plowing or just feeding? My guess is that Jesus used this scoundrel ” this dishonest steward ” to shock us into awareness. Being nice is great ” being honest is essential ” but it is only the beginning of the Christian life. We've got a world to save from the powers of death and darkness. The world will only be saved if each of us finds a ministry as well.

1. TIME, 2-10-92, p. 73, from the book UNTO HIS SONS by Gay Talese.

2. Dr. William P. Barker, TARBELL'S, (Elgin, Illinois: David C. Cook Church Ministries, 1994).

3. Charles W. Koller, EXPOSITORY PREACHING WITHOUT NOTES, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1962).

4. Charles Spurgeon, quoted in Worldwide (Jan.-Feb. 1959), p. 7. Cited in Robert E. Coleman, THE SPARK THAT IGNITES, (Minneapolis, MN: World Wide Publications, 1989).

5. Thomas S. Haggai, TODAY, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989).

6. "You Be the Judge" by William Donaldson, May/June 1995, p. 84.

Dynamic Preaching, Collected Sermons, by King Duncan