Truth is not an ideology. Truth is a relationship; truth is a person.

In March, 1994, the huge defense contractor Martin Marietta returned to the Pentagon some 540 overpayments, totaling $135 million. Of course, that was nothing compared to the $1.4 billion in overpayments various defense contractors returned to the Pentagon in 1993.

With a fresh reading of the parable of the unjust steward in mind, it is hard to read a report like that without wondering, where is the truth? Defense contractors aren't usually at the top of our lists when we start citing altruistic organizations. So why is Martin Marietta really returning $135 million to the Pentagon? And if $1.4 billion in overpayments was returned in 1993, how much was not returned?

The unjust steward was not concerned with the truth; he was looking to insure a future roof over his head and food on his table. How much truth-telling and apparent generosity are done only for the sake of self-preservation?

"Truth in advertising" is a phrase we've all learned to recognize as an oxymoron. If products and people were everything they advertised themselves to be, we would be the happiest, cleanest, richest, most satisfied people ever to walk the earth. We don't really expect products to transform us and our lives in the ways they are advertised.

But we do expect truth from God. Part of the confusing nature of the unjust steward story is that we expect truthfulness to be present in all Jesus' parables. But the story of the dishonest manager rattles us by appearing to praise dishonesty, conniving shrewdness and a kind of anything-goes morality.

There is truth at work in the story of the unjust steward but it is not the truth of accurate accounting or the truth of divine judgment. The truth at work here is the truth of divine love and forgiveness in the face of all our hopeless indebtedness. Squared off against a roomful of indignant scribes and Pharisees, Jesus offered the startling story of the unjust steward as an answer to their demand that he toe the line in matters of the law. Confronted with an opportunity to ask, "What is truth is it law or is it love?" Jesus boldly proclaims the word: Truth is love.

This week's epistle text echoes this affirmation as Timothy says that God "desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). What is this knowledge of the truth? None other than love. Clement of Alexandria presented a three-fold movement of the human soul toward the truth that is God. Clement argued that we start in faith, progress to knowledge and ultimately proceed by love. Love is the most exalted knowledge.

The ultimate truth, the truth that transcends the Pharisees' attachment to the letter of the law, is Christ. The truth is not some cleverly worded ideology. Truth is a person Jesus Christ. As a person, this truth only comes to fulfillment in relationship to others. In the community of the church, in the relationship between Christ and his body, we receive the gift of a Savior who offers us love as the ultimate law.

There is good reason to ask ourselves why the church has become such a marginal force in our culture. One accusing reason may be because the church doesn't seem to have anything enduring to say. We have been reluctant to say there even is such a thing as ultimate truth, much less think to offer, as proof of that truth, the Cross on Golgotha. We have allowed the clouds of cultural drift to fog our vision. The rest of culture views truth as whatever is true for one's own self truth becomes completely subservient to individual interpretation.

A "Frank and Ernest" cartoon shows a Moses figure holding a stone tablet inscribed with just two words: "Behave Yourself." Moses complains, "I'm afraid you'll need to go into a little more detail."

God did. But the final divine answer didn't come on Mount Sinai, in the 613 commandments of the law. The ultimate truth of love was revealed only when "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16).

Alternative Sermon Idea

The difficult gospel text for this Sunday provides a good opportunity to discuss how one interprets Scripture. An unscrupulous reader of this passage could make it say any number of things contrary to the spirit of the New Testament. How, then, does one read Scripture?

Dust off your seminary textbooks to explore this hermeneutical issue further. You will want to keep your discussion accessible to your audience. And you can make it fun. Ephraim is hardly a "trained heifer" as Hosea 10:11 asserts. Surely, one can be morally pure without undergoing the series of amputations that Jesus suggests in Matthew 5:29-30. Is it permissible to allegorize today's Lukan passage? Paul himself resorts to allegory in Galatians 4:24. Discuss the meaning of parable. If you are bold, you may want to develop the notion of myth. What passages of Scripture are inaccessible without using myth as a component of biblical exegesis?

Turn to the advertising world for examples. Few people take the extravagant claims of Madison Avenue literally. What is it that we are to understand when we hear or see these advertisements?

Refer to films that are currently playing and explain how the film can be understood on one level and how that understanding changes when interpreted on another level. Is "Forrest Gump," starring Tom Hanks, about a slow learner who can run fast? Is "Being There" (Peter Sellers) about a gardener who ascends to the corridors of power? Is "Thelma and Louise" the story of two hotheaded, gun-toting women who go on a shooting spree in the West? Is the parable of the dishonest steward a story about how a disgruntled ex-employee gets his revenge?

Finally, the four-storied, medieval, exegetical approach may be worthy of discussion: the literal, allegorical, spiritual and tropological or moral. The medieval, exegetical structure frequently became top-heavy, with most of the emphasis placed on the upper three stories and less on the literal foundation.

See if you can apply the following hermeneutical rubric in the Case of the Dishonest Steward of the Lukan text for this week:

- The Literal: What does the text say?
- The Allegorical: Are there features of the story which suggest types, symbols, metaphors?
- The Spiritual: What does this mean to me?
- The Moral: What should I do about it?