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You
tell me. How ironic is this? On Friday night I stayed home for
a change, the better to research this text about a
manager-in-residence who takes a few accounting liberties,
commonly known as “cooking the books.” Then I awakened at
4:00 in the morning with all of this swirling in my head,
leading Kris (who was also awake, given my tossing and
turning) to say: “Why don’t you go downstairs and outline
your sermon? Maybe then you can go back to sleep.” So I went
downstairs, prepared my outline, and fell back asleep at 5:30.
Two hours later I awakened once more, made the coffee and
opened up Saturday’s newspaper to read the headline about a
pair of high-placed Kmart executives who (themselves)
conspired to do a little creative “book cooking.” Which,
when I read further, involved receivables from vendors, which
is exactly the issue in this strange little story in Luke.
It
is a story no one preaches, because it is a story no one
understands. Let me share a sampling of commentators’
opinions concerning it.
- “Nothing whatsoever
edifying about it.”
- “Many people wonder if
Jesus really told it.”
- “This parable has caused
no end of confusion, controversy and embarrassment in the
church.”
- “This is a difficult
parable to interpret, in that it features as choice a set
of rascals as one could meet anywhere.”
So let’s
have at it. Note that the setting is chapter 16….important
only in the sense that it follows chapter 15. All of us love
chapter 15. Because in chapter 15, Luke gives us three of the
loveliest stories found in the Gospel. All three stories
involve the “lost and found department.” There is the
story of the lost sheep, followed by the story of the lost
coin, leading to the story of the lost boy. The only apparent
similarity between the “unjust steward” story of Luke 16
and the aforementioned trio from chapter 15 is that all
involve an unlikely figure at the story’s center.
The
parable of the lost sheep features a shepherd. And there were
few rungs lower on the social ladder of the Holy Land than the
rung occupied by shepherds. Tax collectors may have been the
bottom feeders. But shepherds were pretty low. In the parable
of the lost coin, the central figure is a woman. And while
women ranked above shepherds, it wasn’t by much. And in the
parable of the lost boy (the prodigal son), the central figure
is a defector from the family circle….who, given the homage
and honor paid to patriarchy and ancestry, sounds like a son
who walked in one day and blew his father off. A good Jew,
hearing Jesus tell the stories in chapter 15, could easily
have said: “Can you believe he told a story about someone
like that?”
Now
we come to chapter 16, featuring an even less attractive
figure….namely, an unjust steward. This is an absentee
landlord story. There are several of them in scripture. You
know the format. The owner goes away. Somebody is left in
charge. The implied message being: “Take care of things
while I’m gone.” The absentee landlord stories are really
addressed to the church. It is the church that is being told:
“Take care of things while I’m gone.” But the
implication is always: “Sooner or later, I’ll check in on
things to see how they’re going.”
In
this story, the absentee landlord is rich (meaning that there
is a lot to look after). Somehow, he receives word that they
are not being looked after. In short, his assets are being
dissipated. How? The Bible doesn’t say. Several commentators
use the word “embezzlement.” Which I can understand,
having been a victim of embezzlement. Not me, personally. But
me, professionally. The church I was serving in the early
nineties was a victim of embezzlement. The amount taken was
$151,000. The “chief steward” in that case was the church
treasurer, a 57-year-old grandmother. I felt terrible because
it happened on my watch.
We
uncovered it swiftly. We communicated it openly. We handled it
cleanly. And we survived it magnificently. But I was
devastated personally. I was told by law enforcement
professionals that, next to rape, embezzlement is the second
most under-reported crime. Why? Because in both cases, the
victim thinks: “I must have done something to invite
this.”
But
back to the story. Upon uncovering fraud, the master calls the
steward on the carpet. “What’s this I hear about you?”
he asks. Followed by the mandate: “Prepare a thorough
accounting. Then clean out your desk.”
The
steward figures: “I am in trouble. Big trouble. Deep
trouble. Whatever will I do? I am too weak to dig. I am too
proud to beg. I better come up with a plan.”
Which
he does. Come up with a plan, I mean. He calls everybody who
owes his master anything. “Let’s make a deal,” he says.
You want double irony? I’ll give you double irony. Saturday
morning, between reading the Free Press and writing my
sermon, I made a quick run to Beaumont Hospital. Flipping the
radio dial, I landed on WJR. And who was being interviewed by
Warren Pierce? None other than Monty Hall (who once starred in
“Let’s Make a Deal”). Go figure.
But
back to the deal offered by the unjust steward. What kind was
it? It was a “pay up by paying less” deal. Said the
steward to the first debtor: “You owe 100 measures of olive
oil (875 gallons). Erase the 100 and write in 50.” To a
second debtor he said: “You owe 100 measures of wheat (1000
bushels). Erase the 100 and write in 80.” Why did these
people owe these debts? Who knows? Maybe they were tenants
accustomed to paying rents in commodities. Maybe they were
customers who, while billed, had not yet paid. And for anybody
wondering how one landlord could deal in both oil and grain,
hey, this is a story. Don’t force it into a straitjacket.
What
did the steward hope to gain by settling some accounts 50
cents on the dollar and other accounts 80 cents on the dollar?
Friends….that’s what he hoped to gain. He reasoned as
follows: “When I am forced to go, I’ll have a place to go.
I will have done these debtors a favor. They’ll owe me.
I’ll just go from house to house and cash in my chits.”
He
may have also figured that if what he was doing (in settling
cheap) was unethical, then what they were doing (in settling
cheap) was also unethical. One can picture him saying: “They
are in this with me. If I go down, they’ll go down, too.
I’ll have ample opportunity for blackmail.”
Now
the master re-enters. The rich guy reappears. Surely he will
set things straight. He will play hard ball, because in every
other absentee landlord story, the returning rich guy plays
hard ball. He will call the unjust steward’s bluff. The
shyster will be forced to stand up, fess up and ante up. But
not in this case. The landlord doesn’t ream out the crook.
He praises the crook. The unjust steward is commended (“cool
move….wise move….good move”). Or, as William Barclay
translates the beginning of verse 8: “And the master praised
the wicked steward because he had acted shrewdly.” End of
story.
*
* * * *
Which leads
to much head scratching and a collective chorus of “Whassup
with that?” I mean, Jesus told it. But what does Jesus
really think about it? The latter part of verse 8 and the
entirety of verse 9 would tend to suggest an answer. First,
Jesus says: “The sons of this world are shrewder in their
generation than are the sons of light.” Which is one way of
saying to the disciples:
Yes,
the chief steward was a rascal.
But he was a very clever rascal.
If only you guys could emulate his cleverness (albeit for
better ends).
Or, in
George Buttrick’s words: “The rogue acted with prompt
foresight. If only Jesus’ followers could do as much from
nobler motives.” Liberally translated, I take this to mean:
The
crook took care of business.
The church needs to take care of business.
Both should be clever.
Both should be business-like.
Even though the church’s means should be nobler and the
church’s aims should be higher.
Which
brings Bernard to mind. A lot of us who work here know
Bernard. A lot of the people who work in churches up and down
Maple know Bernard. Bernard is something of a con artist. He
doesn’t sell stuff, so much as he sells himself. Bernard is
smooth….glib….polished. He can tug on your heart, even as
he eats at your conscience. He’s always got a problem. And
he’s always just one step and a few dollars from solving
that problem. He can quote scripture better than most
preachers. And he can cry (even pray) at the drop of a hat.
Bernard’s aim is to get dollars out of my pocket and into
his pocket. “Help me just one more time, Reverend, and
you’ll never see me again. I know I’ve been a pest before,
but I need to ask this small favor one last time.”
When
Bernard leaves, we all turn to each other and say: “He’s
so slick.…so smooth….so persistent….if only he could put
his shrewdness to work in some legitimate enterprise.
There’s no telling what he might accomplish.”
But the
issue in verse 8b is not just about the clever becoming
Christian. The issue is also about the Christian becoming
clever. If there’s a point that seems to leap from the lips
of Jesus, it appears to be: “Why can’t my guys be that
shrewd? Why can’t my church be that shrewd?”
Let me ask
you this. Is the church a business? Sure, the church is a
business. It’s a different kind of business. But that
doesn’t make it any less a business. The church is all about
serving, but it’s also all about staffing. And while the
church is about prayers and programs, the church is also about
pledges and payrolls. And most will agree that the church’s
business ought to be well conceived, well planned, well
administered and well executed….along with ethical and
successful (those, too). “Holy” is no excuse for sloppy.
Neither is “pure” a legitimate excuse for poor.
People who
know about such things will tell you that more church scandals
emanate from the treasurer’s office than from the pastor’s
office. Though the pastor is far from blameless, even though
pastors justify themselves as being “above such things”
rather than responsible for such things. A fact-finding team
of consultants recently laid much of the blame for the decline
of a once-great congregation on ten years of poor pastoral
management….not poor pastoral prayers….not poor pastoral
sermons….not poor pastoral visitations….but poor pastoral
management. Returning us to Jesus’ question: “Why can’t
my guys be as smart as their guys?” For which the common
answer is: “Because nobody taught us.” But the real answer
is: “Nobody taught us it was important.”
A few years
ago, Neil Wester invited me to lunch at the Birmingham
Athletic Club, at the end of which he said the following: “I
didn’t have any special reason for getting together. But I
did want to take this occasion to thank you for your
willingness to manage this ship….administer this
ministry….in short, to be our CEO.” Which does not come
naturally. Neither has it always been easy. But which is far
more necessary than most people in my business think.
But there
is at least one additional response that Jesus makes to this
strange story. You can find it in verse 9. Let me quote it
from Joseph Fitzmyer’s translation in the Anchor Bible:
I tell
you, use the mammon of dishonesty to make friends, so that,
when it gives out (which it will), you will be welcomed into
dwellings that are everlasting.
So what in
the world is that about? Is this a veiled invitation to bribe
your way into heaven? Not exactly. Rather, Jesus is reflecting
a common understanding that the rich help the poor in this
world, but the poor must help the rich in the next (recalling
Jesus’ word about it being harder for a rich man to enter
the Kingdom of God than for a camel to pass through the eye of
a needle). More to the point, there was a very clear belief in
Jesus’ day that, in terms of fitness for the Kingdom,
serving the needs of the least counted for more than anything
else.
More than
theology.
More than doctrine.
More, even, than passionate professions of faith.
If you
don’t believe that, go back and reread the 25th chapter of
Matthew, focusing especially on the parable of the sheep and
the goats. Upon rereading it, ask yourself: “For whom do the
gates swing swiftly open?” For those who attend to “the
least of these,” says the story, even when they are ignorant
as to when they did it (or how). In some church circles, that
will start a fight. But that’s exactly what verse 9 of this
strange little story is all about.
But we
shouldn’t be surprised. The common thread running through
this entire story is about how people find a home. In verse 4,
the unjust servant says: “I’m gonna need a home.” And in
verse 9, Jesus seems to suggest: “You’re all gonna need a
home.”
*
* * * *
Bringing me
to this….which has little to do with the unjust servant, but
much to do with going home. We had a memorial service in the
sanctuary yesterday. It was for Fritz Pinis (whose wife Connie
is worshiping with us this morning). Fritz and Connie were
regulars for years, but moved to Florida some time back. Fritz
was an educator par excellence. First, a teacher and a coach,
then a principal at Adams School, and eventually an
administrator for elementary education in the suburb of
Warren. During those years, one of Fritz’s best friends was
Dan Nesbitt (Audrey’s late husband) who served as
Superintendent of Schools here in Birmingham.
Fritz’s
approach to the faith was what you might expect of an
educator….rational rather than mystical….practical rather
than spiritual. Fritz wanted to “see it” on the way to
“believing it.” Or he wanted to have you convince him by
means of logic and argumentation.
At any
rate, Fritz suffered from cancer. Which, on the way to taking
his life, extracted its toll. Sleeping came hard in his latter
days. But dreams came more frequent. One morning Fritz awoke
and told Connie: “I had the strangest dream last night.”
She asked him to describe it. Leading him to say:
Well, I
was taking a walk when suddenly I came to a door. It looked
familiar. But I wasn’t sure what it was or where it led.
Suddenly Dan Nesbitt opened the door and, spotting me, said:
“You’ll like this place, Fritz.”
Whereupon
Dan went inside. And Fritz died.
Note:
Before reading the text, I said the following to the
congregation: “Most of you read the Bible selectively. But
there’s nothing wrong with that, given that most of us
preach the Bible selectively. Which is why those of you who
are veterans have heard at least 83 sermons preached on the
prodigal son, but have yet to hear a sermon preached on the
unjust steward….even though one follows the other in the
Gospel of Luke.”
In
preparation for this sermon, I read more scholarly commentary
than usual. I didn’t run into anybody who claimed to have
the definitive word. Some even questioned whether Jesus told
the story in the first place. A second debate centered on how
many of the following verses were to be taken as Jesus’
commentary on the story, once told. Some argue that Jesus’
remarks continue through verse 13. Others question whether
Jesus offered any commentary at all (suggesting that Luke may
have gathered several unrelated sayings about material
possessions and placed them in the context of this story). For
reasons too complex to go into here, I have taken an
intermediate position. I believe Jesus’ commentary includes
verses 8b and 9, but have questions about verses 10-13.
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