I admit that I had already written this sermon for our clergy conference in the spring. But I did make a few minor changes, but I stuck with this reading in part because it is a really hard one to grapple with and also I felt that my congregation and I needed to take a break from hearing their former journalist priest talk about the headlines, especially my angst and anger at the assault on the First Amendment.
Instead, I talked about wealth. See what you think.
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Text: Luke 16: 1-13
If this morning’s Gospel left you a bit
confused…you are in excellent company.
This is one of the tougher of the Lukan
parables.
We looked at this one in our Lenten
study this past spring… that class I called “Playing with the Parables.”
To be kind and fair to everyone in the
group…we started out with the most beloved of Sunday School stories…staging and
discussing the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.
Those are well-known…and everyone could
get into the spirit of the class…acting out the different roles so we could
then dig into them a little deeper.
Then I gave them this particular parable
of the dishonest manager.
And—whew—when we’d played the scene
once…it was almost as if I could see the question marks…and a few exclamation
points and tildas and such…hanging over everyone’s heads.
This
story is strange and one that is tough for us to wrap our heads around.
Even biblical scholars find this parable
difficult to decipher.
I mean…the two main characters are not
great people.
The rich man decides to fire the manager
based on a rumor that the guy is squandering the rich man’s property.
And the manager…realizing his boss
hadn’t even bothered to check the books… decides to strike back by slashing
what people owe the rich man in the hopes that by lowering the bills…the people
will love him…and he’ll have a place to sleep tonight.
The class really wrestled with this one.
They noted that we don’t know the tone
of voice of the rich man.
Was he impressed or annoyed with the how
clever the manager had acted?
The people who played the parts of
having their bills reduced were happy…but they also said they weren’t entirely
free either.
They still were in debt to the rich
man…and now they owed something to the manager.
And we also talked about to whom Jesus
was sharing this parable.
We’re told that he’s speaking to his
disciples.
But…if we were to look to the end of
Luke Chapter 15… only moments ago…he was addressing a crowd which included tax
collectors…the guys who weren’t the best Jews and were notorious for tacking on
extra charges so they could pocket some money for themselves.
Also in the crowd were some Pharisees.
They’ve been eavesdropping on his
teaching and mumbling about the company Jesus keeps.
So when Jesus starts painting this
verbal picture of a rich man given to snap judgments…and his dishonest manager
figuring out how to save his own skin….he’s speaking to the whole cross-section
of the community: the very poor…the very rich…and the very despised.
All of them cogs in the wheel of a
system that is about the haves and the have nots with their attention fixed on
money.
Who has it.
Who doesn’t.
Who owes what to whom.
How much is owed.
Jesus uses this dishonest manager
working inside an inherently oppressive system to make a point about how the
“children of the world” operate shrewdly.
Notice that he doesn’t say the manager
acted justly.
He says the manager is shrewd….cunning.
He knows how to work this system so that
he can land on his feet.
Because the manager only shaves off some
of the cost of the oil and wheat…he still retains an advantage over the very
poor.
He now appears to be something like a
Robin Hood hero to them.
After his hasty refiguring of the
accounts…he’s hoping they will see him as a “good guy” and make sure he doesn’t
end up homeless.
In his own small way…this dishonest
manager’s self-interested move injects a little more fairness into an unjust
and oppressive system.
But only a little.
Because the debts haven’t been excused.
That’s how this economic system works…
for the world.
That isn’t the way of God’s economy.
In God’s economy…debts are forgiven.
Period.
In God’s dream for the world…nobody
would owe the rich man anything.
In fact…there wouldn’t be such an
unequal balance of power and privilege…and the dishonest steward would have
toppled the whole system and not have to worry about couch-surfing.
That’s how the world would begin to
resemble heaven. And all eyes would be on God.
We’re all caught up in systems in our
society that challenge the church…those of us who follow Jesus and see
ourselves as children of light…to wrestle with systems that have us
participating in oppression.
For example…we’ve inherited the legacy
of the idea of private property.
But really the land doesn’t belong to
us.
First…it belonged to God.
Then there were the people who were here
long before many of our ancestors got on boats to cross the ocean to get here.
The Seminoles, the Creek, the Timucua
and the Hitchitee Tribes all lived in this area which was once called
Troupville.
Governments take land…give it to
others…and still others after that…
We pave over legacies or turn them into
parks.
Some profit.
Others are left in search of affordable
housing.
Some win. Others lose.
Now we may not be able to completely
dismantle these systems that are so entrenched.
But we can question them…and we can find
ways to challenge them…and consider a question I posed a couple of weeks ago:
What are the things that we are willing
to give up to follow God?
Can we conceive of a world where we are
willing to let go of “things”…such as anxiety over money…to help build a
stronger community for all of us?
There are a few things that we are doing
to disrupt and shrink the chasm between rich and poor.
We’ve made a start here with our basket
out in the narthex…taking up a collection of food that we can distribute to
those who come to our door in need.
And some of what we take in goes to LAMP
as they care for those without food and shelter who come to them.
Our congregation converted beer money
into donations to my discretionary fund….and because you did that…I was able to
help someone with a medical need this past week.
We can even look at our patron saint
Anna Alexander…who we will be celebrating this Wednesday.
This deaconess of the church navigated
many obstacles to open a school in Pennick.
And through her faith and
determination…she helped educate generations of children…opening the doors for
them to better lives…despite the way the world wanted to limit those who were the
poor…both blacks and whites.
And she did it without the financial
help and backing of the Episcopal diocese…even though she was using our Prayer
Book as her textbook… and running the school on the grounds of the Church of
the Good Shepherd…the church she planted in Pennick.
If we are serving the God of life and
liberation…then we need to keep chipping away at the barriers that hold people
back…and not give into our own temptations to put money above making a way
forward for a better world.
We can and we must be willing to put our
best efforts out there to be agents of change that helps others…even if what we
do feels like just a drop in the ocean.
Because each one of our drops makes a
difference…and sometimes helps us to transform lives without us even knowing
it.
Jesus so aptly puts it…that if we are
children of the light…we cannot serve both God and wealth.
Choose God. Let the rest follow.
In the name of our One Holy and
Undivided Trinity.
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