Proper 22C 2013
Father Adam Trambley
September 22, 2013, St. John’sSharon
The Parable of the Dishonest
Manager
Jesus’
parable this morning is a bit tricky, mostly because we don’t want Jesus
lifting up a dishonest person as his model for us. Even though Jesus tag line at the end about
serving God instead of money is quite clear, the rest of the story feels more
difficult to figure out.
A rich
man has a manager who he has put in charge of everything he owns, and he finds
out that the manager is squandering his money.
Whether through incompetence or a generous padding of the manager’s
private accounts isn’t clear, but we are told that this manager squanders his
master’s property just like the prodigal son squandered his father’s
inheritance. The master tells his
manager to bring in the books because it’s judgment time. Now before the day of reckoning, while he
still has authority over the property, the manager calls in his master’s
debtors and cuts them deals so that once he’s fired, they will have to be nice
to him and he’ll have somewhere to go.
Then, when he has his meeting, his master commends him instead of firing
him because he did what he needed to do in that difficult moment. We can almost hear the master thinking, “this
one may be snake-in-the-grass, but when the pressure’s on, he finds a way. I may need someone else to audit the books
regularly, but I can use this guy somewhere.”
Two
important points are made in this parable.
The first is the importance of knowing what to do when the master is
coming to review the books of our lives, and, as a subpoint here, that he is
coming. Second, we are to deal with our
master’s property in the proper way as we prepare for his coming.
The
first point is the importance of knowing what to do in preparation for
judgment. Let me tell you another story
of a more honest manager. Don Mattingly
is the current manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Last year new owners, including Magic
Johnson, bought the Dodgers and spent wheelbarrows full of money on some top
notch players. On July 1 of this year, though,
the Dodgers were in last place, nine-and-a-half games back. The owners told the manager, “Look, you’re
squandering a couple hundred million dollars’ worth of players here. Very soon you’ll have to give an accounting
of yourself, and if things continue like they are, you can’t be our manager any
longer.” Well, the announcement of the
pending judgment woke the manager up. He
started doing things he knew should be done, but that he was afraid to do, or
uncomfortable doing. He shook up
line-ups and told coaches and players what was needed instead of what they
wanted to hear. He took a rising star
and pulled him out of a game for lack of focus, and then fined him for being
late for practice. He did what he was
supposed to do, but what he couldn’t get himself to do before he knew the day
of judgment was approaching. Now the
Dodgers have won the division and nobody is talking about firing the
manager.
In
Jesus’ parable, when the master commends the dishonest manager at the end, he
is highlighting the fact that his manager recognized that the end was near and
he took steps accordingly. We, too, need
to recognize that judgment is coming and should prepare ourselves.
Now we
don’t know when judgment is coming, but we know that it is coming. Maybe Jesus is coming back at some point in
our lifetimes. We could pray “Thy
kingdom come” in a few minutes and have that prayer answered such that we end
up with communion not at this altar, but at Jesus’ heavenly table. Or Jesus could come back days, weeks, months,
years or decades from now. Then again,
and perhaps more likely, our own deaths will be the trigger for our experience
of the judgment of the living and the dead.
But that final judgment is one that God wants us to pass with flying
colors. Part of the reason for Jesus
teachings, especially a parable like this one, is so we can learn to do what we
need to do to pass through into eternal life.
So how
do we get through our day of reckoning?
By using the master’s resources shrewdly. By putting everything on the line boldly and
fearlessly so that the owner can’t help but keep us on. We might be like Don Mattingly of the
Dodgers and know what to do, but be too uncertain of ourselves, afraid of
rocking the boat or doing something too drastic. We might be like the dishonest manager and be
too busy satisfying our own appetites to be worry about the right thing to
do. We might have any number of barriers
blocking the right use of our master’s resources. Jesus is telling us to get over ourselves and
focus, because time’s a’wastin’. We
don’t have forever. We have to stop
frittering away what we’ve been entrusted with and use it to prepare us for the
approaching time when we are called in to give an account.
So what
are those resources we have been entrusted with? Everything we have. Our bodies, our minds, our time, our family
and friends, our money, our community, our church, our stuff, and anything else
you can put after “our”. But none of it
is really ours. All of it belongs to God
who has allowed us to use it for a time, and that time is limited. So we need to stop squandering our existence
and do what God wants with everything we have.
Now
after Jesus finishes the parable, he comments on the right use of money in
particular. He says to make friends with
dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into their
eternal homes. So we need to figure out
the people who are going to have eternal homes, and then use our wealth to make
friends with them. If you imagine the
cartoon of Saint Peter at the pearly gates, we don’t want to even give him time
to open up his book and find the page with our name on it. We want to show him the guest passes we’ve
been given to the important heavenly houses so he just waves us through.
We know
many of the people who have the eternal homes because Jesus tells us who they
are throughout the Bible. They are tax
collectors and sinners (although paying the IRS isn’t really the same as making
friends with tax collectors.) They are
the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick and those in prison. They are the children. They are the poor in spirit, the meek, the
sorrowing, the merciful, those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, the
pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those persecuted for righteousness sake. They are the least of Jesus’ brothers and
sisters.
Now we
know what to do, right? Instead of squandering our money, and our other
resources, we use them as if we were trying to impress those people Jesus talks
about having a place in the kingdom of God.
We feed the hungry. We clothe the
naked. We visit and heal the sick. We care for children. We protect and look out for those who are
hurting in some way. We provide the
means necessary for those trying to make the world a better place so they can
do so. We support people in places where
the church is persecuted. And, we throw
birthday parties for whores at three-thirty in the morning (I know you were all
waiting for that).
We
don’t just do these things when everything else is taken care of. We make befriending these friends of Jesus
our top priority because the master is coming, and accounts are going to be reviewed. When Jesus asks what happened to the money he
gave us, I don’t think he’ll be impressed that we got the premium HDTV
package. But when a child can come
forward and show the winter coat we bought for her, and a family recounts how
they were able to have a nice meal together every Saturday because of us, or a
house church in Iran shows Jesus the Bibles they received, then we aren’t going
to get asked any more questions. We are
going to be eternal guests of honor invited by God’s honored guests, and it
doesn’t get much better than that.
So make
friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, or any other wealth you may
have. Be shrewd enough to invest in
eternal real estate. Our manager will be
reviewing accounts, and he wants to be able to commend us all.
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