I’m glad to be here with you. Thank you for welcoming me. But I suspect a plot. Trying to make sense of this parable may explain why Alison took vacation this week. The parable of the unjust steward, or the dishonest manager, has long been one of the scandalous stories told by Jesus. Generations of people have scratched their heads to understand how the master could commend the manager for giving away what belonged to the master. If Jesus is trying to teach us about faithful stewardship, he has a weird way of going about it.
In fact, though, this parable goes to the heart of Jesus’ teaching about God and about how we should live our lives.
Jesus has been talking to the Pharisees about God’s preference for the lost, those called “sinners” by the respectable crowd. He tells them about the lost coin, and the lost sheep. He tells them the story of the prodigal son, and of the son who cannot forgive his brother. And then he tells this parable.
It’s no accident. This is a story about forgiveness.
The manager is a sinner. No doubt about it. And he’s been caught. Now he is called before the master. And he knows he has no defense. He cannot justify what he’s done. All he can do is cushion the blow when it comes.
How can he do that? He knows other people who are indebted to the master. He calls them in and forgives them their debts. Not all of them, maybe - that’s not up to him alone - but he lessens their burden. And lo and behold, he is forgiven as he forgives others.
But why would the master approve this behavior? Isn’t the manager taking what isn’t his? In our world, of course, that’s how property works. I may make friends by sharing stolen goods, but I wouldn’t expect the rightful owner to approve.
But the owner - that is, God - sees that the manager is learning an important lesson. He’s learning that relationships matter more than money. By forgiving others, he is building relationships that will sustain him when the money runs out.
It’s telling here that Luke uses the same word to describe the debts in this story as he does in the Lord’s Prayer. That’s why some churches say “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Relationships sustain us, and relationships require forgiveness.
In our society, this is a lesson we have forgotten. Over the past century we have become more and more reliant on our own resources, and less and less connected to one another. Extended family networks have become strained as generations live far apart from one another, and neighbors are often just people whose cars we see in the street. We do not expect help, and we do not expect to help. We expect to pay our way.
But the truth is that none of us can earn our way into the places that matter. We are all indebted to the Source of Being. We all fall short at times. We fail one another, even as we try to serve. We all need a little help with our bill. And the way we get it is by cutting the bills of others.
Elsewhere, Jesus tells the disciples that whatever they bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever they loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. This is not the prerogative only of the clergy, though we have an important role to play in speaking for the church. Any of us, any member of the church, has this power. And all of us, as Jesus tells Peter just afterward, have the obligation to forgive. Over and over.
Let me read you another version of this parable, as told by Eugene Peterson. After describing the manager’s action, Jesus says:
“Now here’s a surprise. The master praised the crooked manager. And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in this same way - but for what is right - using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.”
Really living means going beyond good behavior. And it means going beyond socially sanctioned ways of living without regard for one another. It means letting go of our love of money and control. Really living means recognizing our need for one another, and admitting the ways we let one another down. It means forgiving debts of all kinds.
Now, we don't usually do this until we're in a corner. Forgiving always feels like loss at first. But as we do it, we find that we gain so much - reconnecting, ease in our hearts, trust. Holding on to a grudge or a debt in fact keeps us impoverished. We may have the IOU, we may be entitled to satisfaction, but we aren't going to get it until we let go. We can serve money, and fear, and our rights. Or we can serve God, who longs for reconciliation and relationship.
The problem with the "children of light," the good students, the achievers, the righteous ones, is that the richest parts of our lives are lived outside the box. Like the older brother of the prodigal, the children of light can be blinded by their own rules and sense of justice. I don't mean that justice is unimportant. I mean the sense of justice, especially of my own rightness, will not carry me into the presence of God.
The dishonest manager has learned that wealth cannot protect him. Mercy, forgiveness, creativity, connection - these are the lifeblood of our relations with God and with one another.
In God's world, everything is upside down. We gain by losing. We receive by giving away. Hoarding, what looks prudent from the standpoint of the society, turns out to be foolishness in God's world.
We cannot pay our debts. But we can ease them by forgiving one another, making others' debts lighter. Let's start today.
