Year C Proper 20 Luke 16:1-13

There is a wonderful scene in C.S. Lewis’s famous novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe where Lucy, the youngest child to cross into the magical world of Narnia, speaks with Mr. Beaver. In this magical land of talking animals and evil queens, Lucy feels both wonder and fear after hearing about Aslan, the Lion King, who rules over the lands of Narnia. Lucy asks Mr. Beaver, “Is he quite safe?” to which the industrious Mr. Beaver replies with an air of indignation “Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe! But he’s good.”

Much like Lucy wants to know that the ruler of her mystical realm of Narnia is safe, we want our God and our faith to be safe and comforting, making no great demands of our time or treasure. We like a comfortable faith, one that doesn’t puzzle us. But if we paid close attention to our Gospel for today, we quickly realize that Jesus is far from safe, but He vis always good, definitely full of surprises, and sometimes quite puzzling.

Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property.

The parable in today’s Gospel reading is an extremely unusual one, very different from Jesus’ other parables. It sounds so unlike Jesus it probably upset Luke to record it, but the fact that Luke included it in the Gospel attests to its authenticity. If it were not something Jesus had said, because of its unusual nature Luke would certainly have omitted it. For centuries, commentators and scholars have worked on interpreting this parable. Luke himself seemed unable to quite grasp its meaning. Jesus liked to shock His listeners, and today’s parable is definitely shocking.

The manager in this story is an ordinary, though somewhat unscrupulous person bending the rules to get something extra in his pocket each month. We can imagine that Jesus, as He often does when telling parables, is drawing a parallel between the manager and us, the listeners. And, as we know will someday occur for us, for the manager the day of reckoning has come.

The rich man summoned the manager and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.”

Up to this point, nothing about this parable sounds unusual, and it doesn’t seem strange that the manager immediately starts to think about how to protect himself and his interests once he’s no longer employed. He’s being fired for misappropriating the rich man’s funds – probably padding the bills and then skimming the extra off the top to line his own pockets – so he goes to each debtor and tells them to reduce the amount they owe. By doing this, the manager now has several well-off folk who might offer him a job once he’s a free agent, or possibly whom he can blackmail for rewriting their bills to a lower amount. Either way, he’s set up some security for himself.

Some scholars like to say here that the amount written off may well have been what the manager was adding to each bill above and beyond the actual charge, the amount he would take for himself when the bill was paid. This adding of a commission was not an unheard of practice in Jesus’ day. Thus, the manager might tell a debtor to remove this extra charge and still be able to collect the entire debt. However, no one knows if this is an accurate interpretation of the story. It is still quite possible the manager simply told the debtors to falsify their bills.

The parable tells us of the way the manager speaks to each individual, reducing what they owe, and then comes the part that has really stumped scholars for centuries. Jesus adds, “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly”. And there you have the puzzle.

We can begin with the word “shrewdly”. “Shrewd” is a word that for us holds negative connotations. We think of Satan as shrewd, clever in a self-serving and wicked way. But in ancient times “shrewd” could also imply “creative”. Used in Proverbs, “shrewd” means “prudent”. It carries the idea of making the most of resources and circumstances. If we understand shrewdness as “clever discerning awareness and hardheaded acumen” then we see the kind of shrewd wisdom God intends. In what way did Jesus use this word? Is this what He meant by “shrewd”? We do not know.

Then there is the question, who is the “master” in this story – is it the manager’s employer, or does the master represent Jesus Himself? Our first assumption is that the master is manager’s employer, but realistically, no master would condone someone for stealing from them. That leaves us with the second conclusion. The master is Jesus. And this conclusion creates a further dilemma.

Why would Jesus condone dishonest behavior? On this point it is safe to say He does not. What it is likely He is doing is condoning the awareness on the part of the manager that he, the manager, needs to prepare for what is to come. Jesus is praising the thinking process of the manager. And, Jesus goes on to say: for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.

We are children of light. The manager prepared for his future when he knew he would be expelled from his job. How well do we plan for our future?

On the personal level, we work to prepare for ourselves and for our families, for the time we grow old, and for the time when we leave this world. We try also to be responsible in worldly matters outside our close personal realm. How do we do?

In our own lives we may have success, but in the wider world we often fall short. A good example of such is right here at Mystic Side, where we fixed the pretty windows, but overlooked the need to repair the leaking roof. Clearly, though we may enjoy some success at the personal level, we often fail at being good stewards of those things God has entrusted to our care.

Then there is another level on which we need to prepare. On the spiritual level – Jesus almost certainly telling us that we need to prepare now, so that there is a place ready for us when our time of judgment arrives – when someone calls for our books. How much time do we spend in spiritual preparation, making sure our worship and our life of prayer, our acts of love and kindness, get the same or more attention as our secular concerns? Each of us has our own answer.

Today’s fascinating parable is one we can take home with us and consider. We can ponder the puzzles it presents. Finally we must ask ourselves, why does Jesus choose a dishonest person for His example, someone who has tried to cheat the master? The answer, most sup[ported by scholars, is because each of us is this person, maybe not in some huge and glaring way, but because we are what we are, sinners, who through our sins cheat God.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, whose loving hand has given us all that we possess: Grant us grace that we may honor You with our substance, and, remembering the account which we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of Your bounty, faithful in all that we do, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.