Jesus The Jester #8 | “Unfair”

0:00 This fall, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church is engaged in a study of biblical parables. Along the way, we've been working with a basic premise. In the parables, Jesus acts the part of a jester. He questions the broken wisdom of the world. he invites people to look beyond vindictive patterns and to adopt a new way of seeing. And Jesus does this by telling stories. Make you think stories. Change your life. Stories.

0:44 Now at this point, eight weeks into our study, you may have noticed that Christ's parables don't all feel like someone is wrapping a fuzzy sweater around our soul's chilly shoulders. And that's a fair take. Biblical interpreter Clarence Jordan once remarked, Marked, whenever Jesus told a parable, he lit a stick of dynamite and covered it with a story.

1:22 Parables can push our buttons. They can unsettle our spirits. They can feel downright dangerous. Last Sunday at the church door, two different people stopped and said to me, your sermon was clever, pastor, but I still don't like that parable. And I appreciated their candor. They were willing to admit, today I'm struggling with the teachings of Jesus, and that's a healthy thing. It's something the disciples did all the time. Christ's OG followers wrestled with his teachings. They struggled, they debated, they pondered, and along the way, the seeds of faith grew in their hearts.

2:21 As parents supporting two children through college, Amy and I have had the experience in recent years of listening to two different college presidents talk to two different incoming classes of freshmen about the educational experience that stretches before them. In each case, these academic leaders nodded to the fierce conflicts roiling our country. And then they encouraged the new students not to be fragile, not to be snowflakes, not to turn away from a subject or an idea simply because it feels uncomfortable. These educators were clear in order to grow, to learn, to become a thoughtful member of the human race, you must not turn away, shout down, or casually dismiss ideas that unsettle you.

3:32 Instead, you must probe, wrestle, question. You must scrutinize. You must scrutinize new ideas, and you must scrutinize the self that struggles with new ideas. You must ask, why don't I like this? Why is this thought unsettling to me? is there something here for me to learn? The same holds true when listening to Christ's stories. It's important to ask, what about this parable bothers me? Why do I feel like someone's just handed me a stick of dynamite? Am I afraid of what Christ's truth might mean for me?

4:30 might do to me? There's no better place to put these questions into play than today's parable. I say this because, over time, many Christians have judged this to be the most inscrutable, morally questionable, and downright unfair parable of them all. It's a stick of TNT with a very short fuse. Let's see if you agree. Listen now for God's word as it comes to you from Luke chapter 16, beginning with the first verse. Then 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.

5:32 So he 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. Then the manager said to himself, what will I do now that my master is taking the position away from me? I'm not strong enough to dig and I'm ashamed to beg. I've decided what to do so that when I'm dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes. So summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, how much do you owe my master? He answered, a hundred jugs of olive oil.

6:27 He said to him, take your bill, sit down quickly and make it 50. Then he asked another, how much do you owe? He replied, a hundred containers of wheat. He said to him, take your bill and make it 80. And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest mammon, so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. This is the word of God for you, the people of God.

7:27 Thanks be to God. Smack dab in the middle of Luke's gospel, Jesus uncorks a story that the faithful have come to call the parable of the unjust steward. Here we encounter a man who fixes accounts, fudges the numbers, and basically commits fraud. In the process, this fellow knits for himself a golden parachute of first century severance package complete with a retirement villa. At first glance, this parable looks like an indictment for our time, a prophetic word for a corrupt world, and it would provide a perfect counterpoint to today, except for one rather ticklish detail. Jesus seems to like this white-collar criminal.

8:33 Our Lord sanctions the steward's underhanded ways. Listen again to the conclusion. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it's gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. In the words of my seminary roommate, how did that get into the Bible? Clearly, it's too late for a cover-up. The Good Book has printed this parable in black and white, and heaven knows how many copies are in circulation now. It's probably only a matter of time before some conscientious accountant like Bob Henn turns Christ into the Securities and Exchange Commission. I can see the headlines now.

9:26 Jesus of Nazareth encourages financial corruption. Friends, before someone leaks this story to the New York Post, we have got to conduct an audit. We need to know why this parable is in the Bible and what its strange conclusion is all about. Surely, Jesus cannot be saying that dishonesty is the best policy. Can he?

9:57 The parable begins with a rich man. Now, this is not necessarily a positive sign in Luke's gospel. In Luke, Jesus comments it's easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. In the good book, Jesus often describes wealth as a burden, as something that stands between a person and a deep relationship with God.

10:32 Is the burden of wealth Christ's primary concern in this parable? Not really. In this story, the focus is on the relationship between the rich man and his staff. And the parable focuses on the ethics of someone who works in a well-to-do household. Like other people in the ancient world, this rich man employs a steward, someone who watches over his household, who keeps the accounts, who hires and fires servants, a custodian who has the power to negotiate all sorts of financial transactions. It's a position that relies on trust. And it's this trust that the parable calls into question.

11:29 Charges are brought to the rich man that the steward has been squandering the estate's property. Immediately the master of the household confronts the accused. What is it that I hear about you? and then, not waiting for an answer or a defense of any kind, the rich man demands a final statement of the manager's accounts and declares, Your days as a steward in this house are over.

12:00 The termination feels abrupt. There is no careful inquiry, no proof of misdeed, no mediation by someone from human resources. An accusation is made, and the steward, as we say in my family, gets the Bootski. Is the firing unfair? Maybe. Although the steward's actions suggest otherwise. Does he protest the accusation? Does he fight the termination? No, he hatches a plot. Weighing the prospect of a career in ditch digging or begging, the steward swiftly decides that he would like a few open doors waiting for him once he joins the ranks of the unemployed. So he summons his master's debtors, and in each case forgives a part of their debt.

13:03 He lowers their financial obligation to his boss, hoping to raise their personal obligation to himself. his devious scheme appears to be working until the rich man finds out about his manager's creative bookkeeping. At this point, the parable has set us up to expect a major kerfuffle. Now the big boss is really going to blow his top. Today's bulletin cover invites us to witness this tense moment. The steward is called on the carpet. He begins to offer an explanation. The rich man, in his fabulous green witch's hat, raises his hand. He stops the steward, mid-excuse, and then, instead of cursing his devious employee, the boss applauds him.

14:08 A literal translation of the Greek in this verse reads like this. The master praised his unrighteous steward for being wise. Whenever Jesus told a parable, says Clarence Jordan, he lit a stick of dynamite and covered it with a story. Boom. In its conclusion, this parable explodes our expectations and tosses all sorts of gnarly questions into the air. Can you be unrighteous and wise at the same time? Can the phrases unjust steward and a child of the light describe the same person? In his classic novel, The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene tells the story of a priest ministering under duress in Mexico during the anti-clerical, anti-Catholic church purges of the 1930s. The unnamed clergyman is, by all reasonable accounts, an unrighteous steward.

15:40 He's described by the author as a tattered, shoeless, unclean man who reeks of cheap wine. He's an alcoholic, a whiskey priest. He's broken his vow of celibacy and fathered a child. And on top of all that, or because of all that, the whiskey priest believes that he is damned. Why? Well, primarily because he's come to love the result of his sin. He loves the daughter who was conceived in a moment of lust.

16:27 Still, the priest carries on with his work, confident of his own damnation, and in defiance of the military forces that seek his death, the priest performs his duties. He travels from village to village. He's welcomed into people's homes. And there, away from the prying eyes of soldiers who are trying to snuff out the faith in Mexico, the priest secretly celebrates Mass. He places God in the mouths of his hungry flock.

17:02 Is he flawed? Without a doubt. but he's noble too, profoundly so. Is that the case in our parable? I mean, what if anything is noble about the unjust steward? In today's parable, it feels like a stretch to cast the unjust steward as a sympathetic soul. It's not clear that there's anything honorable in his behavior. His shady efforts all seem bent on saving his own skin.

17:41 And yet before we dismiss the steward and his efforts at self-preservation, we might want to look at the audience for this parable. It's there in the first verse of today's passage. Luke tells us this story was told to the disciples. It's not a general parable aimed at the crowds. It's a parable spoken to those who follow Jesus, to the individuals charged with carrying the good news of Christ to the world. And Jesus knows that this work, the work of faith, while glorious, can sometimes be a hard slog. The disciples were sent out into the world, says Luke, as lambs. in the midst of wolves. Like the whiskey priests, Christ's followers were tasked with traveling from town to town, from house to house, carrying the gospel.

18:43 And according to the good book, according to Luke, the disciples did this work without a purse, without a bag, without sandals even. In proclaiming the good news of God's kingdom, at first the disciples were sort of like Tennessee Williams, Blanche DuBois. They were utterly reliant on the kindness of strangers.

19:09 Now how did that turn out? Do we picture Peter, James, and John skipping merrily through the countryside with nothing but the gospel? I wonder if after a few weeks of ministry, like Blanche DuBois, the disciples discovered that relying on the kindness of strangers is a risky business. I wonder if today's parable offers disciples, offers the church a dose of realism.

19:47 To put it bluntly, I wonder if Jesus is trying to teach his followers something about the ways of money. I picture Christ drawing his friends into a huddle and in essence saying, friends, you're going to have to be stewards in this world. You're going to have to touch money. In ministry, you're going to have to handle mammon. You're going to have to sift it from brass collection plates. You're going to have to debate its use on the outreach committee. And as you put it to work, you will discover that it has stained your fingers. Their unrighteousness of mammon rubs off on those who handle it. Money and discipleship make for strange bedfellows.

20:47 One day, in my former life as a seminary professor, the vice president of development stopped by my office to ask for a favor. He explained that in a month, on a particular Thursday, a group of significant donors would be on campus. and he knew that a student from my preaching class would be scheduled to preach in chapel on that day. So here was the favor. Could I fix it so that a good student would preach on that day? After all, he said, we want the donors to see a promising example of what the seminary is up to. Well, all sorts of indignant alarm bells went off in my head. Hopping on my high horse, I huffed and I puffed.

21:42 What about the integrity of teaching? Who was I to judge before the class even started? Which students would be good preachers and which ones not so good? Students deserve classes that were scheduled according to the principles of good pedagogy and not the needs of fundraisers. Raising an eyebrow, my friend from the Department of Filthy Mammon calmly listened to my righteous fervor and then he asked, just how many students do you think this institution would have, Scott, without us fundraisers? It was true. The vice president for development was there, not perpetrating some evil scheme, but doing his job, working to make the seminary look good, so that donors would like the school and support it with their finances, so that students could leave with less debt, so that God's kingdom could be advanced.

22:45 It's stewardship season here at Fifth Avenue. It's budgeting season two. Our budget is a vision for what the coming year of ministry will look like. And our stewardship campaign is an effort to raise money to support that vision.

23:11 And yet every year when we get to this moment, some cringe. They would prefer that people like Jenica and Joel not stand in the pulpit, mixing together lofty goals for this church with the messy reality of money. But not God, not Jesus. In this parable, Jesus asks the disciples to make shrewd decisions when ministry and money commingle.

23:52 Now what does that mean? Well, here we would do well to consider the end of the parable again. The part where Jesus says to the disciples, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon. So that when it's gone, they may welcome you into eternal homes. Make friends for yourselves. What sort of friends do you think Jesus has in mind? there's one other parable in Luke 16 one other story very close to this one it's the story of Lazarus and the rich man you may remember Lazarus he's an impoverished sore covered guy who sits at a rich man's front door begging for crumbs and the rich man ignores Lazarus as he comes and goes from his mansion. Then, in the parable, both Lazarus and the rich man die. Lazarus ascends to heaven to be with Abraham. The rich man descends into torment. Curiously, though, the rich man can see Lazarus from his spot in hell.

25:20 And he shouts across the great chasm, begging Lazarus for comfort. In effect, the rich man asks to be welcomed into the eternal home of the poor man. In the good book, Jesus is clear. If you're going to make friends for the kingdom, make the right sort of friends. When working with unrighteous mammon, remember that you serve not the mammon, but a merciful God who calls us to love and care for the outcast, the homeless, the forgotten poor. this is not a parable that advocates selling out it's a story that reminds us that when disciples handle money it's a messy business and that brings us back to the whiskey priest the fellow who thought he was damned because he loved not his sin but the result of his sin I suspect the same is true of the unjust steward.

26:41 The steward's actions were unrighteous. He doesn't dispute this, and yet he still loves his work. Why? Because he was able to leverage his position to make the right sort of friends, to secure an eternal home. When recently graduated seminarians are about to assume their first call, their first job in the Presbyterian church, they are typically examined by the presbytery as they're entering. Standing in front of a few hundred people, the candidates are asked questions to test their theological fitness and pastoral readiness. And on these occasions, if you're lucky, every once in a while, you might get to witness a Presbyterian curmudgeon, often a retired pastor, shuffle up to the microphone to ask these prospective pastors an especially tricky question. It's an old question. It's been around the church for a long time.

27:55 are you willing to be damned for the glory of God? The question is a thorny test. It's a test to see how serious a person is about discipleship. Are you a romantic who imagines service to God to be some impossibly pure thing, a place where you'll never compromise and always be happy and never have to touch anything impure? Or do you realize that you're going to have to touch unclean mammon to do good? Are you willing to be damned for the glory of God? It's a question that confuses the naive, although I do have a friend who responded, Yes, sir. In fact, I'm willing for this whole presbytery to be damned.

28:52 I used to think that the question was a silly paradox. But I bet the steward in our parable, and I know the whiskey priest in Green's novel, think otherwise, they'd be the curmudgeons out there putting this question to anyone who would call themselves a disciple. Are you willing to be damned for the kingdom? Are you willing to annoy your friends by challenging them to rearrange their personal budgets and pledge to the church? And there, are you willing to handle unrighteous mammon for the glory of God? Are you willing to sit on a committee and make tough decisions about funding this mission initiative and not that one? Are you willing to take shady money, suspect money, and put it to work for good?

29:54 If so, then you will do well to remember that Jesus praises the steward for cooking the books. And beyond that, you can rest assured that the biggest accounting cheat of them all is our God. the Holy One who takes the names of whiskey priests and unjust stewards, along with countless women and men who have dared put filthy mammon to work in caring for God's neediest children.