Shrewd Grace: Luke 16:1-13 - Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

¹Then 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. ²So he summoned him 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.’ ³Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. ⁴I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ ⁵So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ⁶He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ ⁷Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ ⁸And 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. ⁹And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
  ¹⁰“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. ¹¹If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? ¹²And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? ¹³No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (NRSV)

Oil Green Bottles by dahorsburgh on flickr. CC BY-ND 2.0

Did this parable bother you as much as it bothered me?

It sounds like something you’d see on the 6:00 news: a person in a position of fiscal responsibility is discovered to have embezzled funds from their employer. The cameras are rolling as the accused is led into the courthouse; their face buried in their handcuffed arms. The most satisfying end to the story would be for the accused to be convicted and sentenced to prison and hefty fines.

In the parable, the manager of a rich man is accused of squandering his master’s property—and is about to be terminated from his position. So, he summons his masters’ debtors and reduces their debts. Clearly, the boss is impressed. I’m not! I want to see this man punished severely for his crimes. But then, Jesus holds this up as godly behavior! Jesus actually says, “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” To me, this sounds like Gospel for gangsters.

But consider this: much like the tax collectors in Jesus’s day, the manager’s salary was paid not by his boss—but by the boss’s debtors. As the rich man’s representative, he is responsible for collecting the debt plus interest. But he also his boss’s authority to collect whatever additional money he believed he could get, which he would keep for himself. Think of this like the fees that Ticketmaster charges when you buy tickets for a concert.

So, this manager, knowing that he’s out of a job and in danger of being sold onto slavery to repay what he allegedly owes, makes a shrewd move: he collects his boss’s debts without taking a commission for himself. In forfeiting his last paycheck, he’s ensuring that when he’s out of a job, he won’t be without friends.

Jesus commends him for stumbling upon a truth about God’s kingdom—where money isn’t used so much to buy friendships but to ease burdens.

Wealth is the lifeblood of the dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest world. But in God’s kingdom, wealth creates a community safety net that everybody needs. Wealth sets a table where everyone belongs; where the lost are found, and the hungry are fed—without prejudice or judgment.

Remember: the manager has only been accused of misconduct. Jesus doesn’t tell us whether he’s guilty. He may only be the victim of his own poor record-keeping or workplace politics.

Even if he is guilty of misconduct, Jesus isn’t calling for this man to be “cast into the outer darkness, where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Jesus challenge to you and me, then, is to consider—do the downtrodden get more judgment from you than mercy? More confrontation than consolation? How effective a safety net is the Church for our neighbors in need?

This parable convicted me of the prejudices I have toward the less fortunate. It's so easy to blame people for their misfortune. If I give something valuable to someone else, I want to be certain they deserve it; that they’re truly in need; that they’re being 100% honest with me in their ask.

A major reason for this is because we’ve seen generosity being abused. I know of a congregation that had a clothing closet just like ours—but they shut it down when they saw people reselling the clothes on their front yards. Another congregation expelled the 4-H Club from their building because the children were tracking mud into the church hall.  Three summers ago, I put gas into what I later learned was a stolen car.

At the same time, it’s easy to fall into the trap of being generous and helping the less fortunate as a way of helping ourselves. Is it not frustrating that for all the time and effort we invest in the clothing closet, GriefShare, and ministries for kids, that we still have so many empty pews? Yet do we do these things to fill the pews—or because it’s what Jesus calls us to do?

In these dreadful times we’re living in, when we have poverty, addiction, broken homes, and hungry mouths all around us—one of the biggest ways God will reveal the kingdom is in the safety net we create for each other—and the tables we set were everyone belongs and everyone eats. Maybe, just maybe, the safety net you help to create is like one that supported you—or one you may need in the future.

The call is to adopt a new attitude toward the neighbor in need; to put off harsh judgments and merit-based generosity and become both shrewd and gracious. There’s nothing wrong with being shrewd. Shrewdness is actually prudence. It’s care, it’s creativity, it’s wise giving and wise sharing. You’re supporting without enabling. You’re welcoming the stranger without putting the children at risk. And best of all, you’re answering someone’s misfortune with Christ’s love—which is exactly what Jesus does for you.

You are not so righteous and deserving that the Son of God should die for you. No one is—but Jesus gives his life for you, for the downtrodden neighbor, and for the most unworthy and undeserving.

There are infinite reasons to justify not being generous toward someone—and some of them may be based in fact! “But judge not, lest ye be judged!”

So how can you free up God’s generosity in you by becoming shrewdly gracious? That even someone’s done wrong, you can build them up in the love of Jesus? Will you learn how beautiful it is to belong when you show someone their place at the Lord’s table, where everyone belongs; where the lost are found, and the hungry are fed—without prejudice or judgment.