16.1 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. 2 So 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.’ 3 Then
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. 4
I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may
welcome me into their homes.’ 5
So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do
you owe my master?’ 6 He
answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’
He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it
fifty.’ 7 Then 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.’ 8 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. 9 And 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.
11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest
wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been
faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No 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.”
Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 a.m. Eucharist on Sunday the 18th.
Being shrewd for the sake of one’s family is a virtue in a Myanmar governed by a military committed to its self-interest.
Being shrewd for the sake of one’s family is a virtue in a Myanmar governed by a military committed to its self-interest.
In late 2007 Jim Cowan, the former Bishop of British
Columbia, invited me to join him on a trip to Burma, also known as
Myanmar. His diocese had entered into a
Companion Diocese relationship with the Church in Myanmar and Jim wanted to
deepen the relationship by bringing a small delegation to the installation of
the new Archbishop to be held in Yangon in early spring 2008. The new Archbishop had specifically asked Jim
to bring a liturgist to offer some continuing education to the clergy and to
the seminarians at the provincial theological college.
It was not the easiest trip overseas that I have ever
taken. In the first place, I had never
travelled to a country under the control of a military junta. There were moments when I was actually quite
apprehensive and almost cancelled my participation. I also was aware of going to a country where
few people spoke English and whose knowledge of the wider world was tightly
controlled. I was told, for example,
that any e-mail messages sent during the trip would likely be read by a
government censor.
Our primary mode of travel while in Myanmar was by
mini-van driven by a dependable staff member of the Anglican church and
accompanied by a travel agent who served as our interpreter, bodyguard and
‘fixer’. But, on a few occasions, we
travelled by plane and by train. What I
only came to realize towards the end of our trip was how difficult it was to
obtain plane and train tickets.
The Myanmar I visited was under the tight control of an
economic policy that kept the salaries of the civil service below subsistence
levels. Whether a person was a professor
in a university, a physician or a train conductor, their salaries were
inadequate to provide many of the basic needs for their families. Most of the people I met were engaged in the
illegal activity you and I call ‘moon-lighting’ or were soliciting bribes.
Teachers would work long hours tutoring students in
various subjects. A physician I had to
consult during the visit worked both in a government hospital and as a private
house physician attached to the hotel we used in Yangon. Plane and train fares were, by our standards,
cheap, but getting tickets required giving a bribe, or shall we say, paying a
commission, to the travel agent or ticket agent or conductor. All these activities, private tutoring,
private medical care or requesting a bribe, were illegal, but no one could
survive without the income, especially when it came from rich foreigners.
Being shrewd for the sake of one’s
future in this life is a virtue in the Greco-Roman world of Jesus.
Today’s parable from Luke is a difficult one for us to
understand. The first thing that
distracts us is Jesus’ description of the manager as being dishonest. But it is a distraction, because the core of
the parable is about how this manager, facing dismissal for some activity we
know nothing about, faces this crisis with a decisive and shrewd commitment to
his own future.
In the Greco-Roman world of Jesus’ time, many wealthy
people left the dirty business of business in the hands of trusted managers or
slaves. They had wide powers to buy and
sell, to wheel and deal. So our
soon-to-be unemployed manager realizes that he will need friends after his
master sends him packing. And so he uses
his legitimate authority as his master’s manager to ensure his master’s debtors
will think well of him when he comes to their doors asking for assistance. He reduces their debts, whether by waiving
his commission or by choosing to re-draft the documents to reflect a lower debt
the story does clearly tell us. But whatever
he does, his master commends him.
Being shrewd for the sake of the
kingdom of God is a virtue in a world consumed by self-interest and hindered by
a limited vision of the common good.
So what is Jesus trying to tell us? Well, to be honest, I think that there are
several messages that Jesus is leaving on our spiritual voice mail. For example, several Sundays ago, Jesus
reminds his disciples that where our hearts are, there our treasure will
be. Today’s reading asks the question
again, but in a slightly different way:
Where we think our future lays, there our use of our resources will
be. As someone approaching retirement in
some years’ time, I know the importance of making good decisions about our
‘golden years’. But Jesus, in the
parable of the shrewd manager asks us:
Do we see our lives and the choices we make as building blocks not just
for the here and now but for God’s kingdom?
Another message I think Jesus is leaving for us today is
this. You and I, whether we believe it
or not, are people of privilege. We do
not have to bribe others to travel. We
do not have to wonder whether we have access to health care. We are free to live our lives in peace and
security. Today Jesus asks us whether we
are willing to lay aside some of our privileges, like the commissions received
by the manager, to enable others to experience a better life, to know justice
and peace, to know compassion and inclusion.
What might we have to give up in order for God’s kingdom to be more
present today?
One more message he leaves for us today. Are we people who use our resources to lower
obstacles or to build walls? In order to
secure his future, some biblical interpreters think that the manager simply
falsifies the documents and lowers the debts owed to his master. One of the challenges faced by Christian
communities on the Pacific coast and elsewhere is becoming more diverse. Without sacrificing the good news of God in
Christ, our greatest treasure and resource, how do we reach out to people who,
for one reason or another, do not see us as a place of help, hope and home?
I’m sorry to leave you with questions rather than
answers. One of the books I’ve used over
the years in the training of deacons is Loving the Questions written by the
late Marianne Micks. Today’s words from
Luke are, I think, in the spirit of true Christian spirituality. This spirit loves the questions that make us look
more closely at our life as disciples of Jesus, even when those questions make
us realize that there is still work for us to do. After all, being shrewd for the sake of the
Kingdom is a virtue not a vice.
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