The unjust steward (Proper 20)

 Luke 16: 1-13 - with a harvest 'flavour'.

With our harvest celebrations here/ approaching, it’s easy to sit back and just say “harvest is a wonderful time (though we know it’s hard work). We come to church to rest and give thanks and enjoy the bounty that God has provided”.

There’s nothing wrong with that – being grateful and praising God is definitely part of what we need to do.

 

But today we are faced with a really intriguing and really difficult parable of Jesus, which poses the question to us – what are you going to do with everything you’ve got?

 

At first reading, it seems as if Jesus is telling a story that approves of the dishonesty of the chief character – and that can’t be right, can it??

 

Of all the parables Jesus told, this might be the one we might wish he hadn’t bothered with!

It is what theologians call a real stinker. 

It is an intriguing story though.

 

The manager is accused of being dishonest (we are never told if he is guilty?) and he is told he will be sacked. To save his skin he changes the debts of his master’s customers, so that they will be grateful to him, the manager, and help him when he is sacked.

But the owner is so impressed by the way the manager has called in the debts, he praises him “because he had acted shrewdly”.

 

I can’t believe that Jesus is telling us that it doesn’t matter how we acquire the good things we enjoy – swindling other people is just part of life. That doesn’t sound like the Gospel at all.

 

But what if Jesus isn’t saying anything about good business practice and is saying something amazing about grace.

In Luke’s gospel this story of the unjust manager comes just after the story of the prodigal son, which we know is a story about grace and forgiveness. Luke intends us to read the stories right next to each other.

 

Luke even uses the same word ‘squandered’ – for what the prodigal son does with his half of the father’s wealth & what the employee does with his boss’s property.

Luke tells us the younger son squanders his father’s money on wine, women and song.

This parable begins with:

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

 

In both stories there is a day of reckoning:

 

When the manager gets found out and faces the sack, he asks himself ‘what will I do?’ .

He hatches his plan to curry favour with all his boss’s clients by reducing their debts and getting them to ‘quickly’ pay less than they really owe.

When the boss hears of it, he praises the manager for being shrewd and cunning.

The manager thinks he is making friends among the clients, but unexpectedly wins his boss’s praise – perhaps he even gets his job back?

 

By contrast, when the prodigal son reaches rock bottom and asks himself ‘what will I do?’ he decides to go straight to his father and ask to be taken on as a servant .

But when he gets home he is unexpectedly welcomed back as a long lost son, and given a feast.

 

It seems that each of these stories is not just about money, but about forgiveness and grace.

Grace is the unexpected shock that means that even when we do the right thing (forgiving debts) for the wrong reason (self-interest) we still get rewarded and we ourselves get forgiven.

Grace is the unexpected shock that even when we aim for a little forgiveness (to be taken back as a servant) we get huge and total forgiveness and a party is thrown to welcome us home.

 

Both the manager & the son are side-swiped by grace.

 

Jesus wants us all to understand the importance of grace in our lives. God’s love is greater than our biggest mistakes – and we should be really grateful for that.

 

Jesus also takes the opportunity to teach us something about how we treat money and riches, in the light of being beloved children of God..

 

Money is not everything (God’s love is everything).

Jesus says, very clearly “just as an enslaved person cannot serve two masters, you can’t serve God and money”.

 

But money is not nothing.

Just as Jesus did, we live in a world framed around money – we need some money to exist in our world.

So Jesus says

“the children of this age are more shrewd in their dealings than are the children of light”.

Jesus wants us to use our money, our riches, our gifts wisely, shrewdly.

 

Today (at harvest) we give thanks for what we have and we ask how we should use what we have, wisely.

We know we should give thanks for what we have, but what then?

 

One option is simply to put everything in our store-cupboard and rub our hands in glee.

But in the very next parable in Luke’s gospel, Jesus tells a story which demonstrates what happens to people who do not share, but keep all their riches for themselves – the story is of a selfish rich man who dies and goes to hell, because he has ignored the poor man, Lazarus, lying at his gate.

As we pause to give thanks, we also ask God for the wisdom to use our gifts wisely, sharing with those who need them, as a way of sharing the grace we know we have received from God.

 

We need to open our eyes to the needs of people around us, and ask what we, as grace-showered children of God, should do in response.

Jesus challenges us to use our heads in our dealings with money and property – but he also challenges us to use our hearts to discern the grace we have been given, which we need to share with others.

 

So may God bless us with abundance in our lives – and as enriched people may God inspire us to share freely and wisely.

In the name of Jesus – our teacher and our saviour.

Amen.