SERMON FOR FAMILY SERVICE AT ST. JAMES’S, COLWALL & MATINS AT ALL SAINTS, CODDINGTON
23rd September 2007
Texts: Luke 16:1-13
DISHONEST MANAGERS
This sermon comes with a health warning – or at any rate an apology to any of you who happen to be financial experts. This is a simple parable not a lecture in economics:
There was once a branch manager of a building society. He was eager to get ahead and for his branch to be top of the turnover league. He studied the financial practices of his competitors and the needs of his customers carefully. It became clear to him that there were lots of people out there wanting to borrow money. Only the rules of his building society, formulated by the board, prevented them from doing so. It was clear also that his competitors were bending the rules and lending to people who couldn’t really afford the repayments. He bent the rules too. Pretty soon business was booming. Lots of money being lent, lots of interest being paid on it. Or so it seemed. However it was obvious to anyone with a grain of common sense that this was a very risky business. Everything was fine while repayments came in and interest remained stable. But sooner or later those people who had borrowed more than they could afford would default on their loans. His competitors began to get jittery about what they were doing and how such enormous sums were going to be paid back. Interest rates went up. Borrowers did default. Banks and building societies were left with lots of bad debt and were unable to pay interest to those who had invested in them. Pretty soon our manager was in the same position. Angry people were queuing at the door demanding their money and their interest. A visit from the Managing Director was immanent. What was the manager to do? He obviously didn’t have enough money to pay the angry investors and no-one was going to bail him out. So he called in all the borrowers, especially those who had the largest sums to repay and said: “Never mind how much you owe – just forget the interest and pay back what you can – I’ll write off the rest.” The borrowers were naturally delighted and went home thankfully, feeling very grateful to the manager. The manager had some money to pay the angry investors, so they were pleased too. But not so the Managing Director who promptly had the manager arrested for fraud and sent to jail. Perhaps we should add as a postscript that the Managing Director, having friends in high places, was able to borrow lots of money to get him out of this mess. A very interesting story!
Some commentators on today’s gospel think that Jesus was using a current story with which his audience would be familiar. We are familiar with stories of financial skulduggery too. Let’s look a little more closely at the story Jesus tells. It is a difficult story because it seems to applaud dishonesty and to recommend it to Jesus’ followers. Like many bible stories, there are lots of layers of meaning and possible interpretations. So, to begin at the beginning:
Rich men were generally absentee landlords, who employed someone to oversee their tenants (a familiar situation which occurs in a number of other parables). They were often not particular about what went on as long as they got their revenue. The manager was free to run things profitably for himself and his master. He was not necessarily paid for doing so, but could be expected to overcharge the tenants and pay himself out of the profit. Hence, when it came to repaying the debts, he could afford to cut back what the debtors owed.
Who was it who reported the manager for not doing his job properly? Our text says “squandering” the master’s property, so presumably he was not making enough profit out of it for him. It is hardly likely, in this case, that the tenants would have reported him as some commentators suggest. Nor did the master find out himself – it says “charges were brought to him”. On the other hand, perhaps the manager was really doing a good job, in which case the master would have left him alone, had not somebody complained? Perhaps the complaint was a trumped up charge by the tenants to get rid of him because he was too efficient? In this case it is hard to see why the manager panicked if he was doing a good job or why, even if their repayments were lessened, the debtors (if they were oppressed tenants) would have any liking for him afterwards. So perhaps the tenants and the debtors were two different sets of people with different agendas? It sounds as though we are dealing with a complex web of financial relationships – something we are only too familiar with.
Notice also that the manager already has a plan to deal with his problem – he has been anticipating the outcome of his actions and has made sure that he will not suffer from them: “I have decided what to do” has the sense in Greek of “I have known all along what I would do”. And when he carries out his plan, note that it is with the collusion of the debtors, who are quite willing to defraud someone – the master? the manager? – as long as they themselves benefit. Finally, notice that the whole situation is contrary to strict interpretation of the rules on charging interest; there is not much the master can do about his losses without losing face or making a public spectacle of himself. He wryly commends the manager for landing him in a situation where he has no options.
People don’t change much, do they? The problems of our financial world today are summed up in this little parable. And yet Jesus commends the dishonest manager. It is possible, as commentators do, to draw analogies of forgiveness from this parable. Certainly forgiveness of debt is extremely important in the bible, not just as a symbol for divine forgiveness but literally also. Jesus commends us to forgive what is owing to us, whether it is small or large, whether it is material or emotional, no matter what loss it causes us. This is an alien thought in a world obsessed with possessions and rights. God forgives us so much, not least the squandering of what he has entrusted to us. Take a moment to think of what is owed to you ….. Jesus says forgive the debt owing to you, just as you are forgiven.
Jesus also commends the dishonest manager for using his brain. I’ve always thought there was a tone of exasperation when Jesus says “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.” Clearly God does not intend us to defraud each other nor to seek wealth purely to buy ourselves success in this world. No, there is a clear injunction here that we should get along with each other, using all practical means at our disposal. Being “children of light” does not mean abandoning our abilities to analyse situations and to think of a way through them. It does not preclude negotiation and compromise. It does require us to make the best possible outcome from the really difficult situations that we, both personally and corporately, can find ourselves in. And it means being humble enough to admit that we got ourselves into the mess in the first place. I look at the world church today – and I think it needs a lot more so-called “dishonest” managers.
Finally
Jesus sums up his parable by focusing on trust and faith. The word
which is translated “dishonest wealth” has a sense in
Hebrew of “that in which one puts one’s trust.” This
financial story is all about who and what you can trust. Clearly money
is not trustworthy, then or now. But we are called to be faithful in
our dealings with it and with each other – that is, to be
reliable and dependable in a practical sense. The opposite of this, in
the Greek, is not to be dishonest, but to be unjust, untrustworthy. It
is in the daily practice of trust and justice in the small things of
our lives that we are able to deal with the great issues that face our
church and our world. In the affluence of Western Europe in the 21st
century, we have our eyes firmly fixed on money and material gain and
we deceive ourselves if we think we don’t. Our lives are split
from God by the enormous importance our society places on financial
power and success. But we do not have to be divided in this way. As
“dishonest mangers”, we have to act not just to put right
the debts owed to us but to deal faithfully with all the material
things that we receive through God’s trust in us. Today, in this
gospel, Jesus challenges us. Focus on God and use what he gives you, in
trust and faith, to bring in his eternal kingdom.