Title: “The Parable of the Dishonest Manager”
Scripture: Luke 116:1-13
9/19/04 16th Sunday after Pentecost, Yr. C
Rev. Joy R. Haertig
“Oh my gosh”, I thought to myself when I read the Gospel reading for today. “What in the world is that all about?”
It is a confusing parable - even some of the scholars I read this week admitted that. But rather than pass it by, I decided to try and work with it - the following is what I found.
It is one of those parables that is best understood by the original hearers that knew the system of Master, Manager and Debtors because they lived it every day of their lives. You might remember from last week that I mentioned how the author of Luke likes to use stories about everyday kinds of things - here is another example of that.
The original hearers of this parable were neither Masters nor Managers - they were the Debtors. The Debtors were the ones that did not own the land, but worked it on behalf of the Master. They had virtually no power. When the debt would get unmanageable they would gossip about the Manager because that is who they had contact with. Eventually the gossip would make its way to the Master.
When it did, the Master called the Manager into his “office” and said that he could not retain him any longer because he had heard that he was not managing his property properly. Whether it was true or not, the Master could not afford unrest among those that worked his fields.
The Manager's job was to manage the property/wealth of the Master while he was away seeking more and more wealth in other places. It was understood that the Manager would add interest to the Debtors rent for living and working on the Master's property that would increase the riches of the Master. It was also understood that the Manager would add even further interest that he could then take as his own cut in the deal.
Stewards knew that keeping their job was a question of survival. If they were not Managers they would have no place to go because they would never be Masters and though he might wish it otherwise, no Debtor would welcome an unemployed manager into their home or community. It was either being a manager or being on the streets. (It must be something like being a Collections agent, debtors are never too happy to see a Collections agent and I doubt would welcome a homeless one to stay in the spare bedroom.)
The manager knew that debtors were known for gossiping time and again. When his master talked to him and threatened him his job, he did not waste any time in going to the debtors, one by one and cutting back on their debt - taking the interest he had added and subtracting it from their fees.
Since this would be considered creative management by the System, the master praised the manager for his wise moves. They both knew that though the master would take a cut in his earnings now, it would be a small one and only for a brief period of time. The debtors, though momentarily relieved, were indebted in another way to this master. His kindness now would most likely cost them down the road. And the manager, who feared he would be on the streets begging, has moved quickly to ensure his position as a manager worthy of keeping.
At the end of the parable we have a variety of verses that reflect the various ways this parable can be looked at. It is possible to glean a variety of meanings or teachings in this story. If we leave those verses off and just look at the story itself - knowing what we know about Jesus and his overwhelming concern for the poor and that he was murdered because of it, I believe that Jesus would not have called this the “Parable of the Dishonest Manager”, but would have called it, “The Parable of the Dishonest System”. The whole system is set up in such a way that no one is honest or ethical.
In Luke, the parable told before this one is what we call “The Prodigal Son”. It makes sense to see the Father as a God-figure in that story, but in this particular parable I do not believe that the Master in the story is meant to portray God or Jesus. It is a parable that is meant to help the original hearers see how the socioeconomic system in which they live and work is not God's idea of justice! Jesus wanted to help them see how corrupt the system was. It is easy to be so entrenched in a system that you can't see how abusive it is or begin to imagine that there might be an alternative.
A current example of this might be -
Those of us that have never experienced domestic violence can't understand why an abused woman or man would stay in that relationship even for a minute. In the little experience I had in working at a woman's shelter in Oregon, the one thing I remember in our training was learning that an abused woman in a violent family system does not know that there are alternatives. Some of them even believe it is God's will that they stay.
The original hearers of Jesus story were not only Debtors, there would have been religious leaders as well. A story such as this would have been Jesus' way of criticizing the religious leaders role in helping sustain such an unjust system and proclaim it as God's will.
We are so individually focused in our Country that we can lose touch with or even ignore how powerful various systems are in our country until one of them does something really awful - for example, the Enron fiasco. Jesus' parable can be an invitation to us in our world to step back and look at the various systems in our own country and consider whether they are just or not. As men and women of God our calling is to look honestly and through the eyes of Christ at our own country.
Last Friday when I was taking a little time to read out of a favorite journal that is called “The Sun”; I came across an article about an Attorney named Robert Hinkley. Hinkley works right in the heart of a huge system in our country, the legal system - and with another huge system in our country - the corporate system.
In 1989 Hinkley became interested in “the underlying assumptions behind corporate behavior and the idea of the corporation as citizen.”
In 1986 the Supreme Court determined that corporations were entitled to the rights of citizenship under our Constitution. Hinkley believes that since then “the corporation has developed into the worst kind of citizen: one that claims all the rights but shirks the responsibilities of citizenship.” This is what Hinkley wants to change, and after being exposed to a systems theorist that claimed the key is looking for the smallest change that can generate the biggest effect - that is exactly what he has been doing. Looking for a small change to help Corporations evolve into responsible citizens. (“Evolve” is the key word here.)
To make a long article short - Corporate law says that the Corporations job is simply to use their best efforts to pursue profit on behalf of the shareholders. At this point it is not built in to the system itself to care about human rights, social justice, and the environment. Hinkley does not suggest solving the problems with volumes of laws and regulations; he is advocating for adding twenty-eight words to the Corporate Code. He wants to turn it into what he calls “the Code for Corporate Citizenship”. This is how it would read:
“The duty of directors henceforth shall be to make money for shareholders but not at the expense of the environment, human rights, public health and safety, dignity of employees, and the welfare of the communities in which the company operates.”
He believes this can happen, one state at a time, through the state legislatures getting a bill passed in both the house and the senate.
(“The Sun”, Sept 2004, pg. 5-6)
The article goes on to discuss its impact on international trade and on those who are living at or below the poverty level in our own country. It was thought-provoking and challenging. We need visionaries like Hinkley that can help us begin to make small changes towards life-saving behavior.
The parable and the article have left me thinking a lot about the place of money in our society and in our own minds and hearts - the wanting of it, the making of it, the spending of it, the investing of it; the sharing of it. How is it that money becomes the driving force in our lives at the expense of relationships and the environment? At the expense of our own ethical citizenship?
Jesus tells this parable, a story based in the real world, to help them and us take a look at the bigger picture. He is fully aware that it is a challenge to manage wealth in a way that reflects our citizenship in the Kingdom of God.
The Gospel has a way of challenging us to distinguish between our perceptions of “there is never enough” and the reality of our abundance, our individual rights and our mutual responsibilities. It is an ongoing learning experience of balancing basic needs with the American dream of having it all. From managing our checkbooks to managing our precious families or our retirement to participating as citizens in our local and national government - may we allow the Spirit to challenge us to manage what has been entrusted to us. Amen.
Let us pray.