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SERMONS

Proper 20C (2007)
September 23, 2007

By The Rev. Sylvia Czarnetzky

Amos 8:4-12
Psalm 138
1 Timothy 2:1-8
Luke 16:1-13

When I was going through graduate school in English twenty years or so ago, in literary theory, deconstruction was all the rage.  Deconstruction is an intellectual movement which began in Europe, France, I think, and spread to English departments all over America. I couldn’t begin to explain deconstruction to you, as I never really understood it myself. But I bring deconstruction up because its spread from Europe to America was the subject of a rather famous remark by a writer for the New Yorker. The writer was Adam Gopnik, who covered Paris for the New Yorker. Gopnik was writing about a leading deconstructionist who helped the movement spread from France to America. Gopnik had this to say about him: “Most of the time he wandered from one American university to another -- the Johnny Appleseed or Typhoid Mary of deconstruction, depending on your point of view.”  (Gopnik 153) Johnny Appleseed on the one hand, or Typhoid Mary on the other. So if you think deconstruction is a good thing, this guy is Johnny Appleseed, wandering up and down the Ohio River valley, planting apple trees and making the world a better and greener place. But if you think deconstruction’s a bad thing, then he is Typhoid Mary, spreading deadly germs wherever she goes, making people sick on purpose. Johnny Appleseed?  Typhoid Mary? It all depends on what you think of deconstruction.

I bring this Johnny Appleseed/Typhoid Mary business up today, because I can’t really tell whether the manager in today’s gospel is supposed to be a good guy or a bad guy? Is he a Johnny Appleseed, somebody we should try to be like to make the world better? Or is he a Typhoid Mary-type, a guy you shouldn’t try to be like because he’s doing bad stuff?? Let me see if I can focus the question more precisely: In the parable he tells today, is Jesus lifting the manager up as a good example for us? Or is Jesus telling us about the manager’s conduct as a cautionary tale? Johnny Appleseed?  Typhoid Mary?

In fact, scholars and commentators can’t make up their minds about this story either.  In some Bibles and commentaries, this parable is known as  the “Parable of the Shrewd Steward.” (Craddock Luke 190) In other sources the parable is known as the “Parable of the Dishonest Steward.”   (Culpepper 307) And where you fall on this question depends largely on how you interpret the end of this parable. Because that’s where the confusion is.      The story itself -- the story of who did what, when , where and why -- is very straightforward.  There are at least five characters in this little drama, this parable that Jesus told his disciples: the rich man, also known as the master; the manager or steward, whose job it was to handle the owner’s affairs;  two debtors we know about who were in debt to the rich man (there were probably others); and the tattletale. Oh, yes, the tattletale.  Because remember how the rich man first got wind that his manager might be up to something? Somebody told him!  Listen to the first line of the parable:  “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to [the rich man] that [the manager] was squandering his property.”  (Lk. 16:1)  So somebody must’ve tattled. Somebody must have ratted the manager out to his boss.

Now, we know from the story of the prodigal son that squandering one’s property is not a good thing to do.   Remember?  The younger son asked for his inheritance in advance from his dad, went to a “distant country,” where he “squandered his property in dissolute living,” until he had nothing left and started thinking that pig slop might make a good supper.  (Lk. 15:11-32) So the younger son squanders his father’s inheritance, and the story of the Prodigal Son comes right before the story of the manager and the rich man. And Luke uses the same word “squandered” in both stories.   (Johnson 243), So, even though we don’t know what the manager did exactly, we do know that manager squandered the rich man’s property. And the rich man has found out about it, and now the proverbial  chickens are coming home to roost. 
                       
The master calls the manager in to his office and confronts him: “What is this I hear about you?  Give me an accounting of your management” of my property and, by the way, you’re fired!  (Lk. 16:2) So what does the manager do? He starts thinking about himself and what he is to do. Hmmmm, let’s see.  I’ve just been fired, or at least am in the process of being fired, and I’m thinking about what I want to do next, And I sure don’t want to dig ditches (I am not strong enough) or beg on the street (I’d be too ashamed), so I think I know what I’ll do.  And the manager formulates a plan, and by the time he leaves the master’s office and returns to his own, his plan is taking shape in his mind. He realizes that the people who are in debt to his boss don’t yet know that he’s been fired, so the manager sees one last chance to get on the debtors’ good sides, so that after he’s fired, they’ll be nice to him. (Lk. 16:3-4) So the manager proceeds to implement his plan.  The steward has all this time been the go-between between the debtors who owe the rich man and the rich man.  So the manager calls the people who owe the rich man into his office, and he offers them a big break -- actually a huge break -- on their indebtedness. He calls the debtors in one-by-one. To one debtor, who owes the rich man 100 jugs of olive oil, the steward says, Now you only owe 50 jugs of olive oil. And just like that, he cuts the debtor’s debt in half!  He reduces it by 50%. (16:5-6) To another debtor, who owes the owner 100 bushels of wheat, the steward says, Now you only owe 80. And just like that, the steward gives the debtor 20% off his debt!  (16:7)

Now, up to this point, I think you’ll agree, the parable Jesus tells is pretty crystal clear. We know what the rich man did and what the steward did. But from here to the end of the story, the meaning gets pretty muddled. The very next line of the parable goes like this: “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.”  (16:8a) The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.

Now, my first question is, if you were the rich man, would you REALLY be happy that your manager had reduced your debtors’ obligations as dramatically as this guy did?  Because believe me that the debts of the two people mentioned are not little, insignificant, household amounts. The quantities of wheat and the olive oil  involved here “would have” made Jesus’s listeners “gasp[] aloud,” because these quantities were huge, The portion of the debt being forgiven was larger than most people could ever imagine owing in the first place.  (2) So if you were the rich man, wouldn’t you be outraged by what the steward did?   Surely, at minimum, the actions of the steward should tick you off or  make you mad. (McGurgan 2) Yet the parable says “his master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.”  (!6:8a)  What does this mean? Is this just the rich man’s opinion at the end of the story? Or is this what Jesus thinks? (Johnson 247) Or is this just what Luke thinks, since we know that Luke was a little obsessed with wealth and possessions, and how we deal with them?  (Craddock 414)

So, I ask you, is the manager shrewd or dishonest? Could he be both?  Is he both shrewd and dishonest?  Is Jesus or Luke telling us the story of the manager as a shining example of upright conduct, or a cautionary tale about cheating? Or a little of both?
                                                           
I’m pretty sure that Jesus is NOT telling us that it is okay to play fast and loose with the property of others that has been given into your care.  I think Jesus is inviting us to think about the big picture of stewardship -- the fact that we, as human beings, are just temporary residents of this planet Earth; that while we are here, much is given into our care -- people, like our children and our parents; property, like money and land, and small, everyday things. And I believe at some point,  each of us will be called into God’s executive office with a request that we, like the steward, furnish an accounting of our stewardship of things, large and small. And he will look at our checkbook registers and our Visa bills to see if what we say matches up with how we lived. Because there are a couple of things that Jesus is very clear about at the end of this lesson.  One, you can’t serve both God and wealth, anymore than a slave can serve two masters.  (16:13) You must choose where your allegiance will lie. Because the wealth that we are blessed with can be used to help others and to advance God’s kingdom in this world, or we can spend it all on ourselves, “[T]he way we use what we have reveals who we serve,” God or mammon. (Culpepper 309) “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  (Mt. 6:21) Second, we make choices every day, in matters large and small,  that reveal to God the truth of our hearts.  For “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.”    (16:10) And our call as Christians is a call to faithfulness in things large and small, in  the choices we make  each k. (Copeland 21) For, as one commentator put it, Most of us will not this week christen a ship, write a book,...dine with a queen, convert a nation, or be burned at the stake. 
More likely the week will present no more than a chance to...write a note, visit a nursing home,...teach a Sunday school class, share a meal, tell a child a story, go to choir practice, and feed the neighbor’s cat. (Culpepper 311, quoting Craddock Luke at 192) And Jesus calls us to faithfulness in all things, great and small as we live into our vocation as stewards of God’s creation.  Amen. 

Works cited:

Craddock, Fred B.  Luke.  Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990. 

__________.   et al.  Preaching Through the Christian Year, Year C. Philadelphia:Trinity Press Intl., 1991.

Culpepper, R. Alan.“The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible. IX. Nashville: Abingdon Press,1995.  306-11.

Gopnik, Adam. Paris to the Moon. New York: Random House, 2000.

Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Gospel of Luke. Sacra Pagina, vol. 3  Ed. Daniel J. Harrington. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press 1991.

Karris, Robert J.  “Luke.”  New Jerome Bible Commentary. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991. 675-721.

McGurgan, Susan Fleming. Sermon for 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 23, 2007, posted on Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary website.