Well, I picked the short straw.
The parable in the gospel lesson for today is described as
the most difficult and problematic of Jesus'
parables.
Apparently the response is that most preachers choose
the epistle or the Old Testament lesson.
The difficulty is that it appears that Jesus
commends the shrewd manager for
his dishonest ploy.
Surely not!
but I must say that now that I
have given myself to preaching on this passage.
I actually think it's a bit of fun,
and gives us great insight into Jesus' idea
of the irrepressability of
the kingdom of God.
Part of the fun is to remember that the
context of Jesus telling this parable.
Jesus did most of his ministry in
the back blocks of Judea.
In Australian lingo, you might say he spent most of his
time in the bush.
For the last 10 years I've lived in Charlestown.
But up until then apart from a stint in Sydney to
do my theological training. I lived on
the western side of the Blue Mountains in New South
Wales in not so large and sometimes very
small communities.
In fact when it came to my first placement in
Ministry, I made it very clear to those who
influenced such outcomes I want to
go back to the bush.
When living anywhere from Griffith to
Menindee to Armidale and
numerous places in between,
I was familiar with the term "Pitt Street farmers"
which was usually surrounded by less than complimentary commentary
on their activities and interests.
I think basically the definition of a Pitt Street farmer was someone
who has too much money and has purchased
property in rural Australia as a tax dodge.
And really nothing would make Farmers happier than to
hear a story where the ignorance of a Pitt Street
farmer caught them out and everything basically fell short
of their purely pecuniary objectives, particularly
If the Pitt Street farmer failure
came at a gain of the locals.
Of course, even the idea of Pitt Street
farmer is no longer adequate. where now huge areas of
land are owned by International corporations and
overseas superannuation funds, where
local farmers cannot compete in terms
of the purchase value of land or water in
areas where there is irrigation.
Those circumstances are pretty similar to the experience of
many small communities in Judea.
This was a time of Roman occupation.
the Romans extracted hefty taxes
their taxes were based on cash, so the wealthy
were Keen to vest their cash in non-taxable assets
farming land was a great option.
So the wealthy would manipulate prices forcing farmers
into unmanageable debt and ultimately buying
most of the land, turning the farmers into
tenants in some areas of the rural Australia.
This is again a familiar story.
Back in Judea the wealthy landowners, of course
didn't leave their cities. They engaged managers
to extract their price on the tenants for
working the landowner's property.
It seems this manager was taking more out of
the landowners income than was rightfully his.
So as you heard in the reading when
he was caught out, he came up with a masterful
ploy.
He slashed the accounts of the tenants. They only
had to pay half of what they actually owed.
This ensured the manager a soft
Landing in the local community when he
found himself out of a job.
No, draw your attention here to the fact that
it was actually the landowner, who hearing
what had the manager had done was
amazed and even commended the
manager for his shrewdness
A bit like one con man admiring another when
being outwitted simply because of his skill
in the art.
But I can well, imagine two farmers having a conversation and passing
on the story telling it with glee.
Given the fall of the manager who probably everyone knew was
less than honest, but also the loss of the landowner all
with the consequence of a financial windfall
to the locals. What a great story.
Jesus would have known the response of those hearing this story.
It would have been a great pub story and
brought about lots of smiles.
Some say what follows the parable is an addition
to try to explain why Jesus would tell
this story - seemingly commending such
dishonesty.
But I have a fair bit of a theory of my own.
First we do need to remember that this
story would be very welcome,
because much mirth with much mirth in
its rural context.
The rural communities of Judea were suffering a
great deal under the greed of the wealthy landowners strangling
out them out of ownership of their
properties and impoverishing them with their control
of the markets.
Secondly, Jesus never has much
interest in simple moral codes. It was as if
Jesus saw moral codes as too often means for those
who had power and wealth to hide their duplicity.
Jesus always saw through what we
might call dualistic moral codes to deeper
values.
When confronted by the adulterous woman and asked what
should become of her. He says he who has is without
sin cast the first stone.
Jesus told the parable of the workers in the
vineyard and advocated the generosity of the vineyard owner who
paid those that only worked an hour a
full day's wage.
So we already know that Jesus was not interested in convention - not
interested in moral correctness.
He always dug into the deep motivations that
never quite fit superficial morality.
I also think there was a bit of a wink and a smile about Jesus.
He was having fun with us.
Further so many of the stories and Parables Jesus
tells or about the kingdom.
"The Kingdom of Heaven is like this", he
would say.
Well, what if this parable is about the Kingdom of
Heaven, too?
If it was about a kingdom of heaven, what quality
is Jesus espousing?
Well, of course the nature of the kingdom of God can never be
expressed in straight telling. That's why Jesus
told parables.
one could only ever say the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
So on this occasion, we hear a story about the manager who's
in deep trouble.
He is in a serious jam.
He's been caught out,
but even then the wileyeness of
the manager is such that even when all
seems lost,
the manager comes out a winner.
Not only does he come out a winner, but the ones who are
the oppressed,
come out winners, too.
The people listening to this story would have felt in their
bones the appeal of this story.
I can tell you heaps of stories of in my
ministry when the lives of people had completely
fallen apart,
But those very circumstances became the means
by which something even more valuable was
realised.
But I'll tell you one of my own stories one of the most defining stories
of my life.
I went through a period of serious anxiety.
It was so bad. I found it almost impossible to get out of
bed in the morning. I felt simply fearful.
To get out of bed. I used to go through the process of saying to
God. Well, I've died. I've nothing
left.
If I'm going to get up and face today, it's going to have to be Christ
in me who does it.
It took a long time and I still
have vestiges of the anxiety in me. But it was the
most amazing thing even though it was
one of the worst periods of my life, it
was the greatest win for the kingdom of
God in me. Now each day
as I get out of bed, I remember it's not just
me, but the whole Kingdom gets out
of bed with me. It is Christ alive in
me.
The anxiety they felt like it had all but
destroyed me lost big time.
the Kingdom of Heaven - God
indeed uses every opportunity to make
the best of even the worst situations.
My hunch is that Jesus saw in that
story that irrepressible attribute of
the Kingdom like in the song like the
grass that grows through the crack. It can
never be stamped out.
somehow love wins
all things work for good
In fact, I put it back to you.
Can you think of a bad situation in your
life or of someone who you know where it
worked out to be a win for God?
A win for the kingdom of heaven and so of course
a win for their person.
If you think about it, even a great con man or
trickster would have to nod at the kingdom of God with
awe.
How on Earth did the kingdom of God make good out of
that one?
That's just what happens over and over
again.