Luke 16:1-13

Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.'

Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.

I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.'

“So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

"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. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

This is always a tricky parable, for a bunch of Christian Capitalists, like us. Jesus seems to be commending someone’s dishonesty, or “shrewdness,” as the story goes, for the sake of saving face and for the sake of saving his own behind. On the surface it looks like Jesus is inviting us to celebrate a shyster who was bad at his job, about to get fired for it, and who cooked the books in order to save his reputation and earn some favors – to set himself up for opportunities and prospects once he was out of a job, in a financial pickle, and looking for work.

But that can’t be, can it? I’m not sure Jesus would encourage the dishonesty or the book-cooking or the money-laundering of a 1st Century white collar criminal, would he? So I’ve begun to wonder over the years, if Jesus isn’t talking as much about money or business deals or management practices as we like to assume, Christian Capitalists that we are.

So, I think it matters that all of this starts out as just another parable, in a string of parables. And a parable, we know, is nothing more and nothing less than a story about one thing that is often used to teach us about something else, entirely. Last week, when Jesus talked about a lost coin being found and about a stray sheep being brought back into the fold, he wasn’t actually talking about coins or sheep, was he? He was talking about lost souls, and sinners and outcasts, being welcomed into and cared for by God and God’s people.

And in a similar parable, just before what we heard today – the one about the Prodigal Son? – Jesus wasn’t talking about someone he knew, or someone who actually lived and breathed in 1st Century Galilee, necessarily. He was telling a story about what may have been a make-believe father and some make-believe sons. And he was showing how that father – who loved both of his boys, in spite of their selfishness and sin – was a picture of the God we’re called to know in Jesus, himself.

Are you with me? Jesus tells parables about pearls and fish; about mustard seeds and fig trees; about slaves and virgins; about weddings and wheat fields, wineskins and weeds. A parable is a parable … a story … nothing more and nothing less. And Jesus’ parables are very often – most often, perhaps – not at all about the things in the stories that he tells, in any kind of literal sense.

So what if, in this difficult parable of the shrewd, sneaky, dishonest steward we just heard, Jesus isn’t really talking about business management practices, or about debts of money or oil or wheat or other “things” valuable in the eyes of the disciples to whom he was teaching?

What if the “shrewd, dishonest steward” was being creative and crafty with the riches of the Master’s kingdom. And what if that “Master,” as in the rest of Jesus’ parables, represents the God of the Universe. And if that’s the case – and I’d bet you a hundred jugs of oil and eighty containers of wheat that it is – then the riches and resources of which he speaks aren’t oil or wheat or property at all, but things like love and mercy, justice and humility, repentance and forgiveness, and so on?

So, this might be a little theologically risky – and again, I could be wrong – but I read this week that Amy Jill-Levine (one of the most wise and respected Jewish New Testament scholars alive today) says this parable “defies any fully satisfactory explanation”, so I’ve taken it upon myself to re-write this parable, in an attempt to cut the confusion and to make Jesus’ parable say what I think he means and mean what I think he might be trying to say, without the mystery and confusion and consternation this parable has caused so many over the years.

So, what if the parable just went like this:

"There is this God, full – not of oil or wheat or things you can track in a ledger – but full of love and mercy and grace and forgiveness. And God had a disciple he charged with sharing those blessings with the world around him. When God found out the disciple was squandering what he’d asked him to tend to, to care for, and to share, God summoned that disciple and said to him, 'What is this I hear about you? That you’re being selfish and holding grudges and judging others; that you’re counting sins, and keeping people out, and pretending you have more power than you do or should? If all of that’s true – if you’ve been withholding grace and blessing and mercy and love – you cannot be my disciple any longer. I can’t have you going around pretending you do all of this in my name, for the sake of my kingdom.”

So the disciple said to himself, 'What am I gonna do now that God, my master, is taking this position and privilege away from me? How could I have been so selfish and blind to the needs of the world around me? How could I have withheld from so many others, what was so generously shared with me in the first place? I’m not strong enough to have earned this grace on my own. I’m as ashamed as anyone to need the forgiveness God offers. And I never earned any of it in the first place.”

“I know what I’ll do. I’ll do what I should have done all along. I’ll be as generous and kind and forgiving with others as I woulda/coulda/shoulda been all along; which is all that was ever asked of me in the first place.”

So, summoning God’s children one by one, the disciple asked the first, 'What is it you feel like you owe to God? For what sin are you holding onto such guilt?' And when this lost and broken soul confessed his sin, the disciple said to him, “Don’t’ worry about it another minute. Your God – our Master – is a gracious, loving God of forgiveness and mercy. Receive the good news of that, go on your way, sin no more and return the favor of this kind of forgiveness to someone in your life.”

And the disciple did the same with another fellow sinner, and another and another – extending grace, announcing forgiveness, and expressing love for the least of those in the world around him. He got so crafty and so creative, so generous and so extravagant with the love of God for all people, that some called him foolish… and reckless… and un-faithful, even. But God smiled, because the disciple had finally learned where true value and real riches and actual worth and new life are found in this world.”

Doesn’t that sound more like something Jesus might mean? Isn’t it more likely what Jesus was inviting his disciples – and the likes of you and me – to be shrewd and sneaky and generous-to-a-fault with the things of the Kingdom – with forgiveness, grace, love, and mercy? And once we see this parable through that kind of lens, the rest of it makes more sense, if you ask me.

Jesus said, "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.” In other words, even a little bit of faithfulness with a little bit of God’s love goes a really long way. And even a little bit of misuse or abuse of God’s goodness can do a whole lot of damage.

And he said, “…if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?” In other words, if you can’t share, with generosity and grace, what is God’s in the first place, then you haven’t truly received it, yourself.

And finally, Jesus said, “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." And all of this puts into perspective the truth of what is valuable and worthy in God’s kingdom vs. what is valuable and worthy in the eyes of the world.

And I wonder if that might be Jesus’ point with the parable. Maybe the story is about money, but only in-so-far as we see how money doesn’t matter much in God’s economy, unless or until it’s being used to bless and benefit God’s children in life-giving ways. But grace and forgiveness and mercy and the love of our creator, are another story. And Jesus is inviting us to be extravagantly careless with that love, to give it away – recklessly, with abandon, in ways that seem surprising, that go against conventional wisdom, that seem other-worldly, even, which is just the way our God lives and breathes and moves and is revealed among us … and through us … for the sake of the world.

Amen

Luke 15:1-10

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable:

“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Who doesn’t love to find something that was lost? Like a sheep or a coin where this morning’s Gospel is concerned. But maybe we’d tell about the guy who found his wallet, which had been lost in the city, full of cash, but returned, intact, still full of money. Or maybe we’d tell about that woman who lost her Chihuahua a few weeks ago, right in our own back yard. She posted pictures and plea after plea on the New Pal Parents’ Facebook page. She hung signs around town. She set live traps in the woods and fields, even. And she begged for anyone and everyone to do the same.

And when the dog was found she rejoiced, just like the woman in Jesus’ parable, letting everybody – friends, neighbors and strangers – know the good news that what was lost; what was so loved and wanted and missed had been found, returned, and was home again, safe and sound.

These are some great stories about happy homecomings – sheep and Chihuahuas – or about found valuables – coins and wallets, as the case may be.

But we focus a lot on the words of Jesus that follow his parables, don’t we? That stuff about the joy in heaven that comes when a sinner repents. Tied to these examples of lost coins and lost sheep, I think it’s pretty easy and very common for most people to make intuitive leap that repentance is a pre-requisite to being found. Like, if you repent, then you’ll be found, redeemed, worthy, saved.

Like, if we extend the examples of sheep and coins and Chihuahuas and wallets to stand for people – for sinful people – as Jesus seems to do, then it’s pretty common, popular theology to presume that one leads to the other; that one’s repentance instigates their being found; that in order to be found there must first be repentance; that in order for that sinner to be saved or to earn the joy of those angels in heaven they must, first, necessarily repent.

But when was the last time you heard a sheep, or a coin, or a wallet, or a Chihuahua for that matter repent? They don’t. They won’t. They can’t. So, I wonder if there’s something more or better or different that we should be paying attention to because of that.

What I’m saying is, the things that get found in Jesus’ parable are found thanks to absolutely nothing they did to deserve it, to ask for it, to want it, or to know, even, that they needed to be found at all. I happen to believe – and hope and trust with all the faith I can find – that true repentance for many of us, sinners that we are, comes most fully after we realize that God came looking for us, long ago, in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and that we have already been found thanks to the reality of that kind of patient, loving, sacrificial grace.

In other words, grace promises us … the unearned love of God tells us … that our repentance – or any other good, righteous, faithful deed – does not facilitate our salvation. Rather, the fact of our “foundness” means to inspire our repentance and any other good, righteous, faithful deeds that may follow our understanding of this good news.

I had one of those profound pastoral care moments this week when I was asked to tend to and care for and pray with a family who was losing someone due to a tragic mix of bad health, bad luck, and a bad mix of cocaine and meth, too. There was an overdose and a coma and a loss of brain activity and a really hard choice to be made about turning off life support.

The family member who asked me to make the visit was struggling with what to tell the dying man’s children. There were lots of questions about the choices he’d made – and not just the choices that landed him in the hospital last week. And there were questions, too, about the state of his faith, about the prospect of his redemption, about “how lost was he?” and about how likely he was to be “found” in all of this, if you will.

And I found myself telling the dying man’s children something, as we gathered around him in the Intensive Care Unit to pray, that seems worth sharing with all of you, too. And that is that no matter what, there was about to be a miracle for him. That, on one hand, maybe as he lay there lifeless in the ICU, his test results would come back differently than anyone expected … that there would be brain activity … that he would survive what seemed unsurvivable … that he would defy all the odds that were suddenly stacked against him. That would be one kind of miracle, indeed.

But the other thing that would happen, should the first miracle not pan out, was that God would be waiting for him on the other side of heaven. In spite of his bad choices and bad luck; in spite of whatever faith he had or not; in spite of the repentance and change he could never seem to muster on this side of eternity … God’s grace would be looking for him and waiting to find him and ready to welcome him – like a shepherd searching for a lost sheep; like a woman, desperate to find her lost coin.

And since the first miracle didn’t come to pass and because none of the doctors nor all of the science in the whole wide world could save him, I’m certain the second miracle has come to pass for this man, just like it will come to pass for you, for me, and for all of God’s children – whether we deserve it, ask for it, want it, or know, even, from what it is that we need to be saved.

Because nothing can or will separate us from the love of God in Jesus for very long – not hardship or distress, persecution or famine, not nakedness, peril or sword. Not death or life or angels or things present or things to come. Not powers or height or depth or things present or things to come. Not cocaine or meth or lack of faith. Not heart attacks, strokes or cancer. Not bad choices or bad luck or anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And I think we’re meant to be changed by that – right here and now; to repent and be changed by this grace and good news right where we live on this side of heaven – not in order to be found, or so that we’ll be saved or because we want to be redeemed. But God wants the good news of what has already been done in Jesus to transform us in every way so that our lives are fulfilled, so that we’ll live as a blessing for the world around us, so that the joy of heaven will be alive and well in us and through us for the sake of the world.

So today let’s acknowledge just how lost we all are, have been, or can be – each of us lost sheep, coins, sinners, whatever. And let’s be grateful for the abundant grace of God that seeks us out in Jesus; that searches far and wide, in Jesus; that finds us and forgives us and loves us, in Jesus, no matter what; and that moves heaven and earth to bring us home – even if we haven’t moved a finger to help – by the grace of God in Jesus, crucified and risen for the sake of the world.

Amen

A Different Take On a Difficult Parable

Sheep, Coins, Wallets, Chihuahuas and You