XVII Pentecost – September 19, 2010 – Year C – Proper 20 (RCL)
Here’s that pesky passage from the Gospel according to Luke back to tantalize us!
Can we ever hope to make sense out of it?
Before I try to go any further with it, I need to repeat the words that Jesus says at the end of the passage: “You cannot serve God and wealth.”
Or, as the good old King James Version (and the good old Revised Standard Version that came out sometime after it) put it: “You cannot serve God and mammon.”
The pronouncements that Jesus makes before he says that (and even the story he tells before he makes those pronouncements) are worthy of our attention, murky as they seem to be, and we’ll take a shot at them later on, after we consider the conclusion that Jesus comes to, but this summary statement of Jesus’ is crucial: “You cannot serve God and wealth. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
It leaves everything else in the dust.
I may have told you this before: about the project a buddy of mine in seminary and I did for the “Church in Society” module we took in our senior year; it was a stab at a theology of money with emphasis on the multiplicity of passages about money that can be found in the New Testament.
We titled it “Serving God and Mammon: A Progress Report”.
We were obviously giving in to the lure of sarcasm here, but I think our intent was clear: We didn’t hold out that much hope for progress in this regard.
Why should it be any easier not to be preoccupied with money in this day and age than it was in Jesus’ day, whether it’s too little or too much?
It’s pretty much a constant struggle, isn’t it?
Jesus said that it couldn’t be done; he said you couldn’t serve two masters.
In other words, Jesus was saying, if money or the worship of money (because that is what “mammon” means, making an idol out of money)—if money or the worship of money is at the center of your life, then there’s little if any room for God.
Now, I doubt if any of us is guilty of anything like the all-out worship of money, but money and the power that money exerts, whether it be in the form of cash, investments, or an abundance of material goods—well, it can be seductive, and it can try to take control when you least expect it.
I imagine that this is at least one reason why the writer of Luke’s Gospel has given us the first part of this passage about money to digest.
So let’s see what we can do with it.
I don’t know about you, but my first reaction to the story of the dishonest manager’s shenanigans is incredulity; I just can’t begin to see how he could have gotten away with it (and I can’t imagine how Jesus could have told such a story).
You and I are hardly alone in our consternation; the Church has been puzzling over the meaning of this story from the time we first received it.
It makes me wonder what Jesus’ disciples thought when they first heard it: “Boy, isn’t that the truth! You can’t trust anybody these days. Suspicions confirmed! They’re all crooks! What else can you expect?”
Indeed, there is nothing morally edifying about Jesus’ story; in a sense it describes a conspiracy engaged in by manager, debtors, and creditor alike for the sole purpose of keeping a highly questionable enterprise from running off the rails.
Dismay at such goings-on is a perfectly reasonable reaction.
I think that may well be the reaction Jesus was hoping for when he told the story in the first place.
Why else would he have rounded it off by saying, “…the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”?
If we assume that when Jesus uses the term “children of light” he is referring to his followers—then he must be offering them and us some needed advice.
The “children of light” could stand to be a little more shrewd in their dealings, more “street-wise” maybe.
That sounds a lot like another, more well-known saying of Jesus: “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
And, sure enough, Jesus goes on to make some very specific recommendations; “…make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes,” he tells them.
Why “dishonest wealth”?
Is Jesus somewhat cynically suggesting that all material wealth is amassed through dishonesty or that it is at least tainted by dishonesty?
Quite possibly.
But Jesus also seems to be suggesting that dishonest wealth can be used for honest ends; ill-gotten gains can be redeemed.
We know that the early Church, from which we have the writings of the New Testament, expected that the kingdom of God in all its fullness was to arrive soon.
And we know that one of the dominant themes in the Gospel according to Luke is an abrupt reversal of fortune when God’s kingdom is established: Then the poor will be satisfied with good things, and the rich will not.
So it is not all that surprising that Jesus should be recorded as saying in effect: “Make friends for yourselves by giving your money to those who are needy now so that you will be treated kindly by them in the life to come.”
It is the next group of sayings that presents us with a bit of a problem.
“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.”
People who prove trustworthy in what might seem to be trivial matters can usually be counted on to be trustworthy in matters of greater import; on the other hand, people who prove untrustworthy…well, the same principle applies.
As a description of how character precedes behavior the statement seems reasonable enough, but what does it have to do with what Jesus says next: “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 about what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?”
Or is it mere happenstance that the first set of sayings and the second both contain the words “faithful” and “dishonest”?
Most likely.
In fact, if we substitute the phrase “in the use of dishonest wealth” for the phrase “in a very little”, we come perhaps a little closer to what Jesus may have meant: “Whoever is faithful in the use of dishonest wealth is faithful also when entrusted with true riches.”
Which brings us back to Jesus’ words of warning: “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.”
After urging his disciples not to be afraid to make use of whatever material means they might have at their disposal, however questionable the origin, for the accomplishment of good ends, he tempers this advice by cautioning them against putting their trust in the power of wealth instead of in the power of God.
In other words, if making more of it is the only use one is willing to put one’s money to, a fair question to ask would be “Who is slave here and who is master? Do I control my money or does my money control me?”
When God is at the center, God’s people are in control.
Then we’re God’s servants, and money is our servant.
There’s nothing wrong with being astute in the use of your money,” Jesus says to the children of light, “but never forget why you have it and what it’s good for.”
Luke 16:1-13
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