First Presbyterian Church

A Magnet for Ministry

Links

Site Information

Lorene E. Wunder
September 19, 2004
Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Faithfullness
Luke 16:1-13

Some of you have noticed that my husband, Jim, has been absent from church for three weeks running. That's because he has been preaching in Rowley, Iowa. It's been a happy coincidence, since I've taken on more preaching this month. Not only do I have someone to talk over the texts with, but then I don't have to feel guilty about spending Saturday writing a sermon, because Jim is, too. Thank God Jim brought a laptop to the marriage!

When the two of us sat down and read this week's passage, we groaned. I wished aloud that our church didn't have a commitment to preaching the lectionary and using the same focus passage in worship as we do in church school classes from toddlers to adults. Jim, who is free to preach on whatever he wants said his first reaction was to choose another passage because this one is so difficult, but then he said, "Of course, that probably means that I should preach on this!"

He's right. The parable itself is surprising—Jesus lifts up a dishonest person as an example? Then the commentary on the parable in verses 8 and 9 doesn't exactly make sense, and finally, the last three verses, which do make sense, don't seem to fit with the rest of the verses. The author of Luke wrote it this way, and the committee on lectionary texts decided that these thirteen verses belong together. It's up to us to take a closer look and figure out why.

Jesus begins the parable by saying: "There was a rich man who had a manager…" (v.1). It was very common in the ancient world for wealthy landowners to employ someone to manage their estates. This manager had the authority to—and was seen as acting on behalf of the master-in renting property, making loans, and dealing with debts. In return, the manager was often paid in the form of a commission or a fee for each transaction.

In this case, charges are brought to the landowner that his manager has "squandered" the master's property. Besides being grounds for dismissal, these charges also made the manager liable for any loss incurred by the master. According to traditional Israelite law, the manager either had to pay the difference, or could be put in prison until his family paid what was owed.

vv. 3-4 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."

The manager here is losing more than his job—he is losing his position in society. Roman Palestine operated under a system of patron-client relationships. The patrons were in positions of power and wealth, like this landowner, and their clients performed tasks—like tending the livestock, farming the land, producing goods—in exchange for the protection and, hopefully, generosity of the patron. To survive in that world, one needed to be bound to others, and actually, the number of patrons or clients one had was a means of indicating status. In this parable, the patron was, of course, the wealthy landowner, and his clients were the manager, and the tenants who lived and worked on his land.

When it became clear that the manager was to be cut off from his patron, the landowner, the manager knew that his life would change dramatically. Without a patron, he would be reduced to menial labor, or worse, begging. To save himself from this fate, he devised a plan to find himself new patrons.

vv. 5-7 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."

The manager's ability to make these transactions was based on the fact that these tenants did not know that the landowner had dismissed the manager. As far as they knew, he was still acting under the authority of the landowner. And the manager is counting on the fact that the landowner would not wish to lose face by rescinding these contracts after the fact.

The amounts of oil and wheat owed to the master were quite large-in our terms, somewhere around 900 gallons of olive oil and 150 bushels of wheat. Although the percentage that each debt was reduced was different, both reductions would have been the equivalent of 500 denarii [1] . Remember, one denarius is worth one day's wage for a laborer, so this would have been a huge debt lifted from the shoulders of these tenants. The manager, and therefore his master the landowner, would have been seen as incredible generous patrons, deserving of tremendous praise and gratitude. This move ensures that when the manager is unemployed, he will always find hospitality in the homes of his master's tenants.

But there's a question that's left hanging—at whose expense does the manager reduce the tenants' debt? There are three possibilities:

the reduction was at the expense of the master
the reduction was the interest that the master charged on the debts, interest that was illegal according to the law in Deuteronomy (see Deut. 23:19-20)
or, the manager took the hit himself, by leaving out the amount he would have made on his own commission[2].

We cannot say with certainty, but it's hard to imagine any manager getting such a huge commission, or a master charging such high interest. The best guess is that the debt reduction came at the expense of the master, and that the manager counted on the master being more concerned with keeping his honor than in keeping that amount of money.

Which is probably why the master, when he hears what has manager has done, commends the manager for acting "shrewdly."

The text continues:
vv. 8-9 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.

This parable has been upsetting to people for years. First, a dishonest manager is lifted up as an example in a parable. Then Jesus tells us to make friends for ourselves by means of dishonest wealth. What are we supposed to do with this?

There are no easy answers here. The best we can do is keep our eyes focused on the text, and to look at the "dishonest wealth" that is presented. First, although we don't ever know for certain what the manager's actions were that got him fired, we do know that in the name of self-preservation, he ingratiated himself to his master's tenants by reducing the load of debt they carried. It was dishonest—the manager knew he no longer had the authority to make the deal, but he did it anyway, cutting into his master's profits, before anyone found out he was no longer the manager. This was an act that benefited himself, but it also benefited the tenants. It's also interesting that the master, who has just lost 1000 denarii in this deal, commends the dishonest manager, rather than throwing him in jail and demanding to be repaid. The master perhaps recognizes that having the gratitude and admiration of the tenants is worth more than the amount of money they owed. Even though the manager shrewdly did everything for his own benefit, the end result is that all the characters in this parable were bound together by means of this dishonest wealth—that is the dishonest reduction in debt—and all of them benefited.

Jesus doesn't say here that anything goes in terms of money, so long as you make some friends by it. Perhaps, as Fred Craddock suggests, Jesus is encouraging his disciples that even though possessions can be dangerous, they can also be managed "in ways appropriate to life in the kingdom of God[3]."

Verses 10 through 13 underscore this point. The last verse is fairly well known: "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 (v. 13)." In essence, this verse tells us that we must choose what will be the driving passion in our life. Ultimately, the thing we value most is what will receive the majority of our time and energy, whether the one thing is our career, our wealth, or an addiction—and ultimately, everything else will lose out. Obviously, Jesus commands us to put God first, not because God is the easier choice, but because God is the life-giving choice.

The first verse is less well known but common sense: "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in very little is dishonest also in much." As the saying goes, little things mean a lot.

Fred Craddock writes, "The realism of these sayings is simply that life consists of seemingly small opportunities. Most of us will not this week christen a ship, write a book, end a war, appoint a cabinet, 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 give a cup of water, write a note, visit a nursing home, vote for a county commissioner, teach a Sunday school class, share a meal, tell a child a story, go to choir practice, and feed the neighbor's cat[4]."

Every thing we do can serve the kingdom of God, whether it is an act that is small, or large, or shrewd. The main thing is to do all things with faithfulness.

Bibliography

Cousar, Charles B., "Luke 16:1-13," Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV-Year C. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994.

Craddock, Fred, Interpretation: Luke. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990. pp. 190-192

Culpepper, R. Alan, "Gospel of Luke, The New Interpreter's Bible, vol. IX. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995. pp. 306-311

Malina, Bruce J. and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992. pp. 326-329, 373-375

O'Day, Gail R., "Luke 16:1-13," Proclamation 4: Aids for Interpreting the Lessons of the Church Year. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989. pp. 52-54

1 Malina and Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992. p. 375 go back
2 Culpepper, R. Alan. "Gospel of Luke" in The New Interpreter's Bible, vol. IX. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995. p. 308 go back
3 Craddock, Fred. Interpretation: Luke. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990. p. 190 go back
4 Craddock, p. 192 go back

Return to Sermon List

First Presbyterian Church of Cedar Rapids
310 Fifth Street SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Phone: 319-364-6148
E-mail: church@fpccr.org